Paradoxically, both of them looked like friendly chaps. Colleagues smiling in travel brochures with their smooth, tanned skin, freshly shaven faces and clean fingernails. The worker had a broad pout which softened his harsh features, whereas it was the officer’s mischievously tousled blond hair that made him look like a Californian surfer rather than a thug.

It’s easy to be fooled.

‘I hear you’ve been spending quite a bit of time in Hell’s Kitchen recently,’ the officer said, gesturing with his finger to the worker, who put the chambermaid in an armlock.

‘Is there anything down there I ought to know about?’

The hunched woman shook her head, frightened.

The officer bent his knees to bring him eye-to-eye with the chambermaid again.

‘Really? So you’re playing the innocent, are you, whore?’ From close up he spat in her face.

‘She’s lying,’ the taller man declared, pushing her arm further upwards, which elicited a howl of pain.

Like the officer, the worker spoke with a strong German, Swiss or Dutch accent. Tiago found it difficult to place the two men with geographical accuracy. In a similar way the chambermaid, with her dark, cinnamon-coloured skin, could be from Pakistan, India, Bangladesh or somewhere else.

‘Are you taking the piss, Shahla?’ the officer asked.

The young woman shook her head without wiping away the spittle running down her cheek.

‘You’re assigned to deck 7. This week you shouldn’t be cleaning in the staff area at all.’

‘Was changed. Not know why,’ she stammered.

‘The rumours suggest something different. The rumours suggest you’re looking after a stowaway in Hell’s Kitchen.’

She opened her eyes even wider. ‘No!’

Something she ought not to have said. The officer’s fist buried itself in her stomach.

The noises Shahla made sounded as if something far too big was trying to battle its way out from right inside her, while at the same time she tried to avoid any jerky movements which might put her shoulder out.

Dios mío, what am I doing? wondered Tiago, who was scarcely better equipped than the battered chambermaid to take on the two clearly experienced fighters.

He watched in horror as the officer reached for the water glass on the bedside table and smashed it on the edge. With a devilish smile he picked out a piece the size of a bottle top from the shards. Then he walked past Shahla and his accomplice into the bathroom, returning soon afterwards with a dressing gown belt.

‘Open up!’ he shouted at the chambermaid, who could do nothing but obey him, because the worker behind her increased the pressure on her shoulder joint further. The officer shoved the shard of glass in the mouth she’d opened to scream. Shahla’s expression was contorted with terror, but she stayed as calm as she could with a half-dislocated shoulder.