‘Very clever,’ Todor said. ‘I’m impressed by your powers of deduction. You may think me appalling for doing this. But the girl you mention is the ward of someone who was very upset to discover that she got pregnant by one of his bodyguards. All he wants is that the girl comes back home and has the child – which the gentleman is planning to raise as his own son.’

‘The “gentleman” is Patrick Kelleher,’ Klara shouted, ‘and he repeatedly raped that underage girl who’s now carrying his baby –’

Teresa hissed at Klara to shut up.

‘And if I don’t?’ Klara screamed. ‘You shoot me? Then what?’

‘Enough!’ Todor shouted. ‘No more craziness.’

‘You’ve created this craziness,’ I said. ‘You’re doing the money grab.’

‘You will have enough from this one evening to walk out of your life and start over again.’

‘And you, you fucking Judas?’ Klara screamed.

‘Stay out of this,’ Teresa said, again jabbing the muzzle against her skull. ‘Amber will be kept safe. No harm will come to her. We know what we’re doing. And you’re both going to now hand over your phones to me.’

‘You’re going to have to fucking well take it off me,’ Klara said.

Teresa pulled back the hammer on her gun.

‘I’ve never liked you,’ she said. ‘Always saw the trash way you disrespected your mother, with your nasty feminist bullshit. And you’re a baby killer. So why shouldn’t I blow you away?’

I felt myself go into something like freefall. Especially as Teresa’s finger was trembling around the trigger of the gun.

‘There’s no need for all this, Teresa,’ Todor said. ‘I know Klara will hand over her phone to me right now.’

He held out his hand. Klara, looking absolutely terrified, reached into her right pocket and fished out her phone, dropping it into Todor’s open fingers. Then he came over to me and held out his hand. I too handed my phone over. Todor now nodded at Teresa – who lowered the barrel of her pistol.

‘See,’ Todor said. ‘No more melodrama. I sense we’ve got a long drive ahead of us.’

‘Get them to give you the address,’ Ricky said to Todor.

‘Brendan will do that.’

Then he said to me:

‘We’re taking two cars.’