Next, it was time for the nasty part. Ben had never wanted to be a dentist, and he had no real desire to start his apprenticeship now. At least the patient wouldn’t have any objection to his primitive methods. Ben yanked the dead man’s jaws apart and jammed a rock in there to wedge his mouth open while he used the hilt and blade of the stiletto to knock and pry out as many of his crooked, caried teeth as necessary to make Wolf’s spare denture fit. Alejandro would never have won any prizes for his lovely smile when he was alive, but by the time Ben had finished with him his mouth looked like a rat-hole.

‘You’re actually pretty good at that,’ Wolf commented as the last tooth came out. ‘All else fails, you could have a new career.’

Ben removed the rock wedge and stuffed the gold and titanium denture into position, then sat back to assess his handiwork. Not exactly a tailor-made fit, but a definite improvement over Alejandro’s originals. Feeling faintly nauseous he wiped the blood and saliva off his hands and the knife. Wolf said, ‘I have some spare clothing in my bag, if you want to dress him up as me.’

‘Won’t be necessary,’ Ben replied. ‘Their vehicle’s parked down below. Help me get him down there.’

Chapter 21

They humped the body down the rocky slope by the armpits and ankles, Wolf carrying his holdall over his shoulder. As Ben had expected, the crapped-out old Peugeot J7 van was still parked in the same moonlit spot. ‘You want him inside or outside?’ Wolf asked as they lugged the corpse up to the vehicle.

‘Stick him behind the wheel,’ Ben said. ‘Like you were trying to get away when I shot you.’

‘Works for me.’

They opened the driver’s door and hoisted Alejandro’s dead weight halfway in, then Ben clambered in the passenger side and dragged him the rest of the way, turned him upright and propped him behind the wheel. Once the body was in position, Ben got out and walked around the side of the vehicle to where the fuel filler cap was situated above the rear wheel. He unscrewed the cap and sniffed. A lot of these old commercial vehicles had been made with petrol engines, instead of diesel. So had this one. Perfect. Because diesel was much harder to ignite.