He shook his head. ‘I have tar of heaven. That is what I will bring you.’

‘No,’ Chloe said. ‘I already told you last time. I need flowers. Many more.’

He looked up at Tomarys and then at Chloe, regarding her with heavy-lidded eyes. ‘You have money?’

Chloe nodded.

‘Wait.’

The old man turned and walked around the back of the hut. Chloe and Tomarys waited. The time wore on.

Chloe started to walk forward, peering around the side of the shack until Tomarys pulled her back. They continued to wait.

Finally, after such a long time that even Chloe was about to leave, she saw movement. The seven-year-old boy who had given her the flowers last time came forward, beckoning.

‘Come,’ he said. ‘This way.’

Following him they came to the back of the hut and saw the narrow alley. The boy skipped ahead and then turned around, continuing to wave them forward.

‘Let me go first,’ said Tomarys.

The tall, muscled bodyguard entered the alley with Chloe just behind. Once again they followed its interminable curve.

One moment the boy was just ahead, the next he suddenly put his head down and ran.

There was a sound of running footsteps from behind. Chloe started to turn. A man’s arm went around her neck.

He held her up on her toes and she felt sharp steel pressed to her throat. She couldn’t see his face, but she could smell his rancid breath. Tomarys stood looking at her, half a dozen paces away, trapped in the middle of the alley. Chloe saw another man approaching behind him. He carried a long curved dagger and was as lean as a pole, with a narrow face and a diagonal scar across his nose.

Tomarys stood with his back to the wall, Chloe held captive on his left and the second attacker on his right.

It had all happened in an instant. Chloe’s heart pounded in her ears so loudly that for a moment it was all she could hear. Fear clutched hold of her stomach; she forgot to breathe. Finally, she gasped. But she was terrified that the slightest movement would cause the sharp steel to cut her neck. Her chest rose and fell with an irregular rhythm, short gasps followed by great heaves as her lungs forced her throat to bring more air.

Chloe felt the blood drain from her face as she turned pleading eyes on Tomarys. Her toes barely touching the ground, she was trembling.

‘Give my friend the silver,’ the assailant with his arm around Chloe’s neck hissed to Tomarys, ‘or she dies.’

Tomarys’s eyes shifted as he looked from man to man. He was penned in the alley with opponents on both sides. His gaze suddenly shot to the right and Chloe saw a third brigand standing back, arms folded over his chest as he watched.