‘There’s no doubt. It’s James,’ he said. ‘And the executioner is one of our British guards. Probably John.’

James’s voice on the video was echoing inside his head. So was John’s.

‘Let’s find a place to stay,’ said Daniel.

They drove into a small rest area near some woodland. The air was damp as they arranged themselves on mattresses in the back of the car, where they also found a few cans of beer. Daniel called Arthur again and put the phone on speaker.

‘Hello Pierre, hope you’re OK,’ said Arthur.

They agreed to hold a minute’s silence for James. The rain drops were dribbling down the car windows. In that one minute the world shrank to just the two of them on a mattress as they sheltered from the rain, with a silent Arthur at the other end, somewhere in London. Daniel and Pierre stared into the distance and remembered the man they had shared a cell with for eight months; the man who so often sacrificed himself in order to be the best for others. Now he had finally found peace. The one minute became several, in which they stayed on the line without uttering a word. Arthur finally broke the silence.

‘Since you both had to receive such bad news, it’s good that you’re together to share it with each other and vent your frustrations,’ he said.

Arthur knew it would be natural for Daniel to feel shame that he had survived when James had not. Questions like ‘Why him and not me?’ were bound to come up. The typical response from an outsider would be: ‘Well, you’re lucky it wasn’t you.’ But for the survivor, that was exactly what they didn’t need to hear.

‘Just call if you need to talk,’ said Arthur. ‘Me or the psychologist.’

When the conversation was over, Daniel and Pierre went online to see how the story about James’s death was being reported. There were items with judgmental reactions about the killing and photos from James’s life and work in Syria, which were put up as a response to the execution. The newspapers were soon calling John ‘Jihadi John’, because they had found out that the hostages in the cell had named him John. The nightmare in the desert haunted Daniel’s restless sleep that night.

The next morning they drove towards London. On the way they tried to figure out if their plan would still hold. The original idea was to visit Alan’s and David’s families to talk to them about the good times in captivity and give them encouragement, but both families cancelled the visit after James’s murder. Pierre was relieved; there was nothing positive to say. Instead they drove north towards the wide open spaces of Scotland to be alone with themselves and each other.

· * ·

Since Daniel had returned home and was living in the summer house it had been a difficult time in Hedegård. Susanne and Kjeld walked around on tenterhooks, trying to gauge how Daniel was really feeling. At Christina’s graduation party in the garage he was bouncing off the walls. Many of the guests had been nervous about meeting Daniel. ‘What shall we say? How does he look?’ they had asked Susanne.

He behaved like a helium balloon that would fly away if they didn’t hold on to him. Beyond that, he was almost over-caring and kept asking everyone how they were, instead of looking after himself. At the same time, Daniel didn’t feel up to the small, practical things, such as getting a new online security ID, a health card and driver’s licence. Kjeld helped by driving him around to different government agencies. Daniel was granted two months’ social security benefits before he began teaching photography at Grundtvig College.

Kjeld and Susanne thought he had changed, although he retained his upbeat attitude. Whenever they asked him how he was, the answer was always ‘fine’. Nevertheless, they were concerned if they didn’t hear from him, and Tina Enghoff, his teacher before he went to Syria, also sensed a darkness in her formerly enthusiastic student. The story of Daniel’s suicide attempt was always at the back of Susanne’s mind and it took some time before she could process her own emotional journey.

On top of everything, the family had a debt of just under a million kroner to deal with. The total expenses in connection with Daniel’s kidnapping had amounted to more than 22 million kroner (almost €3 million or £2 million). The insurance had covered 5 million kroner (about £500,000) of it and other insurance policies had also kept the family’s expenses to a minimum. But Susanne and Kjeld wouldn’t be at peace until the entire debt was paid off.

Nevertheless, they had been released from the iron grip of terror that had held them for more than a year. They no longer needed to fear the next email or the next telephone call, and slowly everyday life returned to Hedegård.

· * ·

In autumn 2014 Denmark became involved in the fight against Islamic State in Iraq, along with the United States. On 2 October 2014 seven Danish F-16s, in collaboration with a broad coalition of countries, flew from a base in Kuwait to bomb IS positions in Iraq. In coordination with the bombing from the air, Iraqi forces attacked IS on the ground.

The Danish government led by Helle Thorning-Schmidt also decided to send a team of soldiers to the Ayn al-Asad base in western Anbar province to train Iraqi forces. This was the very same base where former US President George W. Bush gave a speech in 2007 to the US military, who had fought the most tenacious insurgency of the Iraq War.

‘Anbar is a huge province that was once written off as lost, but is now one of the safest places,’ he proclaimed at the time.

When the Danish soldiers arrived at the base seven years later, that statement was no longer true, since it had now fallen under the control of Islamic State. The soldiers being trained were the dilapidated remnants of the Iraqi army, which had previously received training and equipment from the West. The army was now being helped mainly by Iranian-backed Shiite militias, whose goals were often just as sectarian as IS and who also committed atrocities against civilians. At the same time, then Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki mobilized the so-called People’s Army, made up of thousands of young male volunteers who received only a few weeks of training before they were sent to the battlefield. The establishment of the People’s Army and the influence of powerful Shiite militias meant that Iraq was being driven further in the direction of a divided, violent and sectarian society that could push even more Sunnis into the arms of IS.

It was in the midst of this chaos that Denmark and its allies were trying to exert their influence. It had always been impossible to intervene in Iraq without simultaneously exacerbating the underlying causes that made it possible for IS to thrive. The Iraq War in the 2000s had made one thing abundantly clear: the coalition would in all likelihood be flying over Iraq for a long time with no guarantee that it would stabilize the country or eradicate Islamic State.

· * ·

The evening when the video of James was made public, Arthur had also sent a text message to Diane Foley. He wasn’t at all sure whether it was the right thing to do. He didn’t know what the authorities had told them and he hadn’t wanted to be the first to commiserate on what was only circumstantial evidence, even though everything indicated that James was dead. Even so, he had written to Diane that his thoughts were with the family and the following day, after several attempts, he finally got through to her.

She had been receptive and happy that he had called.

‘You helped give us hope to the last, and for that we will be eternally grateful to you,’ she said.

She had invited Arthur to take part in James’s memorial service and now he was sitting with Daniel on their way to New Hampshire. He wanted to pay his respects to James and to show the family he was thinking of them – and, along with Daniel, close a chapter of their lives that had lasted more than two years.