I'd had teta.n.u.s boosters, but probably only Aaron knew what kind of weird and wonderful microbes lurked in the Panama jungle.

I checked out the clotting between the material and flesh: the two had been trying their hardest to dry together and become one, and the swollen bruising around the wound felt kind of numb. I knew from experience that this sort of injury would be a major drama if you were stuck out in the jungle for any length of time, becoming a pus-filled mound within days, but at least here I could sort it out.

Carrie appeared from the storeroom with an old-fashioned, brown-cheque red suitcase and a sheet of A4 paper. She placed both on the concrete and lifted the suitcase lid to reveal what looked like quite a good basic medical pack. She came close in to look at the sweatshirt around my leg, and for the first time I caught a glimpse of her eyes. They were big, and very green. Her wet hair had fallen from behind her ears, and I was close enough to smell apple shampoo.

She didn't look up at me, just carried on digging around in the case. Her voice was clear, concise.

"So, what is it you're here for?"

She started to pull stuff out; I wasn't too sure if she was going to dress the wound herself or just show me what was available.

She didn't look up at me as she continued.

"I was told nothing except that you'd be coming and we were to help."

By now there were rolls of bandages in crunchy Cellophane, packs of pills and half-used bottles of medicine on the concrete as she continued to rummage.

There's something we need Charlie to do. I'm here to give him a reminder."

She didn't look up or otherwise acknowledge my answer. I looked at her hands as she bent over the suitcase and laid out different-coloured tubes of cream. They were working hands, not those of a lady who lunched. There were a few little scars here and there, but her fingernails weren't ingrained with dirt like Aaron's. They were short and functional, no hint of polish, but all the same they looked cared for.

"Don't you know what you're here to remind him about? I mean, don't they tell you these things when you're sent out, or whatever the word is?"

I shrugged.

"I thought maybe you might know."

"No, I know nothing." She sounded almost sad about it.

There was another pause. I certainly didn't know what else to say, so pointed to the bits and pieces spread about on the concrete.

"I need to clean myself up before I dress the wound. I'm afraid I don't have any other clothes."

She stood up slowly, looking over at the wagon.

"You can use some of Aaron's.

The shower is out in back." She pointed behind her. I'll get a towel."

Before reaching the door she half turned to me, "We have a two-minute rule here.

First minute for soaking, then turn off the hose and soap yourself down. The second minute is to rinse. We get a lot of rain but seem to have trouble capturing it." She gripped on the handle.

"Oh, and in case you're tempted, don't drink from the shower. Only drink from the hoses marked with a D that's the only treated water." There was a smile as she disappeared.

"Otherwise it'll be giving you a pretty big reminder of why it needs to be treated."

I took a look at the printout of the satellite imagery. Its grainy reproduction covered the whole page and was zoomed right into the target, giving me a plan view of the house, the more or less rectangular treeline and the broccoli patch surrounding it. I tried to get to work, but I couldn't do it even knowing how important this was to me, I just couldn't get my head to work.

Instead, my eye caught one of the dark brown bottles of pills. The label said dihydrocodeine, an excellent painkiller, especially when taken with aspirin, which boosts its effect big-time. I shook one out and dry swallowed as I sorted in the case for an aspirin. Eventually, pushing one out of its foil, I got that down my neck as well.

I placed one of the crepe bandages on top of the paper to hold it down, got up and started limping round the back in the direction of the shower. Maybe it was the light, or just that I was knackered, but I was feeling very woozy.

Hobbling past the storeroom entrance, I looked in and saw that the computer-room door was still closed. I stopped and looked at the cot. It was old-style, canvas rather than nylon, on a collapsible alloy frame. I had good memories of these things: they were easy to put up, comfortable, and kept you about two feet off the ground not like the Brit ones, where you needed a physics degree to a.s.semble them, and ended up only about six inches off the ground. If you got a saggy one, you could spend your night lying on cold concrete or with your a.r.s.e in the mud.

Some bird or other warbled and chirped in the distance, and the humid air was heavy with pungent aromas. I sat down on the cot, dragged Diego's wallet from my jeans and looked at the picture once more. Another nightmare for later, I supposed. It'd just have to join the queue.

Aaron had finished and was driving back to the house. I got up and closed out the daylight, then stumbled back to the cot, still in my damp clothes, and lay down on my back, my heart pumping faster as my head filled with Kelly, bodies, Diego, more bodies, the Yes Man, even Josh. And f.u.c.k it, why had I told Carrie I was here to give Charlie a reminder? Why had I told her anything about the job at all?

s.h.i.t, s.h.i.t, s.h.i.t... The pins and needles returned. I had no control as they moved up my legs and my skin tingled. I turned over and curled up, my arms holding my shins, not wanting to think any more, not wanting to see any more.

TWENTY.

Thursday 7 September I walk into the bedroom, Buffy and Britney posters, bunk beds and the smell of sleep. The top bunk is empty as I move towards them in the dark, kicking into shoes and teen-girl magazines. She is asleep, half in, half out of her duvet, stretched out on her back, stretched out like a starfish, her hair spread in a mess over the pillow. I put her dangling leg and arm gently back under the duvet.

Something is wrong ... my hands are wet ... she is limp ... she isn't sucking her bottom lip, she isn't dreaming of being a pop star. The lights go on and I see the blood dripping from my hands on to her mutilated face. Her mouth is wide open, her eyes staring at the ceiling.

Sundance is lying on the top bunk, the bloodstained baseball bat in his hands, his eyes black and nose broken, looking down at me, smiling. 'I wouldn't mind a trip to Maryland ... we could go to Washington and do the sights first... I wouldn't mind a trip to Maryland ... we could go to Washington and do the sights first..."

I cry, fall to my knees, pins and needles.

I pull her from the bed, trying to take her with me.

"It's OK, Nick, it's OK. It's just a dream ..."

I opened my eyes. I was kneeling on the concrete, pulling Carrie towards me.

"It's OK," she said again.

"Relax, you're in my house, relax."

I focused on what was happening, and quickly released my grip, jumping back on to the cot.

She stayed down on the floor. The half-light from the living room illuminated a concerned face.

"Here, have some."

I took the half-empty bottle of water from her and started to unscrew the top, feeling embarra.s.sed, my legs stinging with pins and needles.

I cleared my throat.

"Thanks, thank you."

"Maybe you have a fever picked up something in the forest yesterday. See what it's like in the morning and we'll take you to the clinic in Chepo."

I nodded as I drank, pushing back my soaked hair before stopping to take breath.

There's some medication in the kit if you need it."

"No, that's fine, thanks. How long have you been here?"

"You just woke us, we were worried." She reached out and put the back of her hand to my forehead.

"These fevers out here can make you maniacal."

T was having a nightmare? I can't even remember what it was about."

She started to get up as I pulled the wet sweatshirt away from my skin.

"It happens. You OK now?"

I shook my head to try to clear it.

"I'm fine, thanks."

"I'll see you in the morning, then. Goodnight."

"Yeah, um ... thanks for the drink."

She walked back into the dark computer room, closing the door behind her.

"You're welcome."

I checked my watch. 12.46 a.m. I had been out for over fourteen hours. Getting slowly to my feet, I squatted up and down, trying to get my legs back to normal while I had some more water. Then I ripped the plastic from the blanket, lay down and covered myself, blaming the drug c.o.c.ktail for my doziness.

Dihydrocodeine does that to you.

I tossed and turned, eventually rolling up my jacket as a replacement pillow, but it didn't work. My body was telling me I still needed sleep, but I really didn't want to close my eyes again.

Half an hour later I checked Baby-G and it was 03.18 a.m. So much for not closing my eyes. I lay there, rubbing my legs. The pain had gone, and I didn't feel as groggy as before. I felt around below the cot for the water-bottle.

Blinking my eyes open, I drank to the noise of the crickets.

I didn't want to lie and think too much, so decided to have a walkabout to keep my head busy. Besides, I was nosy.

Pushing myself upright, I sat on the edge of the cot for a while, rubbing my face back to life before standing up and reaching for the light switch. I couldn't find it, so felt for the door handle instead and b.u.mbled into the computer room, water in hand. The switch in here was easy to find. As the strip lighting flickered I saw that the living-room door was closed. I checked the darkness on the other side.

The plyboard behind the two blank screens nearest me was covered with pinned-up printouts in Spanish, and handwritten messages on university letterhead, alongside Post-its with everyday stuff like 'need more glue'. This was how modern tree-hugging must be: out shovelling s.h.i.t all day, then back to the PC to work out leaf tonnages or whatever.

To the left of that was a cork board with a montage of photographs. All of them seemed to be of the extension being built, and of the clearing behind. A few showed Aaron up a ladder hammering nails into sheets of wriggly tin, some of him with what looked like a local, standing next to craters in the ground with half blown-up trees around them.

Taking a swig of the water I walked over to what I a.s.sumed was Luce's PC. The school textbooks were American, with t.i.tles like Math Is Cool, and there was a Tower of Pisa of music CDs ready to play in the drive. The plyboard behind was covered with world maps, best-effort drawings, and pictures of Ricky Martin torn from magazines, along with a Latin band with permed hair and frilly shirts. I looked down at the desk and noticed her name scribbled on exercise books as kids do when they are bored -mine were always covered. Her name was spelt Luz. I remembered from my Colombia days that their Z is p.r.o.nounced as S. So her name was the Spanish for 'light' it wasn't short for Lucy at all.

I could feel the layer of greasy sweat over me as I headed for the living room, checking their bedroom once more before hitting the bra.s.s light switch the other side of the door.

The room was lit by three bare bulbs, hanging on thin white flex that was taped to the supports. The cooker was a chipped white enamel thing with an eye-level grill and gas-ring hob. There was an old-style steel coffee percolator on the cooker, and various family-hug photos fixed to the fridge with magnets. Near it was a white veneer chip board dining-room set, with four chairs, that could have come straight out of a 1960s household and looked out of place in a world of dark hardwoods.

I pulled two or three bananas from a bunch lying next to the oranges, and looked idly at the photographs while my back reminded me I'd been bitten big-time. The pictures were of the family having fun about the house, and some of an older guy in a white polo shirt, holding hands with Luz on the veranda.

I peeled the skin off the second as my eye fell on a faded black and white picture of five men. One of them was most certainly the older guy with Luz. All five were in trunks on the beach, holding up babies in saggy nappies and sunhats for the camera. The one on the far left had a badly scarred stomach.

I leant forward to get a closer look. His hair had been darker then, but there was no doubt about it. The long features and wiry body belonged to Pizza Man.

Taking another couple of bananas off the bunch, I wandered over to the coffee table and sat down, resisting the temptation to give my back a good hard scratch, and trying not to make a noise.

I put down the water and munched away. The slab of dark wood looked a good six inches thick, and though the top was polished, the bark around the edge had been left untouched. Strewn across it were tired-looking copies of Time magazine and the Miami Herald amongst glossy Spanish t.i.tles I didn't recognize, and a teen mag with some boy band posing on the cover.

I sat, finishing off the bananas, while I ran my eye along the shelves. There was a selection of hardbacks, paperbacks, large coffee-table books and carefully folded maps. The well-worn spines covered everything from natural history to Mark Twain, quite a lot of American political history, and even a Harry Potter.

But most seemed to be stern-looking textbooks on rainforests, global warming, and flora and fauna. I looked closer. Two were by Aaron.

One of the shelves was given over to four hurricane lamps with already blackened wicks, and as many boxes of matches, lined up like soldiers on standby for the next power cut. Below that, two silver candlesticks and a silver goblet sat alongside a selection of leather bound books with Hebrew script on the spine.

Finishing off the water, I got up and dumped the banana skins in the plastic bag under the sink and headed for the cot. I'd had a long rest but I still felt like more.

I opened my eyes to the sound of the generator and a vehicle engine. I stumbled over the medical case as I made my way to the outside door.

Blinding sunlight hit me, and I was just in time to see the Mazda heading into the treeline. As I held up my hand to shield my eyes, I saw Carrie at the front of the house. She turned to me, and I couldn't tell from her expression if she was smiling, embarra.s.sed or what.

"Morning."

I nodded a reply as I watched the wagon disappear.

"Aaron's gone to Chepo. There's a jaguar that's been caged up for months. I'll get you those clothes and a towel. You OK?"

"Yes, thanks. I don't think I need to go to Chepo. The fever's gone, I think."

"I'm fixing breakfast. You want some?"

"Thanks, I'll have a shower first if that's OK.

She moved back towards the veranda.

"Sure."

The hard standing at the rear of the extension was covered by an open-walled lean-to. It was obviously the washing area. In front of me was the shower, three sides formed out of wriggly tin, and an old plastic curtain across the front. A black rubber hose snaked down from a hole in the roof. Beyond it was an old stainless-steel double sink unit supported by angle-iron, fed by two other hoses, with the waste pipes disappearing into the ground. Further back was the toilet cubicle.

Above the sinks were three toothbrushes, each in a gla.s.s, with paste and hairbrushes alongside a huge box of soap powder. An empty rope washing line was also suspended under the corrugated-iron awning, with wooden pegs clamped all along it, ready and waiting. A few of the white tubs were stacked up in the corner, one of them full of soaking clothes.

The ground to the rear of the house sloped gently away so that I could just see the treetops maybe three hundred metres in the distance. Birds flew over the trees and a few puffy white clouds were scattered across the bright blue sky.

I pulled back the plastic shower curtain, took off all my kit and dropped it on the hard standing, but left the sweatshirt bandage in place around my leg. I stepped into the cubicle, a rough concrete platform with a drainage hole in the middle, and a shelf holding a bottle of shampoo, a half-worn bar of soap streaked with hairs, and a blue disposable razor not Aaron's, that was for sure. Soap suds were still dripping down the tin walls.