It was a winding, delaying road now. An uneven surface, pocked by the use of tractors and heavy farm machinery.

Hay from the fields showed up high in the overhanging trees where it had been whisked from the carts by the branches. The speed came down. The driver still returned to his mirror, but saw only darkness.

'We'll not know for a bit yet. The curves are too quick

… he'd have to be right up our bottoms for us to know he was there. Right up.'

He laughed, and the others joined him. Too loud to maintain the pretence that they were still calm: the apprehension came through with the successive giggles. It had been a long drive, three days of it already gone, across hundreds of kilometres of Italian and French roads. So little distance left. Less than two hours to the ferry port, far less. And now the first crisis, the initial moment of the unexpected.

The minutes went by as the driver carefully threaded his way along the centre of the road. The man in the back allowed his eyes to wander, the compulsion of his vigil at the rear window waning.

'Can we have the window closed now? I'm frozen here.

All right for you bastards, but here I'll die of cold.'

'Just a few more minutes. Till we're sure we will keep the air coming in and the windows clear. You should not feel it that hard. You said you spent your winters in the Jordan mountains, you will have known the cold then, the snow on the hills – '

'Not the Jordan mountains, the mountains of Palestine.'

The laughter spread through the car. The driver turned behind him, his face huge with the smile.