The email ended with a heartfelt request: ‘Would you please pass on our best wishes to Daniel from Signe, Anita, Christina, Dad and Mum. Best regards, Susanne and Kjeld Rye Ottosen.’

· * ·

The day after the family had replied to the kidnappers’ email, the hostages were moved to a new location. Had Daniel been able to look at a satellite photograph, he would have seen a square, fenced-in area. It lay south-east of Raqqa in the middle of the deserted, sand-coloured expanse, a short distance from the verdant areas surrounding the Euphrates. The vegetation alongside the building indicated that it was being watered and trees had been planted in long, straight rows. Two iron towers stood high above and the large containers standing close to the building indicated that this could be an oil refinery.

The new cell, where Daniel was to spend the remainder of his captivity, was named the Quarry by the other prisoners.

When the captives’ handcuffs and blindfolds were removed, Peter blurted out: ‘I’ve been here before!’

He reassured the other men, telling them that the last time there had been a nice guard and that he had been given plenty to eat, even though he was served only one meal a day. It was also in this prison that Peter had converted to Islam and taken the Muslim name Abdul Rahman. Pierre recognized the room as being the first one he had stayed in when he was originally captured in June 2013.

The cell was dark and measured about 170 square feet. The only sunlight there was filtered in through a ventilator in a corner of the room. They used the daylight to help them count the days and the guards’ calls to prayer to work out what time it was.

There were storage boxes for clothes and medicine, so they could keep things tidy. They were given a couple of blankets each and, as the weather was becoming milder, they had no difficulty staying warm in the overcrowded cell. New prison suits were also handed out, as the orange ones had become infested with lice. Daniel wore dark-green trousers and a jacket.

They had been in the Quarry only a couple of days when the Beatles banged hard on the cell door. Daniel sat with his hands against the wall, as one of the Brits kicked him in the side.

‘Danish boy … we’ve got some questions for you. Make sure you answer them right. Don’t screw this up!’

The first proof-of-life question was put to him: at which family event had he given a speech just before he travelled to Syria?

He felt a surge of energy rushing through his body. His captors had taken images and videos of him at random, and he had no idea if any of them had ever reached home. Suddenly, he felt as if his family were speaking directly to him.

‘My maternal grandfather’s birthday,’ answered Daniel.

‘Where did you meet your girlfriend, Signe?’ the Brit continued.

‘I met her at Vesterlund Ungdomsskole.’

The Brit burst out laughing.

‘Vester-what? You’ll have to spell that for us!’

Daniel started laughing too, and a warm feeling spread throughout his entire body at the thought that Signe was still waiting for him. She had to be, otherwise he wouldn’t have been given that question.

The Brit ordered him to spell out ‘Vesterlund Ungdomsskole’ using the phonetic alphabet, but he could remember only Alpha, Bravo, Charlie. Instead he found random words that began with the respective letters to dictate the rest.

The answer to the last question was easier: who had he travelled with in Nepal?

‘My friend, Ebbe,’ answered Daniel, who could no longer conceal his enthusiasm and answered a bit too cheerfully. A punishment was promptly issued: one of the Beatles whacked him in the side. His instinct was to contract and draw his body in on itself, but he remained sitting upright. Then kicks began coming at him from all angles, landing on his legs, shoulders, ribs, until he could no longer sit up. He ended up in a foetal position on the floor to protect his stomach and internal organs. He felt a desert boot using his face as a doormat, wiping the sole against his ear, while other boots continued relentlessly kicking his lower back and thighs.

Petrified, Pierre sat in the mandatory position, with his face and hands against the wall, and listened to the merciless beating of his screaming friend. When the Beatles left the cell, everyone looked at Daniel, who was crying. Pierre asked in a concerned voice if he was OK and Dan asked where it hurt most. After a while in captivity, they had learned to protect their internal organs from the beatings; bruising would disappear, but permanent internal injuries would not. Despite the pain, Daniel laughed and cried with relief that he hadn’t been seriously hurt.

‘Signe is waiting for me! Signe is waiting for me!’ he exclaimed.

During this period, the prisoners held proof-of-life parties whenever one of them was asked questions like the ones the guards had asked Daniel. Emails had been sent to the hostages’ families or employers, who hastily sent back questions. The only people who had nothing to celebrate were the six British and American hostages. Nobody asked them proof-of-life questions. The other captives had various theories as to why. Perhaps the silence was part of a political game, perhaps the US and UK were playing hard to get, or maybe the Beatles could manage only a certain number of negotiations at one time.

With impatience and a deep sense of foreboding, the six hostages nevertheless waited for a sign that negotiations for their release would begin soon.

· * ·

Five days passed before Daniel’s family in Hedegård received answers to the questions they had sent the kidnappers; the responses confirmed that they were indeed in contact with those holding Daniel captive.

‘The family event was his maternal grandfather’s 75th birthday that took place in Ribe,’ stated the kidnappers’ email. ‘Daniel met Signe at Vesterlund Ungdomsskole. He travelled to Nepal with his best friend, Ebbe.’

Susanne began to cry. She was communicating with her son for the first time in nine months. It was as if, through his answers, he was speaking directly to her.

A few lines further down in the email came the long-awaited demand for a ransom.

For his release we are demanding a CASH PAYMENT of TWO MILLION EUROS NOW!! You’ve been contacted a while ago, yet you’ve responded very late … We hope for his sake you care about him, because time is now against him. The longer you take the less likely Daniel will live!!

The amount requested by the kidnappers was exorbitant – the equivalent of 15 million Danish kroner (about £1,500,000) – but Kjeld thought that now they had a negotiating position, they would be sure to get Daniel home for much less.

Communicating with kidnappers is a special skill, requiring a thorough knowledge of who the captors are; every single word has to be carefully weighed. Arthur knew that negotiating with ISIS would require a different strategy to dealing with criminal gangs in Nigeria or pirates in Somalia. Moreover, this was the first time ISIS had initiated any actual communication for a ransom for male hostages from Denmark, France, Spain, Italy, Germany or Belgium.

The captors swore allegiance to an uncompromising Islamist ideology and had a clear political agenda, which was far more important to them than money, the usual motivation behind pirate kidnappings. But the ISIS captors were also extremely strategic. Some months earlier, they had demanded a staggering ransom from James Foley’s family. The United States had categorically refused to negotiate and if the family collected the money itself, it would be in breach of US law against funding terrorism. Now ISIS was negotiating the release of hostages from the European countries that often did pay a ransom (with the exception of Denmark), which demonstrated a clear difference between American and European approaches to hostage situations. Arthur assumed the kidnappers intended to play off the different governments against one another. Undoubtedly this strategy would only increase the pressure on the families of the American and British hostages, whose governments refused to negotiate with terrorists.