The pile of rags she’d disregarded wasn’t a jumble of oil-stained sheets or worn-out overalls. It was Williams. He was curled over on his side, his face a few inches from the wall and his legs tucked up under his arms and a filthy blanket.

Bennett walked over to him. His eyes were closed, and his breathing shallow. He was either unconscious or asleep. She was about to lean down and try to gently shake him awake when she saw his hand that was gripping his shin and the edge of the blanket. She’d noticed the bandages wrapped round his knuckles when she was trying to get through to him, crouched behind her MG in Dungeness. Now they’d been removed and she could see why they’d been there in the first place. The back of his hand was a patchwork of bruises and scabs.

She’d been more irritated than scared by her unexplained incarceration. But now, looking at Williams, fear started to creep through her.

Bennett could tell the marks on his hand were the kind of injuries that came from inflicting even worse ones on someone or something else. From the midnight street in Miramar to the bench in Regent’s Park, Williams hadn’t shown any signs of being strong enough to harm anything, so what had changed in the last twenty-four hours? Had his mind finally given in and he’d lost control and hurt himself for some mad reason? That would explain why he’d acted so strangely in Dungeness, seemingly oblivious to the sniper shooting at him. Or had he attacked someone and they’d come looking for him, dragging Bennett into their revenge? Whatever the answer, she decided to let this sleeping dog stay lying.

Williams was dreaming of Santo Domingo.

He was standing on the same street where he’d met Bennett. But she wasn’t there, and he wasn’t ragged and sallow, and the whole street was blanketed in snow.

He turned through 360 degrees, searching for something or someone that might explain what was going on. But there was nothing. There wasn’t even a horizon. After a hundred yards in every direction everything faded to a white haze. It was like he was trapped inside a frosted snow globe.

Williams didn’t feel the cold, or the occasional snowflake that fell on him. He was numb, physically and mentally. He wasn’t scared, or happy, or confused. He was calm, objective, dispassionate—as if he’d stepped into someone else’s dream and was only there to watch whatever was going to happen.

The only noise was the distant lapping of waves. He felt compelled to walk towards them, and as he did the snow started to melt, causing trickles and then torrents of water to race ahead of him towards the ocean.