‘Please, don’t close it,’ he pleaded, his voice shrill, as she shut the door to the store room.

She would give him thirty or forty minutes, and by then he would be in a decent enough state to take a shower and get dressed. This was a day too early, and she knew it, but she had to clear the house and have everything ready. Tomorrow Tómas would come home to the rambling mansion that had once belonged to Mr José and Nati, the Mexican drug kingpins who had each come to a violent end right here in the living room, before being fed piece by piece to the tiger that had been the cage’s previous occupant.

She shivered with anticipation as she thought of Tómas, and immediately the knot of trepidation tightened in her belly. She still had to organise the trip home, and that was always a headache. The route couldn’t be too easy to anticipate, but neither could it be so long and complex that Tómas would become exasperated.

‘How is he?’ Alex asked as she appeared in the living room.

‘He’s past the cold-turkey stage,’ Sonja replied. ‘But he’ll still need to deal with all the mental stuff. He just cries and cries. He needs a little more time, really, but I have to get him out of here. It would be great if you could clean the cage before you go.’

‘OK, I’ll do that,’ Alex said.

‘Then there’s the journey home,’ she said. ‘I’ve planned a route for you – Switzerland via Amsterdam. There’ll be a hire car waiting for you in Zürich to drive to the school.’

‘And then?’

‘When you’ve picked Tómas up, drive to Lucerne and take a domestic flight back to Zürich, then come back here via Copenhagen.’

Alex nodded. He knew better than to protest or grumble. He was aware that she could easily change the itinerary tomorrow, and again after that. To begin with he had complained about all this fuss, saying that these complex routes to bring Tómas home from school were unnecessary. He had tried to convince Sonja that his experience as a bodyguard was such that he would sense if they were being followed. But then, two years ago, he had saved her life by throwing himself between her and an armed killer sent by a competitor. This incident had convinced him that the dangers were real.

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