In their chat, Ahmed had written to Signe:

‘Don’t worry, we’ll get him out. We’ll wait two more days and then they will no doubt find out, after looking at his camera, that there’s nothing to it – that there are only interviews with families in the area.’

‘OK,’ Signe had answered. ‘I understand. But is there money involved?’

‘No, it isn’t about money,’ said Ahmed. ‘It’s about whether there is anything suspicious about him. And besides, it could well be that they contact you or his parents, because he mentioned your name. He apparently told them that he wanted to leave the country and go back to his girlfriend.’ Ahmed had added that Signe – in case she was contacted – should say that she was going to marry Daniel in July. It would make things ‘easier’.

Arthur’s inner alarm bells rang whenever someone said ‘Don’t worry, we’ll fix it’, because it was usually hot air. He had to get hold of Ahmed as soon as possible, so he didn’t get involved any further. It could be that Ahmed was wrong, was being misinformed or was even part of the game.

Arthur knew that anything was possible in Syria – like, for example, making James Foley disappear without a trace for seven months.

The same thing mustn’t happen to Daniel.

· * ·

That night Kjeld spent several hours in his office, speaking alternately with Arthur and Signe. He wrote half-sentences and fragments of telephone conversations down on the note Daniel had left. ‘Jabnat almusra, Azaz,’ he wrote and framed it in a square, but corrected it later to ‘Jabhat al-Nusra’, which was written beside ‘three options’ and ‘closed border Syria’.

‘I’m afraid it’s not good,’ he remarked quietly to Susanne.

She cried, at a loss for words.

Just past 3 a.m. Christina came home from a friend’s eighteenth birthday party at Hedegård Community Hall.

‘Why aren’t you on Fanø – and why are you up?’ she asked, surprised.

Susanne told a white lie to spare her. She was about to take her high-school exams and they didn’t want to upset her.

‘So many people came over that we decided we would rather sleep at home,’ Susanne replied.

‘My God, you really have become old and boring,’ said Christina and went to bed.

A mountain of practical tasks were clamouring for attention and Arthur gave Daniel’s parents instructions as to what they should do. At 10 a.m. on Sunday morning Kjeld rang the family’s banker in Give and asked him for a printout of a statement for Daniel’s account, so that the family could see if he had paid his insurance and which company was insuring him. In addition, Kjeld requested that he call them if any money was drawn on the account. Arthur had experience of other cases in Syria in which the kidnappers had used credit cards to withdraw money or make purchases online.

Daniel had done what he was supposed to do and insured himself with an independent international insurance company. The sum insured was 5 million kroner (about £520,000), which would cover any expenses in connection with a kidnapping and the costs for a security consultant like Arthur to carry out an investigation.

Kjeld also rang the police. Arthur had already informed the Danish Security and Intelligence Service (PET) about the matter. PET had to ensure that the police treated Kjeld’s report with discretion at every level. This was crucial, since the daily police report could be leaked and used as a resource for journalists. The authorities didn’t want news of the missing Dane to come out.

Arthur also informed the Danish government about Daniel’s disappearance. He contacted the Danish Embassy in Beirut and the Citizens Advice Bureau at the Foreign Ministry in Copenhagen, which assists and advises Danes who get into difficulties or have accidents while travelling abroad.

Arthur had emphasized to Daniel’s parents how vital it was that only the relevant authorities knew anything. Any media attention could hurt Daniel’s situation and, since it was still unclear what had happened and who had taken him, they had to keep it a secret.

Susanne and Kjeld told Christina, who was in the middle of her exams, that Daniel hadn’t come home yet because ‘the borders had been closed in Syria’.

On the other hand, they told Daniel’s older sister, Anita, the truth. She knew that Daniel was going to Syria, but in the months leading up to his departure she hadn’t had much contact with him. She lived with her partner in Odense and she was used to Daniel travelling a lot.

Three days after Daniel’s disappearance, Kjeld and Susanne drove to Signe’s apartment in Copenhagen, where they met Arthur, who was now back from Ukraine. They lied to Christina again, telling her that Kjeld had a meeting with the agricultural firm DLG and that in the meantime Susanne was going to do some shopping.

At the meeting, Arthur updated them on the situation in Syria.

‘It can take anywhere from a few days to … well, much longer,’ said Arthur and he told them briefly about the James Foley case and others.

He asked the family to keep an eye on Daniel’s Facebook profile.

‘Leave all channels of communication open,’ said Arthur. ‘The kidnappers must be able to check who Daniel is. If they encounter a black hole, they’ll become suspicious.’

In addition, he sought information about Daniel, so that he could get an investigation going and so that he could get ‘proof of life’ on Daniel if the kidnappers made contact. A proof of life could come from Arthur asking the kidnappers a series of questions that only the captive could answer or from a photograph of the person they had kidnapped.

Kjeld, Susanne and Signe wrote a list of information: about a scar on Daniel’s lip, which he got when a spade hit him in the face as a boy; that he had worked on a pig farm while he was at the Free School; that he drank coffee without milk; that he had celebrated his twenty-fourth birthday with Signe at Flyvergrillen at Copenhagen Airport; that there was a black-and-white horse poster hanging over Signe’s bed; and that they were going to Morocco for a month in July.

Kjeld and Susanne went back home to Hedegård in a composed and hopeful mood, while Arthur boarded a plane to Antakya in Turkey to meet his contacts.

· * ·

Daniel woke up early because Ayman had to perform his morning prayers. They were chained together, so a routine had begun whereby they swept away the dust on the floor with their hands, folded the blankets they had been given and sat upon them to pray. Daniel prayed with Ayman five times a day and it felt reassuring. In those minutes of prayer Daniel shut out the world and explored Ayman’s faith. They were given bulgur wheat, bread and olives twice a day, and they shared a one-and-a-half litre bottle, which they filled with water when they were occasionally allowed to go to the toilet.

When Ayman told Daniel about his wife and two daughters, who were now living in Turkey, he began to cry. Daniel cried too when he talked about Signe and his family.

‘When we’re set free one day, you must come to Denmark to visit Legoland with your daughters,’ suggested Daniel.

Ayman taught him a few useful words in Arabic, so he could ask for water and to be allowed to go to the toilet. Sometimes new guards arrived and asked them who they were. Then they left again.

Time became endless. Daniel began pulling threads out of his blanket, which he then shaped into letters and a car on the floor. Ayman read the Koran, which he had asked for and received.

One morning they awoke to find their linked hands, which were exposed while they slept, red with mosquito bites. They launched a hunt for the pests and Daniel felt a twinge of conscience about killing them.

They had been sitting in the same room for a week when, early one morning, a prison guard released Ayman and led him away. Daniel waited for Ayman to come back, but he never saw him again. He was convinced that Ayman had been set free and he now sat alone in the cell, waiting for it to be his turn.