The women were dressed in cheap clothing, layered for warmth. Falling back into the pillows, recovering from an uncontrolled moment of vertigo into which she had fallen, Caitlin Monroe composed herself. She was in a hospital bed, in a private room, and in spite of the apparent poverty of her ‘friends’, the room was expensively fitted out. The youngest of the women wore a brown suede jacket, frayed at the cuffs and elbows and festooned with colourful protest buttons. A stylised white bird. A rainbow. A collection of slogans: Halliburton Watch, Who would Jesus bomb? and Resistance is fertile.

Caitlin took a sip of water from a squeeze bottle by the bed.

‘I’m sorry,’ she croaked. ‘What happened to me?’

She received a pat on the leg from an older, red-haired woman wearing a white tee-shirt over some sort of lumpy handmade jumper. Celia. ‘Aunty’ Celia, although she wasn’t related to anyone in the room. Aunty Celia had very obviously chosen this strange ensemble to show off the writing on her shirt, which read: If you are not outraged you are not paying attention.

‘Doctor!’ cried the woman in the doorway.

Maggie. An American, like Caitlin. And there the similarity ended. Maggie the American was short and barrel-chested and pushing fifty, where Caitlin was tall, athletic and young.

She felt around under her blanket and came up with a plastic control stick for the bed. Try this,’ she offered, passing the control to the young girl she knew as Monique. A pretty, raven-haired Frenchwoman. ‘See, the red call button. That’ll bring ‘em.’ Then, gently touching the bandages that swaddled her head, she asked, ‘Where am I?’

‘You’re in a private room, at the Pitiй-Salpкtriиre Hospital in Paris,’ explained Monique. ‘Paris, France,’ she added self-consciously.