No reply. Hacker took a cautious step deeper into the chamber. He’d seen better conditions than these in the worst Third World prisons, but he felt no compunction for the man locked up inside. He felt only the same tiny tingle of fear that Boonzie McCulloch’s unseen presence somehow managed to kindle in him every time he came down here.

‘McCulloch?’

Then Hacker saw him. The prisoner was sitting quietly in a corner, back to the wall, totally immobile. Hacker moved closer, holding the lantern and the gun out in front of him, but not too close. Boonzie McCulloch’s eyes were shut and he seemed to be barely breathing, sunk into a trancelike state like a Buddhist monk deep in meditation.

Hacker said, ‘I know you can hear me, McCulloch.’

No reply. Not a flicker of movement from the prisoner.

‘I have to say, you’re a disappointment to me,’ Hacker told him. ‘I’d have expected you to cooperate with us by now. If not for your own sake, then for the sake of people you care about. I mean, that’s not just being unreasonable. It’s downright selfish.’

No response.

It was time for Hacker to spring the new plan on him.

‘Think we don’t know everything about you? You’d be wrong. We know where you live in Italy. And we know you have a wife there.’

The inert shape in the corner showed no sign of reaction.

Hacker went on, ‘We can get to her, you know. It’s just a question of sending a couple of my guys out there to pay her a little visit. And I will, if you carry on refusing to talk. Is that what you want?’

Silence.

‘Here’s how it will go,’ Hacker said. ‘First I’ll run an extension cable in here and bring down a screen. Like a tablet or a laptop. The biggest one I can find. It’ll be hooked up to a live internet feed, so that you can watch the recording of my guys going to work on your dear beloved spouse. They’ll take their time. It’ll be a long show, and we’ll get to savour every moment of it. After they’ve finished enjoying themselves in every way imaginable, they’ll torture her. Believe me, they’re experts at it. And then they’ll kill her, very very slowly indeed. I’ll rig up extra speakers down here so that you can listen to her screams, full volume.’

Still no response from McCulloch. For an unsettling moment, Hacker thought he was dead. But then thought he could hear his breathing, slow and deep. He was awake and conscious, all right. And listening to every word.