Ed had scrambled onto the boat, half-pushing it round in the rush before Hessa rammed the outboard motor to its full speed, the little boat juddering away over the waves, painfully slowly.

‘Never again,’ Casey’s voice came out of the night.

‘You always say that,’ said Hessa.

Closer to the shore, Hessa could see a boat cruising to and fro. They had a huge spotlight hooked up to the bow, searing back and forth across the waves. There would probably be men waiting back at the pier, too. Veering from the beam of the spotlight, Hessa turned the little fishing boat further out to sea and headed south. Down this way, several huge ships lay anchored far out in the ocean, slowly swinging round with the currents. They were waiting for the highest tides, when they too would be rammed up onto the Bhatiari flats.

Other ships – newer vessels – were waiting to sail into the port of Chittagong. As she steered, Hessa kept a wary eye on the vast ships, in case the monsters started to move. She caught Romida’s eye, and smiled.

Slowly, the fishing boat made its way down the shoreline. Eastward, the lights of Chittagong glowed orange.

Finally, as the sky began to lighten, Hessa steered closer to the shore. At last, she saw what she was looking for. Patenga beach, just south of Chittagong, close to where the sweep of the Karnaphuli river meets the sea.

It was a broad, ugly beach. Busy, even at this time of the day, with bright plastic chairs and pushy hustlers. Huge planes from the Shah Amanat airport roared past every few minutes. As Hessa grounded the little boat on the dirty sand, two boys on skinny horses cantered up.

‘You ride?’

‘Not now,’ Hessa smiled.

They hurried up the beach, leaving the boat bobbing in the shallows. The boys on the horses would make the dinghy theirs within minutes.

They fell into two taxis, which crawled through traffic back to the hotel. Dropping with exhaustion, they stumbled into the hotel. As they banged on the hotel room door, it swung open as if the occupant had been waiting just the other side. And there was Miranda, gripping the baby with one arm, mobile phone in her hand.

‘Thank God,’ she said.

The three girls from the Tephi stood awkwardly just inside the hotel room as Casey told Miranda about the Beauvallet in half-sentences.

‘You stink,’ Miranda observed helpfully, at the end.

‘Did the girls from the building get to the safe house OK?’

‘Yes,’ said Miranda. ‘Despite my driving. I dropped off Layla too, and Savannah went over as soon as she’d handed over Poppy.’

Savannah had stayed in the hotel room with the tiny baby all night. ‘I miss all the fun,’ she had grumbled as they set off to the pier. ‘But I wouldn’t sleep anyway, waiting for you to get back.’

‘Oh, thank God,’ said Casey, feeling a flood of relief.