Ben co-ran the tactical training facility with his business partner and close friend Jeff Dekker. Jeff’s career had followed a parallel course to Ben’s, serving for years in the Navy’s Special Boat Service. Along with ex-soldier Tuesday Fletcher and the rest of their team they were kept busy by all the military, police and private close protection personnel who travelled to their quiet corner of rural Normandy from all over the world to hone their skills and learn from the best.

Ben finished his run and returned to where he’d parked his new car among the dunes on the approach to the beach. It was the latest in a line of BMW Alpina high-performance sedans, dark metallic blue. As much as he favoured the marque, he seemed to keep trashing them. The last one had been shot to pieces in a gun battle outside Alençon, a few months earlier. He blipped the locks open as he trudged up the loose sand. His body felt loose and pumped. Ten hard miles, and he was barely out of breath. Not too shabby. The dog was more tired than he was.

Ben dumped his bergen in the back of the Alpina, drank half a litre of bottled spring water, then changed out of his sandy running shoes. As he was getting ready to head back to Le Val he saw that he had a new voicemail message waiting for him on his phone.

It was from Jeff. He didn’t sound very happy, but that was no surprise since he’d fractured a bone in his wrist during a training exercise two weeks earlier, and was currently confined to desk duties with a cast and sling. Yet Ben could tell instantly from his tone that something else was wrong. Jeff sounded uncharacteristically worried. All he said was, ‘Call me back soon as.’

Ben did, right away. ‘Got your message. What’s up?’

‘Boonzie’s wife called the office number just now.’

‘Mirella?’

‘Yeah. Tuesday got the call and passed it on to me. There’s some kind of problem. She seemed pretty upset.’

‘Did she say what kind of problem?’

‘No, she wanted to speak to you about it. I think you’d better talk to her, mate. It sounds serious.’

It made sense to Ben that Mirella would rather talk to him, since Jeff didn’t know Ben’s old comrade Boonzie and his Italian wife as well as Ben did. But it didn’t make sense to Ben that it was Mirella, rather than Boonzie himself, who’d called. Something was obviously wrong.