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Something has gone badly wrong but I don’t know what. They can’t treat me like this.
    ‘Let’s talk about Afghanistan,’ he says, turning a few pages in the file. Someone has given him a brief and accurate history of my two years with the Trust in Kabul, and I wonder who. I make a note that I must find out how, then wonder if I really care. He asks me who I met there, and he lists names I have never heard, over and over again. Some of them are Arab names, some Afghan. He asks in turn whether I met them, and whether, to use his stupid expression, I ‘went native’ in the course of my time in Afghanistan. Whether I met Abdullah Salafi in Kabul. Ahmad Popalzai in Kandahar. Khalil Razzaq in Herat. Someone else in Jalalabad. He describes their crimes, of which I lose track because I’m not hearing much of what he’s saying any more.
    And I’m not hearing him because I’ve found what I wanted now. I’m walking across the most beautiful landscape I have ever seen, in the region of the Shibar Pass, on the high slopes above Bamiyan, where the light dispels all the ugliness of the world and cuts into the soul with a clarity I’ve never seen anywhere else. We’re walking because our vehicle has finally given up and there’s no radio contact with Kabul because of the mountains. We can’t walk out through Bamiyan because there’s fighting there and Salahuddin my driver is a Hazara and the Taliban will kill him. We head for Hajigak to the south instead and hope for the best, living off a few strips of Afghan bread for three days. Then, on the fourth day, Salahuddin quietly produces something from his bag which surprises all three of us because we thought there was no more food. He unwraps a roast chicken from what looks like a bundle of rags.
    Billy props me up against the wall because it’s obvious I can’t stand any more, and takes off the pillowcase.
    In size it’s more like a pigeon than a chicken, and it’s obviously led a hard but honourable life, like most Afghans, and there’s barely more than a mouthful for each of us. Salahuddin divides it up reverently after uttering a Bismillah over the miserable carcass, and we eat it together, listening to the distant gunfire and explosions coming from the valleys where the Taliban are killing Salahuddin’s Hazara relatives, making us wonder whether we’ll get out of the mountains alive. The flesh has a smoky flavour that comes from the wood it’s been cooked over, and it’s the most delicious meal I’ve ever had. I’m savouring it now for the second time, picking the flesh from the bones and sucking on them until they’re smooth, and the satisfaction is indescribable. And I realise that my satisfaction has been transmitted to my face, because Billy is looking into it with a puzzled expression, asking me what the fuck is so funny. He cannot know that I am eating a chicken and, despite everything, taking more pleasure in it than he can possibly imagine.
    And now all I know is that I have been alone for a long while in my ill-lit tunnel, and Billy and the Face are striding towards me with a new look of determination on their faces. Whatever is coming next, I have had enough. Nemo me impune lacessit . Or to put it more colloquially, nobody fucks with me and gets away with it. I will put my elbow into Billy’s groin, headbutt the Face and sink my teeth into whatever part of him I can. Then I will take his pistol and get away, because I have no reason to believe, Section 29, ‘that this custody is lawful’.
    I’m being lifted up on both sides, but not roughly this time.
    ‘Come on, Captain,’ says the Face in a tone I haven’t heard before. ‘Let’s get you in your carriage before it turns into a pumpkin.’ The hostile banter has dropped clean out of his voice, and the effect on my plan is disarming. His voice is real. My feet are dragging under me. I pass through another smaller room and then outside into darkness and feel the cold air on my face. Hands