‘No. They were on a refugee boat with about a hundred or so other Americans. It wasn’t much of a boat. Not like the Aussie Rules, I’m afraid. It foundered off the coast south of Washington state. A lot of people drowned, apparently. Cesky was lucky to get most of his family ashore, but his smallest girl didn’t make it.’

‘I see,’ Shah said again.

‘Oh God, Shah,’ she blurted suddenly. ‘You remember what it was like. We couldn’t have taken Cesky. He would have led a mutiny within a few days. That’s what –’

The former NCO held up one, huge brown hand.

‘You are not to blame for the death of the child, Miss Julianne. I remember discussing this Cesky with Mr Pieraro after we had escaped Acapulco. He told me he faced down Cesky because he knew the man would have brought us all to grief.’

‘Yeah – Miguel,’ sighed Jules. ‘He was a good bloke . . . Oh, for fuck’s sake. I’ve been so fucking selfish. Cesky will have Miguel at the top of his list. Unless he’s saving him until last. Shah, I have to warn him.’

‘Do you know where he is?’

‘I have absolutely no idea. I know he and his family were here for a while, in Australia. They were working on one of the government farms down south. I heard he’d applied to go back to the US, as a settler. Well, not back, you know, but . . .’

Shah grunted and lifted his shoulders as a signal that she should move on.

‘They’ve been in the US for a few years now. Homesteaders. Running cattle, of course. I wouldn’t know how to begin looking for him. It’s not like the old days. You can’t just open a phone book. It’s more like the really old days of the bloody Wild West. He’s probably on some ranch in the middle of an awful fucking cowboy movie somewhere. Contactable only by smoke signal and pony express.’

As she began to babble, Shah patted the air in front of him, making a shushing gesture. A couple of police cars screamed past, their blue lights and sirens going.

‘I have contacts in both Seattle and Fort Hood,’ he said. ‘They are both customers, although I must admit, Governor Blackstone is the more reliable. He pays in cash, whereas in Seattle they often try to haggle concessions on salvage as payment. It is most difficult. But I do have contacts. If Mr Pieraro is registered as a settler, I am sure I can find him and you can get a message to him.’

‘Thank you, Shah,’ she said, feeling some measure of relief for the first time that day.