Tayo’s treatment had lasted over a year. A fake crash of a private jet above the Gulf of Guinea, embarkation in Praia, months of psychological training, concocting stories, then the surgical interventions. He’d booked the full programme, costing him almost two million dollars, half of his savings. But this was money well spent. Because he hadn’t been given the usual cosmetic alterations. Tayo was an international superstar, and his pursuers had a global network. They’d needed to make drastic changes to his external appearance to prevent him from being immediately recognised in his new home. In the end the surgeon hadn’t only persuaded him to have chin, lip and nose alterations, he’d even talked Tayo into having his leg amputated. After much deliberation, this military measure would surely save Sandy’s new life. There was one irrevocable truth in their business: for people to become invisible, they had to break permanently with their old habits. A gambler must never be seen in a casino again, a musician must never pick up a guitar and a sportsman never run again. When they took on Tayo’s case they knew that he would present a particular problem. A man feted by the press as ‘Mr Ultrasonic’ would not be able to keep away from the tartan tracks of his new home in the Caribbean for long. Like a junkie with drugs, Tayo was addicted to sport. His running style was unmistakeable. Even if he were to put a stone in his shoe to slow him down, people would start talking after a few training sessions. And the whispering about the unknown thunderbolt doing his laps in the arena at night would soon reach the wrong ears.

To be absolutely certain that Tayo wouldn’t be discovered and agonisingly tortured to death, there was only one possible course of action: they had to ensure that he never ran again. Because he wasn’t able to any more.

Endless discussions ensued and Tayo kept having second thoughts right up to the operation. In the end the constant dithering had made the surgeon so mad that the tipsy hothead had gone up to deck 8½ straight afterwards where, on a dark and stormy night, from a place not monitored by the cameras, he’d tossed the amputated leg overboard. An inexcusable breach, which ought to have cost him his job, although ‘Plastic surgeon in private victim protection programme on secret in-between deck of cruise ship’ was not exactly a job that applicants were queuing up for. Yegor even put up with Konradin’s increasingly evident alcohol abuse. Besides, the surgeon hadn’t committed any other similar indiscretions. He himself had got a massive shock on his jaunt up to deck 8½ when he’d almost been spotted disposing of the leg in the Indian Ocean. By none other than Anouk Lamar, who’d taken herself there to do some drawing.