He was right. My torso was coming out in lovely colours – iridescent blues and purples, like a sunset in reverse – and my head throbbed as I searched for that elusive bit of information I had mislaid.

‘He won’t go out again,’ said Leotta. She sounded like a nurse. She helped the doctor strap me up again after he had been liberal with the liniment and I smelt like a football locker-room. Then he went away and she said firmly, ‘Bed!’

I grinned at her. ‘Thanks for the invitation but I ache too much right now.’ To my surprise she blushed. ‘Sorry,’ I said, and changed the subject. ‘Is that a chaise longue on the patio out there?’

So I lay out there in the sun and, after a few desultory bites of lunch, I slept. Ever since I had arrived on Campanilla I had been on the hoof, as busy as a bee but gathering very little nectar. The usual reason for going to Campanilla is to relax, lie in the sun and soak up the vitamin D, to get that exact shade of bronze which the discerning eye knows does not come from a sun tan lamp in winter, the badge of the jet set. Instead, I had been threatened, manipulated, beaten up and shot. I thought it was about time I behaved like a tourist. Besides, I had nothing else to do.

I slept for two hours and when I woke up Leotta was beside me, stretched on a beach towel and taking in the sun. She rolled over as I stirred. ‘Did you sleep well?’

‘Marvellous,’ I said dreamily.

‘You snore,’ she said, and began applying sun tan oil to her arms.

‘It doesn’t worry me,’ I said, and picked up the bottle of oil. ‘I’ll do your back.’

‘All right.’ She lay prone and unfastened her bikini top. I massaged the oil into her silky skin and she lay with her head pillowed on her arms, her eyes closed. Presently she said, ‘What do you think will happen?’

‘About what?’

‘About us.’

I wasn’t quite sure what she meant. Was she talking about our respective circumstances on this exotic island, both caught up in deadly political manoeuvrings that neither of us had sought out? Or was she hinting at something more personal, something I couldn’t deny that I felt, but which seemed curiously inappropriate given the present situation?

‘We could leave,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing to stop us. That might put Hanna in a jam, though. I was assaulted by the police and you’re a witness to it. He needs us for evidence.’

‘But he can’t find those four men.’

‘He’s looking,’ I said. ‘If he finds them and we’re not around to tell the tale, he could be for the chop.’

‘And after that, you’ll be going to England?’

‘That’s right.’

‘To Devon?’