The night my friends went missing on a Spanish train

Twenty years ago, the Spanish railway company RENFE stole my girlfriend’s father. There were four of us – my girlfriend, her dad, and a university friend of ours. We had been in Spain for more than a month, walking the Camino de Santiago. Now it was time to head home, first by train to Bilbao and then on to Stansted by air. Once we found our seats on the train, in the rearmost carriage, I settled in for the long haul – the journey is ten hours – with my battered copy of Herodotus, which I was determined to finish before the start of the new academic year. I was soon absorbed in the father of history’s delightful tall tales about, among other things, giant gold-mining ants.  

In the late afternoon, while my girlfriend and I dozed, the other two headed for the restaurant car, located directly behind the locomotive, leaving us to stand guard over the luggage.