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the bald guard barked.
    I held up my hands. ‘Sorry, one moment.’
    He tapped his foot metronomically, a hollow sound that echoed around the compartment, as I searched the side pockets of the backpack, finding nothing but some chewing gum and various screwed-up receipts and leaflets. As Laura searched her own backpack, I stuck my hand into the main compartment. My hand touched something that felt like a passport and my heart leaped for a moment, but it was just a pamphlet I’d picked up in a museum in Barcelona.
    I thought hard. Had I definitely put the passports back? Perhaps I had absent-mindedly set them on the ledge where we’d been sitting with Alina and Ion. No. I remembered unzipping the backpack because the zip had got stuck and required some yanking before it would fasten. I had definitely put them back in the front pocket.
    The guard’s foot continued to tap. I glanced up at Laura. She had gone even paler.
    ‘They’re gone,’ I said, the second word sticking in my throat.
    The bald guard said something in Romanian to his colleague, his voice bear-deep and humourless.
    I stood up. ‘Our passports, our tickets . . . They’ve been stolen.’
    The guard glared at me, then at Laura, who stood beside me. I reached out for her hand, squeezing it. The guard noticed this a nd sneered.
    ‘We’re British,’ I said, as if this would make some sort of difference , and now they both wore sneers. A part of me was tempted to make my ludicrous comment into a joke, mention the Queen, Harry Potter, Manchester United. I bit my tongue.
    ‘What are your names?’ Bald Guard asked.
    We told them. Daniel Sullivan, Laura Mackenzie.
    I was confident this could be sorted out. They would be on our side. We were victims of a crime, and the thief must still be on the train. Had it stopped briefly to let the guards on? I hadn’t noticed. Whatever, we were the ones who had been wronged and these men, these figures of authority, would be able to help us. OK, so we weren’t supposed to be in the sleeper compartment, but it had been empty. In England, if you travel in the wrong part of the train or without a ticket, you are asked to pay the difference or get a penalty fare. This would all be OK.
    ‘Someone must have come into the carriage while we were asleep,’ I said. ‘Stolen our things.’
    I had no idea if the guards could understand me. They stared at me blankly. Then Bald Guard, who appeared to be more senior, said something to Bearded Guard, who left the compartment, stalking off down the corridor.
    Bald Guard picked up my backpack and began to pull items out of it. My clean T-shirts, the Europe by Rail guidebook, my sunglasses. There was a carrier bag full of dirty laundry at the bottom of the bag. I saw him lift it out and open it, then grimace and recoil. He dropped it with the rest of the items he’d removed on the bunk and grunted, then picked up Laura’s bag. He unzipped it and peered inside, throwing her make-up bag onto the floor.
    ‘Hey,’ I said. ‘You can’t do that.’
    Ignoring me, he rifled through Laura’s backpack, pulling out her carrier bag of dirty clothes and pushing it back in immediately. Then he pulled out a clean black and pink bra, held it up and looked straight at Laura’s chest. I stepped in front of her and he laughed, throwing the bra on to the small pile of our possessions, dropping the backpack beside mine.
    Laura sat down on the bunk and began stuffing our things back into the two backpacks. She was shaking and all I wanted to do was comfort her, make it all better. Make this stop.
    I felt the need to say something to the guard, to appeal to him, make him understand, but before I could think of anything useful to say the bearded guard returned. With him was another man, this one tall and thin with a grey face. He was wearing a rail company uniform. In his hand was a long sheet of paper containing what I assumed was a list of bookings. He ran his finger down