Lupérico couldn’t believe it. It was impossible that something so simple should rebound on him so many years later. My God, the terrible things he had done in the last days at Guadeloupe . . . He shook his head again. He had thought for a moment he may have had to answer for prostituting his female prisoners or, in the final extremes of la colapso, of organ harvesting some of his charges for a Chinese billionaire who flew into the facility on his own plane. But no.

The man sat on the brush floor, with moisture seeping in through the seat of his pants, marvelling at how a simple payoff could have brought him undone.

He slapped at a flying bloodsucker attempting to make a meal of his earlobe. The high-pitched buzz was distressing in and of itself. The sun still had enough power to make the terrible press of heat and humidity utterly unpleasant, but the small clearing in the forest remained heavily shaded by the thick, intersecting layers of overhead canopy. Lupérico reached for any recall of the smaller details of those days. For something that might just reduce the pitiless stare with which his liberator/captor regarded him.

He remembered that when it became obvious Paris had forgotten them, that the whole world was falling apart, he had moved quickly to secure his immediate future.

And yes, that did mean he released a few of the prisoners before their time. The young German, he remembered well now. The memories came rushing back, as if a dam wall had collapsed. This Baumer stood out for two reasons. When the man arrived in Guadeloupe, his file was sealed. Lupérico was given no idea of the prisoner’s background, nor of what had led him into expedient detention – a form of incarceration where the individual was held without acknowledgment, ‘au plaisir du Président’.

‘Baumer, yes, I did release him,’ he admitted finally. ‘But you must understand, our situation was quite desperate. We –’

‘Not interested. Why did you release him? It wasn’t from the kindness of your heart.’

Lupérico had difficulty maintaining eye contact with her. Her gaze, although almost inhumanly cold, still seemed to weigh him in judgment. Was it his imagination or did the forest seem unnaturally quiet now?

‘Well, I was paid, of course. A bribe, if you must. We are both adults, señorita . . .’

He waited, hoping she might give him something, but the woman’s demeanour did not change. She didn’t speak. She simply stared at him, waiting for him to continue.