She looked at me and nodded, and I told her to go and do it, and not worry so much.

‘Sun’s going down,’ said Latifa, half a packet of cigarettes later.

I looked at my watch, then out through the rear windows, and sure enough, there was that falling sun, that rising night. ‘Yeah,’ I said.

Latifastarted adjusting her hair, using the reflection from the glass window at the reception desk.

‘I’m going outside,’ I said. She looked round, startled. ‘What? You crazy?’

‘I just want to take a look, that’s all.’

‘Look at what?’ said Latifa, and I could see she was furious with me, as if I really was deserting her for good. ‘Bernhard’s on the roof, he can see better than anybody. What you want to go outside for?’

I sucked at my teeth for a moment, and checked my watch again.

‘That tree’s bothering me,’ I said.

‘You want to look at a fucking tree?’ said Latifa. ‘Branches go over the wall. I just want to take a look.’

She came to my shoulder and peered out through the window. The sprinkler was still going.

‘Which tree?’

‘That one there,’ I said. ‘The monkey-puzzle tree.’ Ten minutes past five.

The sun about half-way through its descent.

Latifawas sitting at the foot of the main staircase, scuffing the marble floor with her boot and toying with the Uzi.

I looked at her and thought, obviously, of the sex we’d had together - but also of the laughs, and the frustrations, and the spaghetti. Latifa could be maddening at times. She was definitely fucked up and hopeless in just about every conceivable way. But she was also great.

‘It’s going to be okay.’ I said.

She lifted her head and looked back at me.

I wondered whether she was remembering the same things. ‘Who the fuck said it wasn’t?’ she said, and ran her fingers through her hair, dragging a slice of it down over her face to shut me out.

I laughed.

‘Ricky,’ shouted Cyrus, leaning over the banister from the first floor.

‘What?’ I said.

‘Up here. Cisco wants you.’

The hostages were spread out on the rug now, heads in laps, back against back. Discipline had relaxed enough for some of them to stretch their legs out over the edge of the rug. Three or four of them were singing ‘ SwanneeRiver’ in a quiet, half-hearted way.

‘What?’ I said.

Francisco gestured towards Beamon, who held out the phone to me. I frowned and waved it away, as if it was probably my wife and I’d be home in half-an-hour anyway. But Beamon kept holding out the receiver.

‘They know you’re an American,’ he said.

I shrugged a so what.

‘Talk to them, Ricky,’ said Francisco. ‘Why not?’

So I shrugged again, sulkily, Jesus, what a waste of time, and ambled up to the desk. Beamon glared up at me as I took the phone.

‘A goddamn American,’ he whispered.

‘Kiss my ass,’ I said, and put the receiver to my ear. ‘Yeah?’ There was a click, and a buzz, and another click.

‘Lang,’ said a voice. Here we go, I thought. ‘Yeah,’ said Ricky. ‘How you doing?’

It was the voice of Russell P Barnes, arsehole of this parish, and even through the fizzing interference, his voice was backslappingly confident.

‘The fuck do you want?’ said Ricky. ‘Wave, Thomas,’ said Barnes.

I signalled to Francisco for the binoculars, and he handed them across the desk to me. I moved to the window.

‘You want to look to your left,’ said Barnes. I didn’t, actually.

On the corner of the block, in a corral of jeeps and army trucks, stood a clutch of men. Some in uniform, some not.

I lifted the binoculars, and saw trees and houses leaping about in the magnified scale, and then Barnes shot across the lens. I went back, and steadied, and there he was, a phone at his ear, and binoculars at his eyes. He did actually wave.

I checked the rest of the group, but couldn’t see any striped grey trousers.

‘Just sayin ’ hello, Tom,’ said Barnes. ‘Sure,’ said Ricky.

The line crackled away as we waited for each other. I knew I could wait longer than him.

‘So, Tom,’ said Barnes, eventually, ‘when can we expect you out of there?’

I looked away from the binoculars, and glanced at Francisco, and at Beamon, and at the hostages. I looked at them, and thought of the others.

‘We ain’t comin ’ out,’ said Ricky, and Francisco nodded slowly. I looked through the binoculars and saw Barnes laugh. I didn’t hear it, because he held the receiver away from his face, but I saw him throw back his head and bare his teeth. Then he turned to the group of men round him and said something, and some of them laughed too.

‘Sure, Tom. When you…’

‘I mean it,’ said Ricky, and Barnes kept on smiling. ‘Whoever you are, nothing you try is going to work.’ Barnes shook his head, enjoying my performance.

‘You may be a clever guy,’ I said, and saw him nod. ‘You may be an educated man. Maybe you’re even a college graduate.’

The laugh faded a little from Barnes’ face. That was nice. ‘But nothing you try is going to work.’ He dropped the binoculars and stared. Not because he wanted to see me, but because he wanted me to see him. His face was like stone. ‘Believe me, Mr Graduate,’ I said.

He stayed stock-still, his eyes lasering across the two hundred yards between us. And then I saw him shout something, and he put the receiver back to his ear.

‘Listen, you piece of shit, I don’t care whether you come out of there or not. And if you do come out, I don’t care whether it’s walking, or in a big rubber bag, or in a lot of little rubber bags. But I got to warn you Lang…’ He pressed the phone tighter to his mouth, and I could hear spittle in his voice. ‘You better not mess with progress. Do you understand me? Progress is something you’ve just got to let happen.’

‘Sure,’ said Ricky. ‘Sure,’ said Barnes.

I saw him look off to the side and nod.

‘Take a look to the right, Lang. Blue Toyota.’

I did as I was told, and a windscreen skidded through the image in the binoculars. I steadied on it.