‘I’ll chase those phone logs up for you,’ he said over his shoulder, while extracting her suitcase from its place beside his container full of books.

‘If you could, that would be great,’ she replied. ‘Mr Pieraro had a daughter. She will want to see somebody punished for this.’

Colonel Katherine Murdoch waved goodbye, and walked into the departure lounge.

30

NORTH DARWIN, NORTHERN TERRITORY

Julianne changed motel rooms after the interview at the police station, a precaution, and an easy one. She was travelling light. She arrived outside Shah’s house in The Palms as the sun was dropping low over a wide bay, in which a few dozen sailboats and larger yachts lay at anchor. The burnt orange light of sunset had already coloured the green waters to a sparkling copper sheet.

Looking up from the street at the modern pole-and-beam home, Jules couldn’t help thinking that a spectacular view awaited her on the open-plan area that defined the upper storey, where a few people were already enjoying drinks and chatting in small groups. She’d been expecting a quiet family dinner, with perhaps Birendra or even Downing in attendance. But it seemed that a cocktail party was underway.

She guessed that the interior of the house opened up onto a vast, shaded platform enjoying clear views across an undeveloped strip of coastal scrub. From down here at street level, however, she couldn’t tell where the inside became the outside. But there was no mistaking the scar left behind on the footpath by the attempted bombing. A patch of grass, roughly six or seven feet across, had been charred down to burnt red earth on the verge in front of the post box. Or what had been the post box. The blast had torn huge chunks out of the sandstone plinth that served as a mailbox.

The killing heat of the afternoon no longer hammered down out of a hot, grey sky. But stepping out of her air-conditioned taxi onto the dark scab of scorched earth where Shah’s would-be assailants had fumbled their package and destroyed themselves, Jules still felt the crush of hot, moist tropical air. Her light silk shirt, the one she had borrowed from Ashmi, was sticking to her back by the time she’d walked up the driveway to the front door. Shrapnel from the explosion, stone chips and small pieces of metal, still pitted the dark wooden double doors. She was reaching for an antique iron knocker when the door opened and Shah greeted her, smiling effusively.

‘Come in, come in, Miss Julianne. The others are already here, having a drink upstairs. It is not a very large gathering, just some friends, people we can trust. And there’s somebody I want you to meet. He may be able to help.’