I struggled like a wildcat, kicking and biting and screaming at the top of my lungs but it was pointless. They were big heavy men with close-cropped heads and no interest in me except as a package to deliver. As they hauled me along a short jetty I realised I was right. It was a shoreline. Through the driving rain I saw the yawning blackness of the sea and could make out off to my left the flickering lights of a fishing village. It had to be Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, where the Camargue meets the Mediterranean.

I was dragged aboard a motor boat and dumped on its slippery wet deck, sobbing and soaked, a male hand knotted into my hair to stop me jumping overboard. The engine started up and I could feel fear wrap itself around my spine as we slid out into the darkness.

CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

I was tipped down the companionway. No ceremony. No consideration for broken bones. I caught my nose on the way down as I tumbled into the saloon, but at least I could stand on my own two feet now without being shaken like a ragdoll. I braced myself against the roll of the boat.

Do you know what it’s like when the worst that can happen finally happens? The relief it brings is enormous. Because you no longer have to carry the weight of fear. That’s what I experienced now as I hit the floor in the saloon, the freedom that comes with having nothing to lose. The pounding in my head ceased and somewhere deep inside me strings were being cut that had tied me in knots.

‘Hello, André,’ I said.

‘Eloïse!’

‘You’re not looking so good.’ I smiled to show him I’d reached that point of freedom.

The boat’s saloon was all highly varnished wood and gleaming brass with red velvet benches on which sat three other people. Only one I didn’t know, and I think I can safely call him a heavy. Another big man, wearing a black waistcoat with silver buttons and a tattoo on the side of his neck. Russian, I’m guessing. He carried a gun in his hand.

On the other bench sat André and Joel Dirke. The difference between them was that whereas Joel was wearing a smart uniform, drinking out of a bottle of beer, and had a face unmarked by anything more than a few raindrops, André’s face bore signs of his recent struggles. Cuts and bruises marked his skin, and his hands were bound tightly together at the wrist. Worse, his wrists were attached by rope to a concrete block between his feet, the rope looped around a metal staple in the block. It was not hard to guess its purpose. Big enough to drag him to the seabed. I was certain I’d have one of my own very soon.