‘Yes, that has occurred to us, too,’ he said, drily. ‘It’s something else we don’t yet know. We’ll look at the airlines and the hotel and all that, but someone probably told someone they shouldn’t have. It’s usually loose lips.’

Morgan nodded.

She thought for a moment.

Then she said, ‘I’ll stop at nothing to get them back, Justin. Whatever it takes. She comes home. They all come home. Is that clear?’

‘Well, we’ll…’

‘I’m serious. Never mind the courts. Those girls are in this position because I am who I am. And there’s no point being who I am if you can’t use what little power you have.’

Nicholls nodded.

Perhaps the rules had changed.

33.

FIFTEEN HUNDRED MILES south, at 20:00hrs local time, John Carr was sitting in an interview room in the main Policía Nacional station in Marbella.

He was nursing a few bumps and bruises, and a split lip, and looking across a grey melamine table at a pair of Spanish detectives.

They’d just come back to the room after a while spent checking out his story.

Now the older of the two pushed a sweaty, Clingfilm-wrapped cheese-and-tomato roll across the table, along with a Styrofoam cup of weak Lipton’s tea, the yellow tag showing that the bag was still in it.

‘I’m formally telling you now that you are no longer a suspect,’ said the younger man, Inspector-Jefe Javier de Padilla. He spoke in Spanish, since Carr was fluent – he’d spent a lot of time in South America on Regimental operations targeted against the coke barons of Colombia and Mexico.

‘I hope you can see why we were not sure. Everyone else had run away, except for you and your son…’

He tailed off.

‘Yeah,’ said Carr. ‘Don’t worry about it.’

He’d had plenty of experience of terrorist situations, and he knew the deal: everyone’s hostile until proven otherwise.

In fact, he’d been surprised at the professionalism of the guys who had arrested him and George.

They’d got them face down in the sand, hands on heads, and then he’d felt the muzzle of his No1’s weapon pressed hard into the back of his skull, no room for ambiguity, while the No. 2 conducted a good search.

True, once he’d been cuffed they’d stuck a few punches and kicks in – a lawyer wouldn’t like it, but lawyers operated in quiet, air-conditioned rooms, not with the air filled with gunsmoke and the groans of dying, blood-spattered children.

As far as Carr was concerned, they’d shown good drills.

‘If you feel the treatment was too rough…’

‘Nah,’ he said, with a slight grin. ‘I’ve had worse off my ex-wife. Like I said, don’t worry about it. All I’m interested in is any news on my daughter.’

‘I have good news, there, Mr Carr,’ said de Padilla. ‘I just heard from the officers we sent to your villa. Both she and the other member of your party are safe and well, and at the villa.’

‘I need to go,’ said Carr, pushing back his chair. ‘She’ll be worried to death.’