‘Presidential confidant Cesky to face consecutive life terms,’ he quoted from the headline. A smile formed at the edge of his mouth, but died there. ‘That’s good news, I suppose,’ he said. ‘If they convict him. If I had my way, though, he’d a-been thrown to the sharks. Worthless motherfucker.’

He read the rest of the report while she held the piece of paper as steadily as she could in the breeze. She was done with crying. She’d emptied herself of tears back in Darwin.

‘Still no sign of his daughter, then? Little Sofia,’ he said quietly after finishing the story.

Julianne didn’t reply. Miguel’s daughter had disappeared soon after his murder. The police and the FBI had listed her as a missing person, but she doubted they were doing much to find her. America was full of missing people.

‘Do you think Cesky got her?’ Jules asked.

‘I hope not,’ the Rhino said. ‘For Miguel’s sake, I would hope not. That poor family, they were good people. They deserved none of it.’

‘This life,’ sighed Jules. ‘Deserve’s got nothing to do with it.’

They sat in silence for a few minutes. Surfers, joggers and bush walkers passed by them in both directions.

‘Good of Shah to let you have his place down here,’ she said after a while, for want of anything better to fill the space between them.

‘Another good man,’ said the Rhino.

‘You think you’ll go back to Darwin when you’re better? Shah says there’s a job for you anytime you want.’

The Rhino leaned forward and rested his chin on the handle of his walking stick. ‘Yeah, I know. Piloting an armed cruiser for him off Bougainville. The big copper mine up there has had some problems with pirates and gun-runners. It wouldn’t be a million miles away from the work I used to do for the Coast Guard.’

She closed her eyes and let the sun play over her face. ‘You wouldn’t be working for yourself though, would you, Rhino?’ she asked, reading his mind. ‘Wasn’t that always the plan?’

‘That’s the thing about plans, Miss Jules. They almost never survive contact with the enemy.’ He plucked a flower and sniffed it before tossing the bright orange bloom into the undergrowth behind them. ‘And what about you?’ he asked. ‘I don’t see you working as a delivery girl in the long term.’

She opened her eyes again and smiled. ‘No, neither do I. I had thought I might try my luck back in the States, you know, after they got hold of me to testify against Cesky. Bloody video link put paid to that idea, didn’t it.’

The Rhino nodded. He’d given his initial deposition from a hospital bed in Darwin. Like her, he’d been raped by Cesky’s lawyers.