The redhead laughed and shook her head. ‘Can you believe this guy?’

They reached the park’s far side. Eddie checked the street for potential threats, seeing none. ‘Which way?’ Krämer gestured left. ‘Seeing as we just saved your life,’ the Yorkshireman went on as he led the way, ‘I think we should charge you a rescue fee. Something in the region of, I dunno, fifty thousand euros?’

Krämer was not amused. ‘I was almost killed because of the key! I need money to get out of here safely. They could be waiting in my flat.’

‘If we’re talking money, that’s up to Cheng.’ Nina looked back at the young Chinese. ‘How are you doing?’

He was still breathing heavily from the exertion – and fear – of the escape. ‘I’m okay. But those men tried to kill us! And you and Mr Chase both seem so . . . unconcerned!’

‘Oh, I’m very concerned, trust me,’ Nina replied. ‘But this is the kind of crap I didn’t write about in my books. If I had, they’d be six hundred pages long, because it happened all the goddamn time!’

Krämer directed them right. Music from bars along the new street reached them. Nina turned back to the German. ‘So, somebody wants the key badly enough to try to kill us. If you want to get out of here, now might be a good time to tell us more about it. Like exactly how you got hold of it, and from whom.’

He nodded reluctantly. ‘I was on a ship called the Fortune Mist. We heard a distress call – this was four months ago – from another ship, the Dionysius. We did not find it, but we rescued the crazy man. His name is Wim Stapper. He is Dutch; he is now in the Henkeman hospital outside Rotterdam.’

Nina made mental notes of the names. ‘And he had the key?’

‘Yes. He was holding it to himself like it was the most important thing in the world.’

‘And you stole it from him.’

‘Yes, yes, I did,’ he snapped in irritation. ‘And look where that has got me!’

They reached a busy, noisy square. Eddie again checked for danger, then angled across it. ‘So did this Stapper say anything else about the key?’ Nina asked.

‘He said . . . one of his friends, I forget the name, woke the demon,’ Krämer said, following. ‘It killed everyone else. It wanted the key, but Stapper got away with it.’

‘Did he describe this demon?’

‘No. He only said it was in the ice, and there were more of them. The key would wake them somehow. The only other thing he said,’ the German went on ominously, ‘was that if the demons woke up . . . they would kill us all.’

‘Yeah, that’s reassuring,’ said Eddie. ‘After everything else we’ve been through, now Beelzebub’s got a devil put aside for me?’