‘Wait a minute.’ Martin ran his hand across his shaved head, on which a wafer-thin fuzz had grown in the last few days. ‘Does that mean there’s a serial offender targeting women?’

‘No idea. That’s something you’ve got to find out. I don’t have time to play Miss Marple for you. Now I’ve got to follow another trail.’

‘What trail?’

‘The fragrant trail of my girlfriend who’s just got back from work.’

‘Love to Ira,’ Martin said before severing the Skype connection.

*

He was wondering whether to pay a final visit to Anouk and Elena before retiring to his cabin when he heard a crack behind him and at the same time felt a painful stab in his side.

Martin was about to grab his hip, astonished that such a large insect could have stung him so far from the coast, and through a leather jacket too, when he found himself on the ground, unable to do anything but watch his feet hammering convulsively against the planks of the deck. Meanwhile it felt as if molten lava were being channelled into his body through the puncture site. Thinking he was burning internally, Martin wanted to scream, but this was rendered impossible by the darkness that suddenly surrounded his head. An elastic darkness that tasted of plastic, which flapped into his mouth when he tried to breathe in air.

Now Martin felt something beneath his arms wrenching him back to his feet. The attacker must have immobilised him with a taser, before shoving a bag over his head. Nothing else could be responsible for the situation he was in.

Martin felt his head crash against something hard, he heard himself retch, thought of Anouk and her toy computer, on which he would have now written ‘HELP’, in capitals and double underlined. Paradoxically the taste of spaghetti carbonara, Timmy’s favourite meal, was on his tongue and the smell of burned plastic in his nose; his eyes were streaming and he was thrashing around like a madman, but unfortunately without any control, and feebly.

All of a sudden something pressed against his stomach that felt like a rod.

The first wave of pain from the electrical charge subsided, which is why Martin realised his feet were losing contact with the ground.

The pressure of the rod against his stomach became more intense when he staggered forwards.

He heard someone cough and thought it was himself to begin with, but that was impossible.

I’ve got my mouth full of bag.

His arms began to tingle, as if they’d been in the freezer and were now gradually thawing. As Martin tried to tear the plastic from his head his hands hit the object pressing into his stomach, and at that very moment he understood what was happening to him.

The parapet! he yelled inside his head. All his mouth could do was force out an agonised grunt.

I’m hanging over the parapet!