The fear was back in Parmenter’s eyes and he shook his head in short, jerky motions, spraying droplets of bright red blood in a fan in front of him.

‘Come along now, Mr Parmenter. I can understand your being nervous. The men you dealt with were undoubtedly dangerous and unpleasant. But you are here with us now.’

He paused a beat.

‘And we can also be very dangerous and most unpleasant. And, in contrast with your hirelings, who are all now dead, our competence is not in question. So, Mr Parmenter, I ask you again, in this quiet room, where nobody in the world knows you to be, and immediately outside of which the bodies of your accomplices are stacked like cordwood, whom did you go to for your hired help?’

‘Whom?’ asked Pappas, in a jolly tone. ‘Are you sure it’s not “who”?’

‘No,’ said Jules, playing along. ‘Definitely “whom”.’

Parmenter’s face was a mask of blood below the line cut into his forehead. It made it difficult for Julianne to be certain, but she thought he may have lost much of his colouring.

‘You must have heard my friend say we are on rather a tight schedule here this morning,’ Shah went on, his tone conversational. ‘It would be of no moment for us to add one more body to those we have piled up outside. And in a minute, I am afraid, we may have to. Unless you are able to satisfy my curiosity. Who, Mr Parmenter, put you in touch with your subcontractors? You must have had references. You have not long been in Australia. So who is your local contact?’

‘Oh, come on! I thought we’d settled on “whom”,’ joked Pappas.

Parmenter began to shake. The slightest of tremors at first, but building quickly to such an intensity that the chair began to rattle against the floor. Shah held out his hand for the kukri dagger.

‘Sandline, it was Sandline,’ said Parmenter, as though coughing up a furball. ‘I got in three days ago and went straight to Sandline. Rubin made the introductions.’

The name dropped like a cannonball at their feet. Cesky had somehow linked up with one of the biggest private military companies and security contractors working in the Northern Territory.

‘Well, that could be tricky,’ said Pappas. ‘What do you want to do about that?’

Shah smiled. ‘For now, I will do nothing. If one stands by the bank of the river long enough, the severed heads of one’s enemies will float by. So for now, I will stand by the river.’

Pappas checked his watch. ‘Well, time to hit the frog and toad, my friends,’ he said. ‘What do you want to do with this criminal mastermind?’