Five minutes ago he’d still been a small-time crook, carving out an easy life for himself with a little charm and a few tricks. Now he was fleeing two madmen who shoved broken glass into their victims’ mouths and had no scruples about watching them choke to death. Men who’d threatened to kill him because he’d witnessed an attempted blackmail he didn’t understand, during the course of which he’d learned a secret that made no sense at all.

Tiago leaned against the rail and stared at the choppy sea deep below. Dark clouds were gathering, which at that moment seemed like a grim omen.

So what am I going to do now?

Feverishly he weighed up how he was going to hide on board from the two men for the next five days. He didn’t even know who they were. Where they worked. And in which part of the ship they had their refuge, where they were deliberating how to get rid of him most easily.

For whatever reason.

Tiago was sure the officer would be able to work out his identity as soon as he took the time to trawl through the ship’s computer. Every guest was noted on the passenger list, complete with photo, and the number of young, dark-haired Latinos under the age of thirty on this leg of the trip must be quite small. Feeling his trousers for his key card, unsure when he could dare return to his cabin, he came across an unexpected item in his back pocket.

The envelope.

From the safe. From Lisa Stiller.

In the rush Tiago had stuffed it into his pocket without noticing.

23

This time it had taken more than an hour, two aspirins and three ibuprofen before the attack was over.

Martin sensed that a residue of pain still lingered in his head, like a heap of smouldering embers just waiting to flare up again. The skin over his skull felt taut, as if he’d had sunburn, and his mouth was dry.

Bloody pills.

He was just crossing the Grand Lobby when he realised that it was his mobile that had been ringing so insistently the whole time. His standard ringtone was a guitar riff, which is why he hadn’t responded to the futuristic plinking and bleeping coming from his trouser pocket. Here out in the Atlantic, hundreds of nautical miles from the coast of Europe, the mobile network was currently unavailable; someone was evidently trying to phone him via the internet.

He stopped beside the glass lifts at the edge of the circular lobby adorned with columns, and looked at his phone. Indeed. A Skype call.

The display showed the photo of Saddam Hussein and so it wasn’t hard for Martin to identify the caller. He knew only one person who found the weekly changing photos of dictators in his contact profile funny.

He answered the call with the words, ‘I can’t at the moment.’