The guards tied the hostages’ hands together with white plastic straps that cut into the skin. They were blindfolded and led out to a truck. Daniel lost his sandals on the way and felt a sugar rush rise up from his stomach, which was bubbling with a strange happiness. Tears ran down his cheeks, because he believed that he was going home – and minutes later because he thought he was going to die.

Suddenly, he felt an intense urge to go to the toilet, but it was too late. The truck had already started and the prisoners slid around each other in the cargo compartment. His stomach was gurgling, his mind racing, and he couldn’t stop crying.

When the truck finally stopped, Daniel imagined that they had come to a refugee camp and would soon be released. Someone took him by the arm and he stepped out with his right leg first – the leg which had not had a knee injury − into the uncertain depths, without having any idea of how far down the ground was. But he felt that there was a chair under him and he stepped onto it before he was in his stockinged feet on some gravel. A hand took his arm again and he felt someone run a finger along his neck in a sawing motion. So they probably weren’t going home.

With their hands bound, the hostages were lifted up by the arms so they were forced to walk on their toes and led into a room.

After a short time, they were taken out individually.

Some guards with masks asked Daniel to take off all his clothes. ‘My socks too?’

‘Yes, everything.’

Daniel’s stomach was rumbling as he stood naked on the chilly floor and was asked to bend forward and spread his buttocks. They apparently wanted to examine whether he had smuggled anything up his behind and he was terrified that he wouldn’t be able to hold himself while they inspected him.

Afterwards, they threw into his arms a two-part orange prison uniform with loose trousers and a thin shirt and he pulled it over his naked body. The body lice were gone with his old trousers. On reflection, he dared not imagine what it could mean that all of them were now dressed in Guantánamo-coloured suits.

‘It’s their dream,’ said James and related that, early in his captivity, the Beatles had told him that they were going to dress him in an orange prison uniform.

The hostages were divided into two groups. Daniel was relieved that he was put together with Pierre, James, Steven, John, Toni, Marc and Edouard in a large basement room with two small windows looking out on to a foyer, and with a proper toilet and shower.

The hostages were in the cell they soon dubbed the Five-Star Hotel.

· * ·

As usual at this time of year, Anita placed on the bookcase in the living room a small wooden church with an electric light. Her grandfather had made it back in the 1980s and, when she was a child, it had been on display at Hedegård every holiday season, lighting up a Christmas landscape of cotton wool. It had later become hers and it wasn’t really Christmas until it had been unpacked along with the other decorations.

The Rye family alternated where they stayed for Christmas Eve, and this year Anita was waiting for Susanne, Kjeld and Christina to come and spend Christmas with her and her boyfriend at their house in Odense. They arrived in the early afternoon and enjoyed a glass of port around the coffee table before helping out in the kitchen. On the menu was goose with caramelized potatoes and red cabbage, followed by the traditional Danish Christmas dessert of creamy rice pudding with chopped almonds.

Anita thought back to last year when the family had Skyped with Daniel during dinner, because he was in Russia. This Christmas she had hoped so much that he would have returned from Syria that she had transferred some money into his bank account as a Christmas present.

While they ate, they talked about Daniel, who last year had been looking out at them from the computer on the windowsill. This year it was Kjeld’s and Susanne’s phones that lay on the windowsill. Kjeld checked his mobile regularly in the hope that Daniel would be allowed to call home. Maybe the kidnappers would show some mercy on Christmas Eve and let him wish them a Merry Christmas. But the only thing that came in was a text message from Arthur:

Dear Both, Merry Christmas. I hope you can find some peace with your family, even if it won’t be the same this year. I’ve spoken to Alpha this evening. He hasn’t heard anything from our contacts, but I’ve asked him to answer the Skype message I sent. All the best to you. Best wishes, Arthur.

Kjeld replied:

OK, thanks Arthur. Merry Christmas to you and your family too.

Anita thought that Daniel wouldn’t have wanted them to just sink into a miserable heap, so they celebrated Christmas as they usually did. Kjeld got the whole almond in his rice pudding, so he won the special prize, which was a set of wooden salad utensils, and, after a relaxing walk round the neighbourhood to settle their stomachs, they danced around the Christmas tree. Susanne had not been looking forward to this Christmas tradition with such a significant person missing from the circle, but they ended as usual by singing ‘Now It’s Christmas Again’ and dancing in a chain all around the house, both inside and outside.

Susanne and Christina fell asleep at each end of the sofa, while Kjeld slept on an air mattress.

· * ·

On 24 December Daniel woke up early and washed himself under the ice-cold running water in the ‘five-star’ dungeon. He dressed in his lice-free orange prison uniform, which was too thin for the winter cold, and sat down on a mattress under a thick blanket.

A new prison guard, whom they called the Spanish Chef, soon brought some food into the cell. He got this nickname because he was responsible for their meals and he spoke a little Spanish. He was a tall, obliging man, even though he walked around in a suicide vest with a fuse hanging out in front. In addition to the vest, he wore what was, in the circumstances, a stylish jacket with matching trousers, and a waistcoat with pockets in which he placed rifle magazines.

When the Spanish Chef came into the cell, the hostages didn’t have to turn against the wall. He was happy to let them see his face and the braces on his teeth. He wanted them to see that he was a human being. He said that he was from Tunisia and reassured them that their release was just a matter of money. He served two pieces of bread to each hostage and placed a metal tray in front of them with tuna, sardines, cheese, hummus and onions.

‘Thank you,’ they said.

It was a feast.

‘You should thank God. It is He who gives,’ said the Spanish Chef and left the room.

Daniel’s thoughts went to his Christmas Eve the year before, when he had Skyped home from Russia. He missed his family and Signe, but wanted to have a good Christmas wherever he was.

Everyone in the cell seemed to be thinking along the same lines and they agreed that the best gift they could give each other was honesty. A circle of orange-clad hostages took shape and they began to tell stories about each other.

Edouard said that he was Daniel’s Secret Santa and had put the tin foil boat by Daniel’s sleeping space. He also told them that he had deliberately distanced himself from Daniel when they had met in the cell under the children’s hospital, because Daniel had looked so damaged.

‘You were an indication of the worst that could happen,’ he admitted.

Daniel revealed that he was Steven’s Secret Santa and he told James that he had read about him before they had met in captivity; that he had seen photographs of someone he believed to be tough war reporter. He also said that he had been amused when he discovered that James was a klutz who lurched around the cell knocking over water bottles. Daniel thanked James for the massages and all the chats about women and dreams of the future – and for sticking to his values when people behaved unfairly.