Tenoch sat on the stone bench, cackling as we watched the last evidence of Aussie Hilary licked to death by an orange fury. And I may have imagined it but I could have sworn there was a bone among those embers.

‘You can take those extensions out of your hair too. You don’t need them now.’

I gingerly began unpicking them. My head grew lighter as they came out and I flung them into the pit on top of Hilary’s passport.

‘There,’ said Tenoch, as the fake hair hissed and fizzled. ‘You are not Hilary Sharp now, nor are you Rhiannon Lewis. So who do you want to be?’

I sat opposite him on the bench watching as the flames consumed the last remains of the person I had been. ‘I have no idea.’

‘Mr Fairly said you were organised.’

‘Well, I’m not,’ I said, catching my breath. ‘How did you know Bobby?’

‘I don’t. Never met the cabrón,’ he said, itching the cast beneath his arm sling. ‘We’ve done some business in the past. I trust him.’

‘Drug business? Coke? Heroin? I’ve seen Narcos.’

‘You think because I’m Mexican I’m cartel?’

‘No,’ I said, unconvincingly.

‘I used to be cartel, not anymore. Your friend Mr Fairly was a small link in our European chain. We did good business together.’

‘You left it behind? You saw the light?’

The flames ignited his eyes as he stared into the angry pit. ‘Something like that.’

‘Why did you offer me sanctuary?’

He tapped his bad arm. ‘I need some help. You need some help.’

‘And money?’

‘Of course. And I need you to do a job for me. Come see.’

‘Sounds ominous,’ I said, following him back outside, scratching an itchy bump that had emerged on the skin at the back of my neck.

‘No, you should not find it hard. It right up your little alley.’

I trailed behind to the Wendy House, or ‘pool house’. He opened the doors and the smell hit me. Inside, stacked up a heap in the middle of the room, were four very dead men. Riddled with bullet holes, covered in blood, swarming with flies. Thick black bodily fluid had leaked into the blue carpet.

‘Jesus!’ I said, yanking my sweat-sodden T-shirt hem to my mouth.

‘They broke into my house about a week ago.’

‘What, all four of them?’

‘They are part of a gang that I used to belong to.’

‘The cartel?’

‘I left them but they never left me. Sometimes, they make their feelings known. Don’t worry – they were all bad. I know you only kill bad men.’

‘How do you know that?’

He grinned – his teeth yellow, like a wolf’s. ‘I always know who I’m doing business with. I have eyes everywhere.’