Carr grinned at her, and then she was gone.

He looked at his watch.

One o’clock.

God, he was bored.

Sitting here, slowly chargrilling himself to death, in the heat of a Spanish midday in early August.

Christ, the heat.

Unlike many Scots, he was dark-haired and he tanned easily. Added to which, he’d spent enough time in hot, sandy places – carrying a rifle, 100lbs of kit and ammo in his webbing and bergen, and wearing a lot more than a pair of shorts – to have got used to it.

But somehow Afghan heat, Iraqi heat, African heat, didn’t feel so bad.

He grinned to himself: maybe it was the rounds cracking off past your swede. That had a funny way of putting things like the ambient temperature into context.

The two pretty Spanish girls got up and wiggled and jiggled off down to the water, giggling as they went.

Carr risked a quick glance.

Caught George’s eye.

‘You sad bastard,’ said his son, with a grin and a shake of his head. ‘You sad, sad bastard.’

8.

SIXTY KILOMETRES NORTH-EAST, the MS Windsor Castle sat at anchor on Pier 1 of Málaga’s Eastern dock.

On the bridge, the captain – an Italian, Carlo Abandonato – sipped his coffee and studied the latest weather reports.

In a few hours, they would be underway again, heading up and through the Strait of Gibraltar, three days out from Southampton on the final leg of the cruise.

The Strait could be a tricky little stretch, even for a ship such as the Windsor Castle, which – while not in the front rank of such vessels – was relatively modern and well-equipped.

The convergence of the roiling Atlantic with the almost tideless Mediterranean, in that narrow channel where Africa stared down Europe, created strange and unpredictable currents, and local weather conditions could make that much worse.

The cold Mistral, blowing down from the Rhone Alps, could quickly turn a warm summer’s day such as this a bitter, wintry grey, and when the Levanter blew across from the Balearics it often brought with it a sudden summer fog.

Worst of all was the Sirocco, which whipped up heavy seas and hurled sand from the distant Sahara at you in a blinding fury.

But today the water was duckpond flat, the wind no more than a warm breath, and the radar was set fair for the next few days.

Good news for Captain Abandonato, good news for the crew, and good news for the five hundred passengers who were currently drinking, eating, and sunbathing on the six decks behind and beneath him, or enjoying lunch ashore in one of Málaga’s many excellent restaurants.

He was looking forward to getting to Southampton; from there he would head up to Heathrow to fly home on leave to Civitavecchia.

His wife was expecting their second child – a son, the doctors had said – and was due to give birth the day after he arrived home.

Abandonato had booked a whole month off to spend time with Maria and their children.