He was looking forward to it so much it hurt.

It was always a wrench to leave, but at least it paid the bills: Maria was under an excellent but cripplingly expensive obstetrician, they were looking to move to a bigger house inland, near the lake at Bracciano, and their daughter was down for one of Roma’s best private nursery schools.

Such things did not come cheap.

He finished his coffee and looked at his watch.

Shortly after 13:00hrs.

He turned to his Norwegian staff captain, the second-in-command and the man who really drove the boat.

‘I’m going to freshen up and then have a walk round and see how the passengers are, Nils,’ he said. ‘Let’s have dinner together later?’

‘Sure,’ said Nils.

Abandonato pulled on his cap, straightened the epaulettes on his crisp, white shirt, and left the bridge.

9.

A GUY WITH dark eyes came out of nowhere and walked in front of John Carr.

There he stopped, temporarily blocking Carr’s view of the sea.

Flip-flops in hand, white three-quarter length linen trousers, billowing ivory shirt.

Flashy gold watch, which stood out on his tanned wrist.

Another Eurotrash millionaire, thought Carr.

The place was crawling with them.

Carr thought at first that the guy was staring at him, and Carr didn’t like being stared at, but then he realised that the man’s eyes had swept on, and that he was looking past him at another bunch of people.

Five seconds he stared, and then he carried on walking.

At which point Carr looked closer, his eye drawn by the guy’s odd, limping gait, and the deep scar on his right calf, where something had taken a big bite out of the muscle.

It looked to Carr like shrapnel damage, something he’d seen plenty of.

As the guy moved away, almost unconsciously, from force of habit, Carr stored his image in the vast filing cabinet in his head.

Longish black hair, wavy and greasy, held back by a pair of Oakleys pushed up on his forehead.

Dark eyes.

Kind of a cruel mouth.

Lopsided walk.

And that big, pink hole in his right leg.

Once inside Carr’s head it would never leave. He had an uncanny knack for remembering stuff like this – the skill had been honed during his near-two decades in the Special Air Service, and it had often proved invaluable on ops.

He looked over his right shoulder at the group the guy had been eyeballing.

Four young couples were in the process of laying out their towels, paperbacks, and iPads.

Their pale skin, Boden and Crew kit and beach cricket gear, would have marked them out as members of the British middle class, even if their accents had not confirmed it.

‘For goodness’ sake, Jemima,’ one of the young men was saying, ‘I thought you were bringing the Kindle.’

‘Oh piss off, Thomas,’ said Jemima. ‘You’re really getting on my nerves today.’

‘Yeah, Tom,’ said one of the others, good-naturedly. ‘Take a day off, why don’t you? What are you reading, anyway? Fifty Shades of Grey?’ There was a ripple of mocking laughter and jeers. ‘Right, who’s coming in?’