“Yes, a braggart.” She made a motion with her thumb and fingers, suggesting someone talking. “His favourite subject was himself, and how much money he was going to make us. Blah blah blah. He was a very boring man.”

“Was?” Milton said.

She looked at del Pozo. “You did not tell him?”

“No,” he said.

“Señor Jackson was found dead in his cell this morning,” she said. She clenched her fist, raised it to her throat and jerked it upwards. “The sheets. He made a lazo. How do you say?”

“A noose,” Milton finished.

“Yes, a noose. The guards found him. They will say that he did it himself, but he didn’t. We have friends everywhere. They can make problems like this go away.” She clicked her fingers by way of emphasis.

Milton had no doubt that Jackson had been murdered. She had no reason to lie. He knew that she had told him this to underline the gravity of his proposed business, and what would happen in the event that they decided that he was a liability. The cartel had a long reach; eliminating someone in a prison cell on the other side of the world was clearly not a problem for them.

Del Pozo took another step into the hut and leaned back against the wall. He was ten feet away from Milton; close enough for him to get up and get over to him before he would be able to draw his weapon. Milton would fire out a right-hand punch to stun him, then reach down for the weapon with his left. How long would that take? Ten seconds? Less. He rearranged himself so that he was sitting on his crossed right leg, which would allow him to move quickly.

“Jackson was a fanfarrón, yet he did make us a lot of money. I can put up with irritation if a person is valuable, and he was. You can imagine how concerned we were to find out that he had found himself in trouble with the police.”

“Of course,” Milton said. “But, as I’ve explained to Señor del Pozo, I had nothing to do with that.”

She smiled sweetly. “It was just a harmless coincidence?”

“I don’t know,” Milton said.

The atmosphere was beginning to concern him. He had hoped that the interrogation into his bona fides was over. Would they have brought him all the way out here—flown him from Medellín and driven him into the jungle—if they still harboured doubt that he wasn’t who he said he was, or that his denials over Jackson’s arrest were lies? Wouldn’t they have killed him at the casa? They surely would. This was just another check, he told himself. Just a little added turbulence before he got to where he needed to be.