Here the trees had survived because death would not have been a lottery, but certain. He went to night classes to learn the language of Serbo-Croat-Bosnian; he was not especially bright, not formally intelligent, and the learning was difficult to him, but his slight knowledge of their language was always appreciated by the local men he worked with. It made an impossible bloody job marginally less difficult.

Painstakingly, but fervently, in Welsh-accented patois he urged them: 'Come on, guys, let's get this shit business over with.'

The chief fireman launched the grab hook. It was a good throw. He had made a clever calculation of the speed with which the river carried the body. It was now on its back, arms out as if floating at leisure in a swimming-pool. The hook splashed into the water down-river of the body's legs and caught the trousers. He took the strain. There was a ripple of applause on the far side of the river and a cheer from behind them.

Frank Williams winced. When a body came out of the Taff or the Ebbw, the Usk or the Tawe, it would, at least be accorded a degree of respect, compassion.

Here, it was a diversion, a brief show. The body made a bow wave as it was dragged against the current.

He lapsed, as he always did when stressed, into English: 'For Christ's sake, do it with a bit of bloody care.'

Three of the firemen scrambled down the stones of the river's wall, gaining purchase on the footholds where shells had splintered the masonry, or the weight of machine-gun fire had chipped the stones.

They caught the rope and hauled the body over the slimy stones at the river's edge. Frank leaned over the wall and peered down at the white face, the big eyes and gaping mouth. He had been thirteen years in the South Wales Constabulary and a week short of seven months on secondment to the United Nations mission to Bosnia-Herzegovina, and he had not yet learned to be caustically removed from emotion at the sight of a stranger's corpse. The body was lifted up, heaved on to the wall, then lowered casually to the pavement, where the river water subsided from it. An ambulance pulled up behind them. The crowd pressed forward to get a better view.