‘If he got out of that cottage, he’s a fucking magician. Check the sat feed. You’d see a runner clear as day. There’s no decent cover for miles. He fried.’

‘Huh,’ Frank grunted, and glanced towards the door. He looked suddenly defeated.

‘He had me pinned, Frank. Either I got in the water, or he got me. That simple.’

‘The hundred-dollar bill. You still got it?’ I’d been waiting for him to ask. My orders had been to terminate the target with extreme prejudice – and, specifically, to search the cottage – though for what, exactly, hadn’t been specified.

‘No,’ I answered immediately, putting my hands on the table and my eyes on Frank. ‘Lost it in the surf.’

He wrinkled his nose and took the lie at face value. At Raven Hill we’d been taught subterfuge and sabotage in equal measure. We were all professional liars – though some of us forgot to remember we were no longer telling the truth.

‘OK. The bag. What was in the bag?’

‘Notes. Loose notes. US dollars. I only saw them for a second, but if they were all hundreds like the one in his hand? Ten grand? More, maybe.’

‘Well, there’s your answer,’ he said. ‘An answer, anyway. We … rather, I …’ he corrected himself, ‘have been following the money. That money.’

‘Yeah, well it looks like you weren’t the only one.’

Frank ignored me and pressed on.

‘He arrived in the country nine days ago from Moscow, via Heathrow, and made a run for the cottage straight from Belfast City.’

‘Round and round the money goes, but where it starts only a Russian knows.’

‘That’s it. And now, thanks to you and Willy Pete, the only piece of evidence not burned to a crisp is currently floating to Iceland. So figuring out which Russian just got a whole lot harder.’

‘You know me,’ I said. ‘Always happy to help. Anyway, what’s special about it, the money?’ My stomach tightened.

‘It’s not the money that’s special. It’s what it’s being used for that’s special.’

‘I see,’ I said, though I didn’t. ‘What is it being used for?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Ah,’ I said. ‘That makes it very special indeed, doesn’t it?’

He cleared his throat and lowered his voice so that I could barely make out his words above the hiss of the rain.

‘All I know is that there’s rather a lot of it.’

‘How much is “a lot”?’

‘Well, if my calculations are correct, and this is back of a fag packet mathematics, you understand?’

‘Yeah, go on.’

‘It could be up to a billion dollars.’

‘Fuck.’

‘To be honest, “fuck” doesn’t quite cover it.’

‘And no one knows what it’s for?’

‘Don’t be a bloody idiot. Of course someone knows.’

‘Best guess?’

Frank shifted in his chair.