‘Grow up!’ Matt sneered. ‘You just want one hand dirty, is that it? A kilo or two of drugs, a few smuggled birds and lizards, but oh, no, Officer, nothin’ bad. You’re in this up to your neck, sonny, an’ that includes that boatload of dead reffos. Two more ain’t gonna make no difference to the sheet.’ With that, he turned the short black barrel on Tilly and fired.

Terror had hastened rather than slowed her brain, and while he spoke, her hand had found and closed over the jack-handle. It was a pathetic weapon but it was the only one she had. Her mouth opened in a fruitless cry of protest as she read his intent but she was given no time to utter it. The roar of the shot was magnified by the cave’s echoes, and before she could wonder at hearing it, a heavy weight knocked her across Luke’s prone body and Gerry’s arm thudded down across her neck.

Tilly heard Matt swear and, turning her head, stared dazedly into her husband’s dead face. He had thrown himself into the bullet’s path to save her life, which, she thought hysterically, was only going to extend it by seconds. Matt had now fired the gun twice but it must hold more bullets than that. Panting, she tightened her grip on the steel she held.

‘You stupid bastard!’ Matt, bending over to check Gerry’s body, dealt him a savage kick. ‘Christ Almighty! What a turn-up. After she gave you up too. Well, one more stiff’s neither here nor there,’ he decided. And it was then, as he straightened to finish the job, that Tilly hit him with all the strength that fear and fury could give her.

She aimed, of necessity from her partly prone position, for his right leg and had the satisfaction of actually hearing the bone in his kneecap crack. He bellowed in pain and surprise and went down hard, hitting the floor on his back with his right elbow cracking crisply against the stone. She scrambled up and with another, less steady swipe, belted the gun from his hand, which had somehow managed to retain its grasp of it, then scampered after its clattering fall while he writhed, yelling in pain, behind her.

With trembling hands she examined her prize, terrified that it might go off. Tilly knew nothing about firearms. Gerry had kept a rifle on the Esmerelda – for crocs, he’d said – but she had forbidden him to bring it into their camp. Staring distractedly around while the bats wheeled and chittered above her, she spied a long fissure in the rock wall of the cave. Hyperventilating, she thrust an arm into its darkness and felt nothing but space. It would do. With a feeling of relief that helped steady her breathing, she dropped the gun into it and heard metal clatter on stone somewhere well beyond her reach.