‘I’m sure you’re right. Here’s my floor. Goodnight, Doctor Quirke.’

He stepped out into the corridor. He began to shut the gate, but Quirke put up a hand to stop him.

‘Are you armed?’

‘What?’

‘Are you armed? Have you got a gun?’

‘No,’ Strafford said. ‘Why?’

‘I have a bad feeling. I wish I’d never spotted that bloody woman.’

Strafford gave a smiling shrug.

‘Yes, well.’

And in the middle of the night he woke up and wondered why he had lied about the gun.

Chapter 38

Terry Tice had never been up in an aeroplane before. It hadn’t occurred to him to be scared, until he was strapped into his seat and the ground was speeding by in the little window beside him as they hurtled along the runway. Now, all of a sudden, he was in a blue funk. This thing, with propellers attached to its wings, this crazy machine made of tons and tons of metal, with scores of people sitting inside it, was actually going to climb into the air – into thin air.

It wasn’t right. It wasn’t natural.

The gun was in his suitcase in the hold. That was another reason to be uneasy. What if he had to open the suitcase at the customs desk when he got to Spain? He had slit the lining and hidden the weapon there, in its holster. It wouldn’t be hard to find.

The wheels of the plane bumped over the joins in the runway, faster and faster, thump thump thump thump thump!

He wanted to unbuckle himself and leap up and call out for the plane to stop and let him get off. Instead, he sat dumbstruck, unable to open his mouth or lift a hand to summon help, not that there was any help on offer. This was what it would be like to find yourself in front of a firing squad, goggling at the line of soldiers facing you with their rifles to their shoulders, grappling with the amazing fact that in a moment they weren’t going to throw aside their arms and break into laughter at the great joke they had been playing on you all along, but that on the contrary, at a shout from their commanding officer, in his puttees and his cap with the shiny peak, they were going to press the triggers and blow a dozen ragged holes in your chest. Or eleven holes, anyway – wasn’t one of the bullets always a blank?

Then, with a jerk and a bump, the world tilted, and they were in the air.

He shut his eyes and heaved a sigh. He pressed his head back against the seat. He was still afraid, but the raw terror of the past few minutes had begun to ease. Maybe he would survive. Maybe this contraption would stay airborne, after all.