It was 8.25 a.m. Police response vehicles were still rolling up and armed officers running everywhere like ants. What exactly they hoped to achieve with all this frenzied activity, Ben couldn’t say. Perhaps they were on the lookout for men in frock coats and eye patches, with cutlasses and flintlock pistols stuck through their belts, while the real pirates were far away laughing.

‘Look on the bright side,’ Roth said. ‘Somewhere down there among all the chaos are a couple of truck drivers who’ll never know how close they came to getting iced.’

‘What are we going to do?’ Segal said helplessly as the reality of the situation began to bite. ‘And what am I going to do? If Nazim thinks I’ve betrayed him, he’ll kill me.’

‘And your wife, too,’ Roth supplied helpfully. ‘Cost of doing commerce with terrorists, my friend. They don’t make for the most trustworthy or sympathetic of business partners.’

‘But that means I can never go home again! They know where I live!’

‘You have the option of disappearing voluntarily,’ Ben said. ‘It’s preferable to being whisked away in the middle of the night and ending up in a hole in the forest.’

‘And what about my business? I spent years building it and now it’ll be totally finished!’ Segal glared at Ben. ‘You told me you would put an end to this. You promised it would all be over. “Trust me. We’re not going to let that happen.” Your very words. Why did I listen to you? I was better off before!’

Ben said nothing. Maybe Segal would have preferred for his wife to remain a hostage, too.

‘Think I’ll stretch my legs and get some air,’ Roth announced with a sigh, clapping his palms on his thighs and unlatching the passenger door. He got out of the car, turned up his jacket collar against the drizzle, and Ben watched him walk off in the direction of the docks. Before he vanished from sight behind some wharf buildings, he took out a phone and appeared to be dialling a number.

It wasn’t the first time Roth had decided to go for a spontaneous little stroll. And not for the first time, Ben wondered what the hell the American was up to.

Segal was still prattling on in Ben’s ear. ‘Are you listening? I’m talking to you and I demand an answer.’

Ben ignored him, leaned back in the driver’s seat and closed his eyes, considering his options. He was good at improvising. But it wasn’t so easy to improvise when you had nothing whatsoever to go on. He took another long puff of the Gauloise and blew out more smoke. Behind him, Segal started to make that truly irritating theatrical kind of spluttering, as though he was suffocating on sarin gas.

Eyes still shut, Ben told him, ‘If you don’t like it, then get out of the damn car.’