Eddie and Nina bustled their charges through the exit. They hurried across the lobby and out into the Große Freiheit. The street was busier than when they had arrived. ‘You see any cops?’ Nina asked.

‘Nope,’ Eddie replied. He gestured towards the Reeperbahn. ‘Police station’s that way.’ He started into the crowd, the others in his wake.

Shouts and screams sounded from the theatre. ‘They’re coming!’ cried Cheng.

Krämer grimaced. ‘I – I cannot go faster. My leg!’

‘You could hide and we’ll take the key,’ Nina suggested.

A humourless laugh. ‘Do you think I am stupid?’

‘Amongst other things, yeah! Looks like your other buyers decided to save themselves fifty thousand euros.’

‘I do not know who they are,’ Krämer protested as he hobbled behind Eddie. ‘I lied to you – there are no other—’

The Yorkshireman suddenly slowed, the sailor almost stumbling into him. Several groups of drunken young men had converged on the same stretch of street, bringing movement to a crawl. ‘Buggeration and fuckery! There’s ten stag parties going on at the same time.’ He searched for a quick route through the throng, found none, then simply barged into the crush.

The reaction was predictably hostile. Neither he nor Nina needed fluency in German to understand the insults flung in their wake. But more angry shouts rose along the Große Freiheit behind them – rapidly getting closer.

Their pursuers were catching up.

Eddie went faster, shoving people aside. A youth in a football shirt screamed slurred abuse after him, his similarly attired friends joining in – then Cheng yelled in shock as one yob knocked him to the ground. ‘Hey!’ Nina roared into the attacker’s face as she interceded, reasoning – hoping – that he wouldn’t hit a woman. ‘Back off!’

She grabbed the shaken Cheng’s arm and helped him up, pushing him onwards, only for him to stumble into one of several men with identical cropped haircuts. ‘Hoy!’ barked the offended party. ‘Verpiss dich, du Arschloch!’

Eddie heard the commotion and stopped, turning to see Nina and Cheng between the two angry groups – and coming up fast behind them, a flash of blond hair amidst people being body-slammed out of the way. They were about to be caught in the middle of a fight—

He started it early.

Eddie delivered a brutal punch to one of the bellowing football fans, slamming him into his fellows, then whirled to drive an elbow into the back of someone whom he guessed from the haircut was a German sailor. The man reeled into a shipmate and knocked him down. A split second of stunned silence . . .

Then all hell broke loose.

Nina shrieked, hauling Cheng with her as the two drunken sides launched at each other, unsure who had started the trouble and not especially caring. Eddie had already pushed on, deliberately bowling a member of a stag party into the expanding brawl as he went. ‘Move!’ he yelled to Krämer.