‘I’ve spoken to them myself,’ said Palmer. ‘They’re a hundred per cent certain. Meat is meat. No meat, no bodies.’

Meat is meat.

Justin Nicholls winced, Charlotte Morgan’s face entering his mind.

‘How did they get off?’

‘The Spanish are working on that,’ said Palmer. ‘The target boat might have slowed for a few seconds and…’

‘A sea transfer?’

‘Looks that way.’

Nicholls nodded. ‘Okay. Let me know immediately if there’s any developments, Alec.’

‘Of course.’

Nicholls ended the call.

‘Mr Nicholls?’ said a waiting aide. ‘If you’d like to follow me?’

She took him down through the back of the house and outside to the garden.

On the other side of the large, bowling green lawn, on a wooden bench pressed against the tall, brick wall, and under the shade of a large buddleia alive with butterflies, sat the Prime Minister, Penelope Morgan.

She was ashen-faced but holding it together.

She always had been a tough cookie, Nicholls thought.

Next to her was Sir Peter Smith, the grey-haired Cabinet Secretary.

Smith stood up and pulled a garden chair out and round in front of the bench.

The two men shook hands, Justin leaned down and kissed Penelope on the cheek, and then he and Smith sat down.

‘Is she dead, Justin?’ said Penelope.

‘No,’ said Nicholls.

‘How do you know? The boat… On the beach at Ceuta… ’

‘I’ve just had word. The Spanish say there was only one terrorist left on board when it went ashore, and he got off just before it went up.’

‘How can they be sure?’

‘Trust me,’ said Nicholls. ‘They’re sure.’

‘It was all about her, wasn’t it?’ said the Prime Minister.

‘It does look that way,’ said Nicholls, gravely. ‘The cruise liner at Málaga seems to have been a diversion. The main target was the beach at Puerto Banús.’

‘You mean Charlie was the main target?’

‘Yes,’ said Nicholls. ‘She and two of her friends were taken aboard a yacht – some sort of super-fast, millionaire’s plaything which had been stolen and the owner killed. The Spanish eventually got a chopper next to it and followed it all the way to Ceuta, where, as you know…’

Sir Peter Smith cleared his throat. ‘So if Charlotte and her friends were on the boat when it left Marbella, but not on the boat when it exploded, how did they get off?’

‘They must have had another boat waiting somewhere. You slow down, push them off into the water, and then haul them into the new boat… Not pleasant, but perfectly survivable. Clever, really.’

‘So where is she now?’ said Penelope Morgan.

Nicholls shrugged apologetically. ‘I assume they landed somewhere on the North African coast. We’re working on it.’

‘No word from the… from the men who took her?’

‘Not yet. But that’s the one thing to hold on to. Look, Penny, there’s no point in kidnapping the daughter of the British Prime Minister just to kill her.’

‘What happened to Eddie?’ said Penelope Morgan.