And the name she’d written on the screen before turning away and sticking her thumb in her mouth.

It’s not possible.

The truth struck like a stab of a knife which didn’t kill him, but made him bleed slowly.

‘Hello, Dr Schwartz? Are you still there?’ Dr Silva said several thousands of kilometres away, but Martin had stopped listening some time ago.

He’d left the phone on the kitchen table to pack his stuff. Another trip awaited him. He had to hurry. He’d already wasted too much time.

74

Thirty-five hours later

Dominican Republic

The two-storey, clay-coloured finca was just a stone’s throw from the Casa de Campos polo fields, in a cul-de-sac lined with hollies, with a brown shingle roof that jutted out over the entrance like a peaked cap and was supported by two white columns.

It was barely different from any of the other well-maintained holiday homes here that belonged almost exclusively to foreigners, although it was significantly smaller than the villas of the high-profile people who had secured the best spots five minutes from La Romana, directly on the beach or around the golf course.

It was two o’clock in the afternoon, the hottest part of the day. Not a cloud in the sky to prevent the sun from driving the muggy air on the ground up to thirty-six degrees.

Martin got out of the small, air-conditioned car that he’d rented at the airport in the morning and started to sweat. He was wearing khaki shorts, a white linen shirt and dark sunglasses. With his white, pasty skin, he looked like a typical tourist on the first week of his holiday. He protected his head, now covered in stubble again, with an old-style baseball cap.

Looking around, he pulled the shirt from his chest. He’d barely been out of the car for twenty seconds and it was already sticking to his body like a rubber glove.

At this time of day there wasn’t anyone in their right mind who’d voluntarily leave their air-conditioned house.

Nobody watched him as he hobbled across the freshly mown lawn (the long-distance flight had caused his foot to swell up again) to get to the rear of the finca, where he saw the obligatory swimming pool, pine needles swimming on its surface.

The garden bordered on an unfinished new development, and so there was nobody here either who could see Martin check the back door for hidden cables and cameras, and jimmy open the lock with a penknife after ensuring that he wouldn’t set off any alarm.

Martin thought it would have taken longer to locate the address, but after just an hour he’d found a taxi driver at the port who’d recognised the photo. And who, in return for two hundred US dollars, had told him where this person regularly went whenever the ship docked in La Romana.