Carter flicked his head from side to side as if more mystery men might have come in behind them. ‘Who the fuck are you?’

‘I’ve just got in from Houston. I stopped by the Tijuana Motel on my way out of there.’

Carter blinked but that was all.

‘And do you know what I saw there?’

He wagged a finger at Tom. ‘Now let’s get something clear here. I’m a special agent of—’

‘Yeah, yeah. And Beth Adams’s CA.’

His forehead creased into a frown. ‘Wait – are you Buckingham, the SAS guy?’

Tom didn’t answer, which Carter took as a ‘yes’. Relief spread over his face. ‘Ah, okay, so, yeah, it’s a kinda complex situation we have here. Beth’s not been in a good way for a while. It started with the coke – as you probably know. And, basically, she went rogue on us.’

He shook his head in mock-regret. Tom sat on the coffee-table opposite him, keeping close, while Carter improvised a few more details. ‘We kinda had to rein her in and she couldn’t take it. If you knew about her habit, she was on notice . . .’

Tom remained impassive.

‘. . . and it all got too much for her. It’s really very sad.’ He looked up at Tom, seeking some sort of acknowledgement.

‘What? Oh, I get it. You actually think I believe this bollocks? This pack of fucking lies? My God, where do they find you people?’

At this conclusive evidence that his performance had not won an Oscar and sent the gullible Brit obligingly on his way, Carter’s indignation got the better of him. ‘Now, I don’t know who you’ve been talking to, fella, but you’re a foreign national and this is US-government business. You need to understand—’

‘What I understand is that she died between ten and twelve this morning in room forty-five at the Tijuana Motel.’

At the revelation that Tom knew something – anything – a look of panic crossed Carter’s face. ‘Well, I don’t have any of that exact detail.’

‘Supposedly of an overdose.’

Though his ordeal was far from over, Carter clung to this apparent concession on Tom’s part. ‘Yeah, that’s what I’m saying.’

‘Except she couldn’t have. Ask me how I know that.’ He shoved the weapon closer.

Carter looked profoundly uncomfortable. Clearly he hadn’t been briefed on this eventuality.

‘How do you know that?’

‘There was blood on the pillow from where she was smothered when the “overdose” didn’t work. Where I come from we have a word for that.’

Carter glanced up at him, and this time Tom detected a flicker of guilt pass across his features.

‘We call it careless.’ Tom whacked him across the head, not enough to knock him out but enough to quench, at least temporarily, his desire to rip the man’s head off and shoot several rounds down his neck.