Only when we pulled away from the station did I see how much her hands were shaking, how she had started to cry, every breath turning into a sob.

‘My god,’ she said as she raced through the deserted streets, half-blinded by tears. ‘My god, Alejandro, what has he done?’

I couldn’t answer, slumped in the passenger seat in my beautiful, crumpled suit. In that moment, it was too much. I had envied Langham his wealth and freedom; I had wished for all the things he had, everything that been denied me as a poor woman without family or name. And now here I was, sitting in the front seat of an expensive motorcar, being driven around by a Lady in an evening gown. I almost let out a bitter laugh. As twisted as it was, I had been granted my wish.

Dar Portuna had been ransacked. No one had cleaned up after the party, and the tiled floors were scuffed with boot prints, with spilled drinks.

‘Bouzid?’ I asked, already knowing the answer.

Hilde shook her head. Like Langham, he had vanished.

‘The police came through,’ she told me as she looked around, her make-up smudged from crying. ‘They took everything they could find from the study, all of Arthur’s papers. Except …’

I followed her to her bedroom, where she pulled open the bottom dresser drawer. There, hidden in the lining, beneath a layer of sanitary napkins and knickers and stockings, she revealed a dozen green cardboard files, stashed alongside her own, secret Italian ones.

‘I wagered they’d be too squeamish to look closely at a lady’s necessities,’ she said, with a bleak smile. ‘I don’t know what else they got, but I think these are the most important. As soon as I heard hammering at the gate, I knew something had gone wrong. I went and snatched these up from the study, just in case.’ She sank on to the edge of the bed. ‘I was so frightened. I hoped both of you might have got away, but then the police told me that they had arrested you, in place of him and I …’ She trailed off, tears on her face.

Clumsily, I pulled out a file. It was filled with papers written in French. There was another entirely in German. I saw addresses in Marseille and Tripoli, Cape Town, and Trieste, shipping manifests and pages of drawings, like Hilde’s prototypes, photographs of buildings and people who stared darkly from the paper, lists of names written beneath them. Whatever the documents were, I had no doubt that in connection to Langham, they were incriminating.

‘Maybe he thought they’d let me go, once they realized their mistake.’ My voice sounded hollow. I didn’t have it in me to believe my own excuses any more.