But Sam couldn’t think about Norton now, he couldn’t think about anything except Bet’s words: Cloakroom tag, Continental. Thanks to the case, he had written, truly written for the first time in months. And now, here was something else, a clue to the mystery. It might lead to a second chapter, and that chapter might lead to a third … This could finally be what he had been searching for through the streets of London and Paris and Barcelona, across the beaches of Málaga and the Strait of Gibraltar: a story, one that would make him want to write and write and never stop.

Bloodhound

Take three quarters of a pony of French vermouth and the same of Italian vermouth. Add a jigger of dry English gin. Crush two or three ripe strawberries in your hand, and shake until truly muddled.

It was the silence that woke me, abrupt and strange. Groggily, I moved my hand, expecting to find one of the inn’s cats whirring and kneading my legs. Instead, I found metal and wood resting in my lap. The knife.

I opened my eyes. Before me was a grime-encrusted windscreen and through it I saw the sky pink with dawn, like blood beneath the skin. Day would be breaking in Córdoba too, illuminating the mess of the night I had left behind; the stains on Elena’s rug, the Señor’s eyes, weighted down by coins. In a rush, it all came back: my flight into the feria, the darkness and the knife in my hand, my escape from Córdoba in this van, driven by an old man heading south, with his cargo of empty wine casks.

I had told him that I lived near Ronda – a name I pulled from my memory – and that my purse had been stolen during the feria and with it my bus fare home. He knew I was lying. He knew it from my bruised nose and shaking hands, from my strange, jumbled attire. But he had eyed my chest and laughed and said he would be happy to help a nice girl like me.

As soon as I had shut the door, he’d tried to take his payment, his hands pushing at my legs, groping my chest. But I had been ready and shoved him back, saying I was a good Catholic girl. He’d laughed again, as if at some great joke, and might have continued had I not taken the knife from my waistband and showed it to him. He left off then, and was sour as he started the engine and drove into the night. Still, from the glances he cast my way, I knew he had not given up on the idea.