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‘and my shins feel as if they’ve been worked on with a potato peeler.’
    â€˜Of course. You’ve been seriously maltreated. But inside? Any internal pain?’ The doctor prodded Sam’s chest and stomach with the tips of his fingers. ‘Does this hurt?’
    â€˜No.’
    â€˜Good. All right. Try to sit up, Mister Packer. I want you to drink some water.’
    You and me both, thought Sam. Glancing from face to face, still searching for some definitive confirmation that what was happening was real, he let them lever him upright and reposition the pillows behind him. Then he reached out a hand for the glass being offered, but it slipped through his jelly-like fingers.
    â€˜Let me,’ said the doctor, holding it against his lips.
    Sam took a huge slug and choked, the water sticking to the sides of his throat.
    â€˜Slowly. Just a little,’ the doctor urged.
    Sam sipped more cautiously. This time the liquid descended, his body absorbing it like blotting paper.
    He looked down at himself. Someone had undressed him, apart from white underpants that he didn’t recognise as belonging to him. His bare chest was a rainbow of bruises and burns.
    â€˜Let me feel your back.’ The doctor pushed gently in the region of his kidneys.
    â€˜Ouch!’
    â€˜Yes. Very tender, I think.’
    â€˜Fucking painful, actually.’
    â€˜Yes. It will be so for several days. There is serious bruising here.’
    Sam looked beyond the two men, noticing rabbits on the wallpaper, furry toys heaped in a corner. A computer on a small desk. This was a child’s bedroom.
    â€˜Where is this?’ he asked.
    â€˜My place,’ Mowbray explained. ‘My home in Amman. Jenny, my daughter – it’s her room, but she’s away at school. In Somerset.’
    â€˜Where in Somerset?’
    â€˜Frome.’
    The way Mowbray had answered straight away, the way everything in this room apart from the medic was so utterly English, Sam suddenly knew it was right. Knew that at last he could drop his guard.
    â€˜Chri–ist!’ His mouth twitched. His eyes began to fill. ‘Christ.’ He gulped. ‘Sorry . . .’
    â€˜Don’t worry.’ Mowbray took his hand and held it like he would a child’s. ‘Let it out, old man. You must’ve been through hell.’
    Sam pulled his hand back. He disliked being touched in any personal way by men. He pressed both hands to his face to try to get its muscles under control.
    â€˜Well, I’ll be buggered.’ His face split into a smile. ‘Ithought I was dead, you know that? Thought you’d all given up on me. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry.’
    â€˜It’s all right, old man,’ Mowbray reassured him, new-mannishly. ‘You can do both if you like.’
    Suddenly Sam himself grabbed Mowbray’s hand and shook it. Then he shook the doctor’s too. ‘Thank you. Thank you both,’ he mouthed, lost for any other words.
    Mowbray chuckled matily.
    Sam looked around him again, blinking back tears and relishing the cosy normality of the room. Daylight glowed through a little curtained window and was brightening by the minute. No iron bars across it, no blindfolds or chains. And two faces with smiles on them. From somewhere outside he heard the wail of a muezzin. Dawn.
    â€˜Thank Christ!’ he wheezed. ‘I mean Allah,’ he joked lamely.
    Mowbray laughed with unnatural vigour. ‘The first words of the hostage after his release!’
    Sam frowned at the word ‘hostage’. Was that what he’d been? He drank some more water, his brain building up revs.
    â€˜I can’t begin to tell you how this feels.’ He tried a grin. ‘How did this . . . this
miracle
come about?’
    Mowbray didn’t answer, but turned to the doctor and asked, ‘Will he be okay now?’
    â€˜Nothing obviously wrong with him, but he should have a proper