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And being IDed was the last thing I needed. I had to stay dead for as long as possible.
    I raised him to a sitting position against the brew hut, slung my day sack and his rucksack over my right shoulder and lifted the boy on to my back. I didn’t need to tell him to hang on. He’d locked his arms around me, his blood-wet arms soaking my hair, before I threaded my wrists under his knees.
    I stayed in the shadow of the hut as a tour bus thundered past, left to right. Thank fuck none of the passengers was in the mood for a piss or a picnic. I gave it a count of five, then stumbled across the road and into the trees.
    Small, bony arms slid up and tightened around my throat as the hill steepened and I hit a patch of scree. I grabbed the nearest trunk to steady myself and wrenched them down on to my chest again. I got some air back into my lungs. ‘Stefan, you’re going to fucking throttle me if you keep doing that …’
    I carried on down, paralleling the stream. I had no idea whether I was heading for some
Sound of Music
mountain pasture or another fucking great precipice, but even with temporary oxygen starvation, I seemed to be capable of a bit of joined-up thinking.
    After about thirty slips and slides and one tumble, the ground levelled out. I glanced back. I could no longer see the road. I couldn’t even see the stripy rods that told me where it was. The stream was flowing quite gently there. I moved to my half-right and crouched beside it. The boy’s arms unlocked and I helped him find his feet.
    I plunged my hands into the cold, clear spring water and gave them a good rub, then rinsed Frank’s blood off my head. I dried them on the front of my jeans, opened Stefan’s rucksack and told him to get his kit off.
    He gave me a look that was still part zombie, but I got the impression he wasn’t completely out of it.
    I pulled off my jacket and grabbed a handful of his football shirt and mimed what I wanted him to do. ‘Off! The blood …’
    All I got back was a blank stare. Maybe he didn’t speak much English.
    No. He definitely spoke English.
    And I’d seen that stare before.
    It was the stare of a kid who’s no stranger to pain. Top-of-the-range wagons and designer luggage and the shiny watch I could now see on his wrist hadn’t sheltered him from some severe dramas in his young life.
    And not just today.
    Another image took shape inside my head.
    A bearded mullah. Flashing eyes. Knife raised. His other arm around the boy’s throat.
    We’re in a madrasa.
    Afghan? No, Somali.
    I feel my right index finger curl and take first pressure on the trigger of my Makarov. My target grabs a fistful of his captive’s hair and prepares to plunge the blade into his chest.
    My foresight, ramrod straight, locks on to a bead of sweat a centimetre above the mullah’s left eye.
    Second pressure.
    Then everything above the beard turns to mist, and I’m back beside an Alpine stream with a lad whose life I’ve saved before.
    I took my bomber out of my day sack. Did my best to rinse the blood and vomit off the front and sleeves. Swapped my T-shirt for the clean one.
    He finally got the message: pulled off his outer gear and his trainers. He had some kind of medallion on a chain around his neck. A St Christopher. It bounced around in the sunlight as he washed himself. Pretty soon the stream turned red.
    I handed him the towel from his rucksack, then the spare shirt, a maroon polo with a crocodile logo, and khaki shorts. I filled the water bottle while he dressed himself and fastened the Velcro strips on his trainers. They each had a crocodile too. So did his socks.
    I shrugged on my bomber. No crocodiles anywhere near it. It still had a pink patch about halfway down, beside the zip, but I reckoned it wouldn’t stand out once it was dry. It started to steam. I hoped the warmth of the day would sort it out before too long.
    I picked up his football kit. The shirt was still covered with blood but I could now see a white badge on