Lupérico noticed the tips of her fingers moving rhythmically, tapping the black holster in which she wore her sidearm. Panic sluiced through the former jailer. If she intended to frighten the information out of him, she was doing herself no favours. How was he supposed to think with the prospect of execution hanging over him?

‘I-I do not remember.’

‘You need to remember, believe me.’

He felt ants crawling around under his clothes, biting him and tearing small pieces of flesh from the open wounds inflicted by his torturers. He was terrified and in agony.

‘It is too hard . . .’ he protested. ‘Those days, they were the end of days. The end of the world. How can you expect me to remember the name of one fat Turk?’

She seemed to understand that she was distressing him. The woman folded her arms and made an obvious effort to collect whatever feelings were threatening to run away with her.

‘So, you were bribed by a Turk. A businessman with shipping interests. Do you remember the name of the ship you said was in port?’

‘Sweet mother of God, why would I remember that? I don’t remember his name. I never saw his ship. I had no reason to! Do you know what sort of traffic we had through in those days?’

The woman took in a deep breath, composing herself again. He watched her, wary of what she might do next.

She seemed to resolve a debate within herself. He flinched as she reached inside her combat vest, but rather than producing a weapon she pulled out a resealable plastic bag. She unfastened the Ziploc and removed five or six pieces of paper. Photographs.

She dropped them on the ground in front of him before stepping back, paying him the compliment, he supposed, of at least pretending he was a threat to her. Lupérico didn’t need to be told to pick them up. Brushing ants off himself, resisting the urge to shake his legs like a wet dog to throw more off, he bent down to retrieve the images.

There were six of them, all men, two of whom were white, while the remainder were Arabs, or maybe Persians. For one brief, shining instant, his spirits actually lifted – he recognised one of them.

‘This is him! He’s the Turk who offered me the bribe, without a doubt.’

The woman nodded as though she had known all along. Satisfied at last.

For the first time since he’d been picked up by the Oficina Seguridad, perhaps for the first time since he had fled Guadeloupe on one of the last flights out of the airport, Ramón Lupérico felt as though circumstances had finally broken his way. For close to five years he had grifted and scavenged a path through the anarchy of la colapso and the brutal consolidation of Roberto’s Federation until his luck had run out.