A piece of sacking fell towards me. I caught it with both hands and sat it upright immediately. It wasn’t sacking, in fact, but a soft canvas bag with leather straps. A gun bag. I undid the straps and saw the curved magazine. An AK-47? I leaned forward. No - it was a sniper rifle. As I took this in, I heard something move behind me. I snatched the rifle out of the bag and swivelled round, pointing it at the figure in the doorway.

‘You should leave this room now,’ said Isabelle. ‘The police have arrived.’

X

X

The music in the club had stopped and I could hear the clatter of boots coming down the corridor towards us.

‘What the hell are they doing here?’ I asked.

‘I don’t know. Perhaps looking for drugs. Raids are frequent in this city.’

Or they’d found the bodies on the golf course and I was the focus of a manhunt. But how had they known who to look for - and where to find me?

The questions could wait.

‘We need to get out of here,’ I said. ‘Try the window.’

She ran over and started trying to prise it open. It was jammed. There was no time to fiddle with straps, so I just put the rifle back in its bag and threw that into the trombone case, then joined her. The footsteps in the corridor were now accompanied by shouted commands, and sirens had started wailing outside. I smashed the case against the glass. Now the sound of the steps shifted in our direction. I swept away the shards with the back of my arm, then helped Isabelle crawl over the frame. Once she had jumped to the ground, I passed the case to her and followed her over. The door of the room crashed open as I was landing and a voice called out: ‘Federal police! No one leave the building!’

I took the case back from Isabelle and we started running. Several policemen jumped down from the window and started pursuit. As Isabelle and I reached the front of the building, I glanced to the right and saw people streaming from the club in a panic. They were being greeted by a large contingent of police, all of whom were armed with machine guns. I could see J. J. and his entourage engaged in furious debate with them, and the man in the dress shirt who had laughed at us earlier was being pushed into the back of one of the unmarked cars that were parked behind the police line.

Those cars stood between us and the Peugeot.

I shouted to Isabelle to follow me, and headed towards the garden of the neighbouring house. The fence was already half-trampled and bent in on itself, so it was easy enough to leap over. I could hear Isabelle right behind me and, just behind her, shouting and gunfire.