“Maybe you don’t, Bryce, but I do. There’s nothing more I want than to go to them now, but I’ve chosen to stay here. I’ve contacted a friend over in the UK who’s going to look after them. For me, the best way I can protect them is to find whoever it is and stop him for good.”

“Okay, okay, I get you,” Bryce said. “But we’ve got a problem.”

We had a lot more than one in my estimation.

“What are you getting at?”

“If we drive, it’ll take days. We can’t fly or jump on a train. There’ll be people checking, and we won’t avoid scrutiny. Not if you intend on taking your weapons with you.”

“I’m going to need them. Don’t worry, Bryce, I’ve already made our travel arrangements. All I need is for Rink to give the slip to the cops tailing him.”

“You think he’s up to it?”

“There’s no one better.”

“So where do we meet him?”

“Just keep heading south. I’ll give you directions when we get close.”

Key Largo is at the southernmost point of Florida, the most northerly of the Florida Keys. It is an island but is connected to the mainland by U.S. Highway 1 and is a mecca for scuba divers visiting the nearby coral reefs. I’d been there before: not to dive but on a whim to see what it was like, having caught the old Bogart-Bacall movie on a cable channel. It would take us hours to get there, but it would be worth the effort.

On the drive down I tried to nap for a short time while Bryce continued south, taking roads that didn’t show on many maps. My sleep was troubled: I kept replaying the death of Jimena and her child through my mind. It was vivid, their deaths Technicolor gory and as pointless as ever they had been in real life. Instead, I spelled Bryce for a while as we went through the Everglades, then handed over the driving duties when we were back in the built-up areas of Miami Dade County. Finally, approaching Key Largo, I directed Bryce to take the Card Sound Bridge on to the island.

“There’s a toll booth there. They might have been given your description,” Bryce said.

“Doubt it,” I said. But we had to be careful.

The toll road was barrier controlled. A single booth gave access to Monroe County, but we’d arrived at a time of day when there was a queue of traffic edging forward and they were being nudged through the barrier perfunctorily. We crept along, flanked by signs warning us to beware of crossing crocodiles. Bryce opened his window, handed over the correct change, and then we were through without even raising an eyebrow of the elderly man working the controls.