A girl had done this. A fourteen-year-old girl. She had a look of defiance about her that he admired, despite what she had done to him.

He laughed and clumsily lit a cigarette. ‘You think I’m an ogre, don’t you, Amy?’

Still Amy said nothing.

‘You know perhaps where your word “ogre” comes from?’

Amy shook her head.

‘From the word “Magyar”…’ He laughed again and took a gulp of wine. ‘We Hungarians are descended from the tribes that swept into Europe from the east. First the Huns and later the Magyars. We built castles everywhere. And we scared the living daylights out of everyone. We were ogres. In the fairy tales we grew huge, with giant teeth. We ate children! But the ogres were men like me. Magyars. So, yes, maybe I am an ogre. But I am still a man.’

‘Ha!’ was all that Amy had to say. She was wearing a baggy shirt and trousers that had belonged to the smallest member of Zoltan’s crew and she hadn’t changed them in weeks. They smelt sour and fitted badly, but she was too exhausted to care. Ever since the attack on the Siren she felt like she had been walking through a dream.

Smuggling was Zoltan’s main concern, rather than piracy, and for the past few weeks they had been criss-crossing the Mediterranean: first to Turkey, then to Cyprus and Beirut, then Alexandria in Egypt, then back to Turkey. In each port Zoltan had unloaded some of his spoils, and traded them for other goods: opium, hashish, wine, brandy, guns. But he had never unloaded Amy. Whenever they put in to a new port she was locked in a secret compartment in the hold with her tutor, Grace. The compartment was used for contraband and wasn’t designed for the comfort of living people. There was no light and no portholes.

They had tried not to despair. Huddled together in the stifling heat they fought to keep each other’s spirits up, but each time they were sent below Grace grew more miserable and scared.

Alexandria had been the worst. Amy had always dreamed of visiting Egypt, of seeing the pyramids and the Sphinx and the temple of Karnack, but she had never dreamed that when she got there she would spend the time locked in darkness in a smuggler’s hold. The heat had been extraordinary and there was no sense of time or space down in the bottom of the ship. No sound even penetrated the walls of their hellish cell. The most awful part of it was not knowing what was going to happen to her. She had terrible black thoughts, but said nothing to Grace, who seemed close to giving up.

From Turkey they had crossed the Aegean to Athens, then steamed on to the ancient walled town of Otranto in the heel of Italy. And it was here that Zoltan had finally let Amy go ashore.

‘Your teacher will stay on board,’ he had explained. ‘So that if you do anything foolish you know she will be punished.’