‘If we tell her we’re after Taher then I’ll be drawing my pension next week and you’ll be issuing parking tickets around Westminster.’ Holm put a finger to his lips. ‘No, we keep this quiet. Hush-hush. Stick to the guff about old Nazi uniforms and moth-eaten swastikas. That’s what we’re after. I can see our colleagues in the canteen coming up with a few jokes at our expense, but the last laugh will be on us.’

Javed turned back to his screen without saying anything and Holm wondered if the young man believed a word of it. He wasn’t too sure himself.

Chapter Nineteen

Fairchild and Lona left the next morning. Lona was taking Fairchild to the airport before going to Positano to make preparations. Silva and Itchy continued to practise for the rest of the week, and late on the afternoon of the fourteenth of August they piled the equipment into the van. Gavin drove and they wound their way out of the mountains and headed for the town of Salerno. From there they followed the road along the Amalfi Coast. The route hugged the coastline, winding back and forth along steep hillsides which plunged to the sea. Houses clung to cliffs or sat on rocky outcrops, and hotels loomed precipitously above stone walls and wire netting that held back crumbling buttresses. The effect was haphazard, but the vista was undeniably beautiful.

‘Beats rainy Plymouth,’ Itchy said as they crawled along in a queue of tourist traffic. ‘Just about the only thing the same are the boats.’

Itchy was right. Yachts and motor boats dotted the sea along with numerous sightseeing craft. Huge gin palaces cruised past, tanned beauties of both sexes splayed out on the foredecks. Silva thought of the Hope family and their wealth. She glanced at her watch. By her reckoning, Karen Hope had less than thirty hours left to live.

She closed her eyes. Swallowed back a feeling of nausea. Thought, oddly, of Sean. She remembered him being in awe of Hope, beguiled, enchanted. What would he say if he knew what Silva was about to do? She doubted he’d understand her motivation or be in any way sympathetic. Perhaps that lay at the root of the problems between them. Extraordinary circumstances had thrown them together but were they really suited? She wasn’t sure and now, with what was about to happen, she wondered if she’d ever get to find out.

A little while later they came to the outskirts of Positano. The view was breathtaking. A succession of white buildings cascaded down to the sea where several superyachts lay at anchor. Beyond, individual dwellings sat on slopes that looked inaccessible to anything but a goat.

Gavin pulled to the right and stopped. There was no room for following cars to pass and almost immediately a horn blared.

‘Let’s go,’ he said. ‘Everything up there.’