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‘There were seven of them, in two cars. They disappeared yesterday. Their guard and interpreter have been found dead, shot in the head.’
    ‘Oh, Annika! Have they shot Thomas as well?’
    A little wailing sob rose from her stomach. ‘I don’t know!’
    ‘Christ, what are you going to do if he dies? And how are the children going to cope?’
    Annika rocked to and fro on the sofa, her arms wrapped tightly round herself.
    ‘Poor, poor Annika! Why does everything seem to happen to you? God, I feel so sorry for you. You poor thing …’
    It was nice that someone cared.
    ‘And poor Kalle – imagine him having to grow up without a father. Has Thomas got life insurance?’
    Annika stopped crying again. She was speechless now.
    ‘And Ellen’s still so little,’ Anne went on. ‘How old is she? Seven? Eight? She’ll hardly be able to remember him. Annika, what are you going to do?’
    ‘Life insurance?’
    ‘I don’t want to sound cynical, but you have to be practical at times like this. Go through all your papers and see where you stand. Do you want me to come over and help you?’
    Annika put her hand over her eyes. ‘Thanks, maybe tomorrow. I think I’m going to bed now. It’s been a tough day.’
    ‘God, of course, you poor thing, I do understand. Call as soon as you hear anything, okay?’
    Annika sat for a while on the sofa with the mobile in her hand. Leif G. W. Persson had gone home and the beautiful woman on the late news had replaced him. They were showing pictures of the chaos caused by the snow all over Sweden – stranded lorries, overworked tow companies, the roof of an indoor tennis court that had collapsed … She reached for the remote and turned up the volume. So much snow falling in November was unusual, but hardly unique, the woman was explaining. There had been similar events in Sweden in the 1960s and 1980s.
    She switched off the television, then went to the bathroom to brush her teeth and splash cold water over her face so her eyes wouldn’t be too swollen tomorrow.
    Then she lay down on Thomas’s side of the bed, her limbs aching.
    * * *
    Once they cut the cable ties round our wrists we fell over less often.
    That was a huge relief.
    The moon had risen. We were being marched along. The landscape around us was like a dark blue photograph with silver edges: thorny bushes, big termite mounds, sharp rocks and distant mountains. I didn’t know how to describe it, savannah or semi-desert, but it was uneven and difficult to walk across.
    Magurie was at the front. He had appointed himself leader, regardless of anyone else. After him came the Romanian, then Catherine and I, the Dane, Alvaro, and last the stumbling German. She was snorting and sobbing.
    Catherine was having trouble walking. She’d put her foot down awkwardly soon after we left the truck and twisted her left ankle. I supported her as best I could, but I was dizzy and so thirsty I thought I would faint so I’m afraid I wasn’t much help. My trousers kept catching on the thorns of the bushes, and I had a deep tear below my right knee, through cloth and skin.
    During the day I had seen hardly any animals while we were driving, just the occasional antelope and something I’d thought might be a wild boar, but the night was full of their black shadows and luminous eyes.
    ‘I demand to know where you’re taking us!’
    I couldn’t help admiring Sébastien Magurie’s persistence.
    ‘I am a French citizen and I demand to be allowed to talk to my embassy!’
    He spoke English with an almost comical French accent. No more than five minutes passed between his outbursts. What he lost in vocal weakness, he made up for in raw indignation.
    ‘This is a crime against international law!
Jus cogens!
We are members of an international organization, and you, gentlemen, are committing a crime against
jus cogens
!’
    I didn’t have the faintest idea where we were. Kenya? Somalia? Surely we hadn’t gone far enough north to be in Ethiopia. The