He became aware that his lips were touching a metal bar, a carpet trim, perhaps, but he kept his eyes closed simply because there was no single muscle in his body that wasn’t contracting, not even the one controlling his eyelids. Tiago was suffering a full-body cramp. ‘Got you,’ the officer said. A door closed near by.

Tiago turned on his side. Saliva was seeping from his mouth. He looked around. Tried to form an image of where the officer had dragged him. The roller was still parked on his balls, juddering back and forth so as not to let the flame of pain cool down.

Tiago saw chair legs, a mattress and a door. He smelled the mucus and bogies pouring from his nose. He had to close his eyes again because he didn’t want to watch himself vomiting.

But before he could throw up the peanuts that he’d most recently eaten, his jaws were forced apart and he tasted a strange metallic tang in his mouth, which wasn’t blood. He’d had so many nosebleeds as a child that he was easily able to tell the difference.

He opened his eyes again. Saw the hate-filled face of the officer above his. And felt the barrel of the revolver between his lips being edged more deeply down his throat.

‘Hmmmmmm,’ Tiago groaned, which was supposed to signify something like, ‘Please wait. I’ve got something you have to take a look at.’ The weapon in his mouth made it impossible to formulate a clear word.

The weapon and the pain.

Tiago feverishly sought a way out, an opportunity to get free, repel the attack, but there was no TV showdown in this killer’s script.

No delay. No conversation in which he could explain his real motive, allowing his saviour to ride to the rescue in time. No respite in which the victim could free himself with cunning.

Finished. All over.

Tiago no longer had an opportunity to show this crazed officer Lisa’s letter and explain to the man why it was so bloody important that the girl’s mother read it. Or the captain.

The killer didn’t laugh, didn’t play the superior savouring his omnipotence, didn’t even make him beg. He yanked the barrel from his mouth, aimed at Tiago’s forehead from no further than twenty centimetres and hissed, ‘You fucking paedo.’

Then he shot.

42

‘Why on earth have we stopped?’

Martin confronted the captain just as he was about to leave his cabin to go up to the bridge.

After he’d finally managed to get rid of his unwelcome visitors (Shahla was visibly pleased to be able to leave, whereas Gerlinde had only wheeled out of his suite under protest) he’d briefly lain on his bed, but quickly realised that he wouldn’t get any peace while the ship wasn’t moving forwards.