If that was true, it must have been really quiet, because the only thing that could be heard outside the windows in Hedegård was the whistling of the wind.

· * ·

Daniel leapt out of his sleeping bag early on Friday morning. He wanted to go outside and take photographs in the soft morning light. Before he went off with Ayman and Aya, he packed a bag with the essentials: camera, passport, wallet and mobile. He left his leather backpack with the sleeping bag, computer and hard drive in the apartment. As there was no fighting in the area, he also left his bulletproof vest and the first-aid kit.

They drove to the city centre, where they met a large family who were fleeing, squeezed into a two-seater pickup. Blankets and mattresses were bulging on the bed of the truck.

‘May I photograph them?’ asked Daniel, but the family didn’t want to be photographed and drove off quickly.

An elderly gentleman walked across the road towards them. ‘You aren’t allowed to film here,’ he said.

The old man told them that they had to have permission to photograph from the local authorities. Daniel looked enquiringly at Aya.

‘Who are the local authorities?’

‘They’re all right. I know them,’ said Aya and she told him that the rebels controlled the area.

She knew where the authorities were and they decided to go there. They cut across a square and stopped in front of a sand-coloured building surrounded by a high wall. Before the rebels had taken control of Azaz, the building had housed the Assad regime’s local council office. They knocked on the black metal gate.

The first thing Daniel saw when the door opened was a boy. At least, his height corresponded to a boy about twelve or thirteen years old, but he couldn’t see his face because a black hood was pulled down over it; he was carrying a gun.

‘What are you doing here?’ asked the youngster.

‘We just need a permit from your superiors,’ said Aya.

They were told to wait in the yard and the boy disappeared into the building. While they were waiting, Daniel took note of the long, unmown grass and wild bushes in the garden. A grey-haired, elderly man in camouflage clothing soon came out into the yard and spoke to Aya in Arabic. His eyes were angry and the rest of his face was devoid of expression.

The boy with the black hood came out again. ‘I need to borrow your camera,’ he said.

Daniel didn’t dare disobey, and he reminded himself that he had downloaded his photos from the day before on to the computer and hard drive, which were in Ayman’s apartment.

Meanwhile, the grey-haired man continued talking to Aya in a tone that was getting faster and louder. Aya was looking down at the tiles in the yard, which made Daniel nervous.

She said she knows them and now she’s staring at the ground. What the hell’s going on? And it also happened yesterday … I certainly won’t use Aya again, she hasn’t got a grip on things, he thought to himself, and he couldn’t help looking at the gun in the grey-haired man’s belt.

Suddenly he began pointing at Daniel, while spewing Arabic at Aya.

This is about me, thought Daniel, and his vision momentarily went black, as if he had been standing too long.

Cold sweat was trickling out under his blue shirt as the grey-haired man motioned for them to go inside. At the entrance, Daniel took off his boots and put them next to a lot of other shoes on a carpet that was laid out over the stone floor.

They were shown into a small, shadowy room with sofas along the wall and a wooden table in the middle. Daniel sat down furthest away from the door next to Aya, while Ayman sat in a corner.

The rebels asked for Daniel’s papers and disappeared with them into an adjoining room, while the old man began questioning him through Aya, who translated. There was also another man on the sofa, who had comically put his glasses on over his black face mask.

‘I’m a photographer from Denmark,’ said Daniel. ‘I’ve come to do a story on how the war is affecting civilian Syrians.’

Ayman was silent and deathly pale, and Daniel had only one thought in his head: If we get out of here, we go back across the border straight away.

A tall, heavily built man entered the room and confronted Aya. He had a scarf wrapped around his face, so Daniel could see only a pair of eyes made up with black eyeliner.

Aya stared stiffly at the floor.

‘They say they don’t believe you, Daniel. They say we’re spies.’

‘But I am who I say I am. I’m a photographer from Denmark, here to portray the war,’ he repeated.

‘He says they know that sensors are put on cars so drones can come and destroy the town,’ translated Aya.

Daniel remained silent and looked away as masked men in tunics and with Kalashnikovs over their shoulders came and went in the living room.

‘Sit properly,’ was the order when Daniel crossed one leg over the other.

Instead, he had to sit with his knees together side by side, while he was presented with new allegations.

‘We’ve checked your camera. You’ve taken many pictures of the places where the fighters live. You’re going around gathering information in the area. Who are you?’

Daniel reiterated who he was.

The grey-haired man then asked Aya to write a long letter by hand. Afterwards, Aya translated to Daniel that they could go back to Turkey when he had signed the letter. A friendly person served him with a cup of tea. For a moment, Daniel had a feeling that they just wanted him out of Azaz. The men chatted casually and laughed as he signed the letter.

‘They say that you have to stand up now,’ said Aya.

Daniel had managed to drink only half of the tea and his fixer seemed nervous.

‘They say that you have to turn around and put your hands behind your back. It’s just normal procedure,’ she reassured him.

Daniel’s head was spinning when he got up and he didn’t have time to respond before his hands were twisted behind his back and handcuffed. Some foreign fingers approached his face, removed his glasses and blindfolded him. There was silence in the room while his wallet, mobile and passport were removed from his pockets. He didn’t resist. Not even when he was led away from Aya and Ayman in the living room and down into a basement, where he was pushed down on to a mattress.

He lay on his side with his arms behind his back as he heard the door being slammed shut and locked. The handcuffs burned his wrists; the blindfold felt tight. He was so afraid that all his thoughts and feelings disappeared.

· * ·

On Friday morning Kjeld and Susanne got up early and Kjeld drove to work. Susanne was going to the hairdresser at 11 a.m. to have her hair done and then on to work in Legoland. Daniel’s younger sister Christina went to her high school.

That evening Kjeld and Susanne were packing to visit some good friends who had a summer cottage on the island of Fanø.

‘I can’t understand why I haven’t heard from Daniel all day!’ said Kjeld.

‘Maybe he’s forgotten to write,’ said Susanne.

Signe was also wondering about the silence. She contacted Kjeld to ask if he had heard anything. Kjeld’s ‘no’ meant there had been no sign of life from Daniel since Thursday evening. At 10.37 p.m. on Friday Signe sent an email to her boyfriend.

‘Would you reply to my mail? I’d really like to hear from you xx.’

When Kjeld and Susanne sailed to Fanø on Saturday morning, they still hadn’t heard anything from Daniel. Kjeld also sent him a message.

Susanne felt a creeping uneasiness, but pushed it away by telling herself she was always getting worried for no reason.

While they took a long walk on the beach and ate lunch, Kjeld was constantly checking his mobile. Susanne tried to convince herself that Daniel was just getting lazy about writing; at any rate, he was out of Syria and on his way home.