‘No, I’m not interested in the war as such,’ said Daniel. ‘I’d really like to meet the people who are surviving. My plan is to go to Azaz.’ Aya spoke good English and that made him feel secure.

‘We can easily meet people in Azaz who are trying to survive,’ she said. They agreed that Aya would take Daniel from Turkey to the Syrian border town.

He went back to his hotel, charged the batteries for his camera and checked out of his room, after which they drove towards the border.

Just before they reached the border crossing, Aya asked him to get out of the car. She wanted to drive on alone and cross the border illegally somewhere nearby, while he was standing in the interminable queue of Syrians.

When the Turks had put an exit stamp on his passport, he walked the half-mile or so along the asphalt between the Turkish and Syrian border posts. He had his square, leather bag on his back with all the essentials: sleeping bag, first-aid kit, camera and computer. The bullet-proof vest and helmet were in a separate bag.

At the Syrian border post, rebels dressed in camouflage and multi-pocket vests and carrying loaded Kalashnikovs walked around among the refugees living in a makeshift camp nearby. The border-control post amounted to a small shed, where Daniel showed his photographer documentation and was given permission to enter Syria. Aya was waiting for him near the shed, as agreed, but she wasn’t alone. Beside her stood a balding, elderly man dressed in a grey shirt and trousers.

‘Who’s he?’ asked Daniel.

‘He’s from the Free Syrian Army and he’s going to drive us to Azaz,’ said Aya.

They got into the old man’s car. Daniel was sitting in the front passenger seat, next to an assault rifle, which he noticed had the stock downwards and the barrel pointing at Aya sitting in the back.

‘Can’t he point the gun somewhere else?’ asked Daniel uneasily, but Aya didn’t translate what he said and the barrel remained pointing straight at her.

Arabic music flowed out of the car speakers as they drove past goatherds and through small villages. Daniel took a picture of the white-and-brown goats crossing the road in front of them. Then he looked up at the sky. The sun was still shining, but dark-blue thunder clouds were on the horizon across the golden fields dotted with whitewashed houses.

They must have made a detour on the way to Azaz, because they suddenly drove into a farm, where they were served a metal bowl filled with food, which they ate while sat on the floor in the living room.

‘It’s great to get something to eat, but that wasn’t our agreement,’ Daniel said to Aya while they ate. ‘I’d like to go straight from point A to point B.’

He was remembering Arthur’s advice to avoid being seen by too many people and not to drive around the area at random.

‘Yes, I know, but the driver insisted that we had to have something to eat,’ she replied patiently and referred to Syrian hospitality, which was often at odds with security advice.

Outside, one of the residents of the house was climbing a plum tree. Daniel took photos of the man sitting on a branch, shaking the bitter green plums on to the ground; the man gave them a bagful for the trip to Azaz.

When they reached the outskirts of town, they stopped beside two brothers who stood with their doves at the roadside. Their father used to sell vegetables, they said, but now there was more money to be made selling bricks and cement to rebuild bombed houses, should anyone dare to bet on a future in Azaz.

‘Why do you have the doves?’ asked Daniel.

Aya translated.

‘Because birds are free,’ said the boys.

Daniel wrote it down in his notebook and took some photographs of a flock of white birds against the heavy, ominous sky.

Shortly afterwards, he photographed the town’s ruined mosque. A boy in a Kung Fu Panda T-shirt and his older brother in military trousers were playing in some burned-out military vehicles. Others were busy removing valuable copper wiring from an armoured vehicle.

A hairdresser’s was still open, so Daniel and Aya went in and had a nice chat. After fifteen minutes, they said goodbye to the friendly barber. But as they stepped out on to the street, a vehicle suddenly came along at high speed and stopped abruptly in front of them. Daniel took note of the passengers: a group of masked men with Kalashnikovs.

‘Get in the car,’ ordered Aya hurriedly and signalled to him that she would talk to them.

Daniel got in the back seat, while listening to Aya, who was explaining in Arabic. The men asked several questions and seemed so unfriendly and intimidating that Daniel looked down at his feet. Aya could hear that one of the men, the only man not masked, spoke with a Tunisian accent. They asked who she and the blond man were and she explained that they were in Azaz to do stories about the war.

‘What’s going on?’ asked Daniel, when the masked men had finally driven off again.

‘They just wanted to know what we’re doing,’ said Aya.

‘It seemed very intense.’

‘Don’t worry about it. That’s just how Arabs are,’ said Aya, who didn’t seem frightened by the episode.

Daniel was shaken – and so was the driver, apparently, because he didn’t want to continue working with them. Aya called Ayman, a friend who lived in Azaz, and soon afterwards he picked them up and drove them to a bombed-out neighbourhood in the city.

The children were playing in the rubble as the sun was setting. A living room was half blown away. Portraits were still hanging on the wall, and green climbing plants clinging to the shattered outer wall brightened up the scene.

When the sun had gone down and there was no longer enough light for Daniel to take photographs, they bought chicken and Pepsi from the local kebab man and drove home to Ayman’s empty apartment. His wife and two daughters had fled to Turkey, like so many others from the city who weren’t able to maintain a normal life for fear of the fighting and the sporadic bombing from the regime. Ayman also spent most of his time in Turkey, but used the apartment now and then when he was working in Azaz.

There was a sudden power cut and Ayman lit candles in the living room. The artificial flower decorations on the shelves cast shadows against the ceiling, while they sat around the coffee table and ate.

After eating, Daniel, Aya and Ayman climbed up on the roof, from where they could glimpse small flashes of light in the distance. Daniel was told that it came from the fighting that was going on at the air base a few miles outside the city. Up there on the roof, in the darkness, he took a picture of his own shadow on a wall; it was the last photograph he would take in Syria.

Afterwards he drank a cup of tea, while he transferred the day’s images to his hard drive and sent texts home to his father and to Signe, as he had promised. He said that the day had gone well, that he had already taken a lot of photos and that the people were nice.

‘I love you,’ he wrote.

The three of them blew out the candles and Daniel crawled into his sleeping bag on a sofa in the living room. The day’s experiences whirled around in his head, especially the masked men. Who were they? He feared for a moment that they would come round at night, and wondered if he should have tried to get out of Syria after he had been seen. But he calmed himself down. He was being too paranoid. Aya had spoken to them and, if the men had wanted to kidnap him, they would have done it then.

He eventually fell asleep.

· * ·

Kjeld and Susanne were at home in their red-brick house on the Thursday evening when a text message appeared on Kjeld’s mobile. It was the first time ever that Daniel had written ‘I love you’. Signe wrote to them at the same time to say she had received a message that the day in Syria had gone well.

‘We’re sitting in the candlelight drinking tea. It’s just as quiet as Hedegård,’ read Daniel’s message.