He got out, opened the rear doors of the van and gestured to a small passage where stone steps led up to a gate of iron bars. A woman was unlocking the gate. Lona.

‘Buona sera,’ Lona said. ‘Welcome to Positano!’

Silva nodded. She understood what was going on here. No point in trying to be clandestine in a tiny seaside town packed with tourists. Best to hide in plain sight. She smiled and moved forward to greet Lona, hugging her and hoping her mannerisms didn’t seem too awkward. Lona acted like a welcoming hostess, dropping little phrases for any neighbours who might be eavesdropping, and then they all mucked in to carry the luggage up the steps and inside to a small courtyard.

Once they’d unloaded, Gavin disappeared to park the van while Lona showed them into the house. The interior was a succession of little rooms jigsawed into three storeys. The only room of decent size was on the top floor, a large living area with a balcony that looked out across the bay.

‘You’ll set up here,’ Lona said. The friendly facade had gone, replaced by a cold professionalism. ‘Perfect, right?’

Silva strode across the room. The doors to the balcony were open and she stepped out. Their position was on the east side of Positano and the town was a maze of little streets off to the right, houses jumbled everywhere. She tried to recall the location of Brandon Hope’s villa, but she couldn’t make it out.

‘It’s there.’ Lona was beside her. She pointed. ‘The far side of the town, the third house down from where the road curves away from the bay. You’ll need optics to see it properly.’

Silva shielded her eyes from the glare of the low evening sun. The distance didn’t seem any less now she was looking for real and not merely at a map. In fact, all of a sudden, the shot appeared almost impossible to pull off.

‘Easy.’ A hand rested on her shoulder. Itchy. He gestured back into the room. ‘We’ll set up well inside. In the dark, nobody will be able to see in.’

‘It’s the dark I’m worried about,’ Silva said. ‘We’ll have trouble picking out the villa.’

‘Nonsense. I’ll spot it up with the scope while it’s light and get the exact bearing and elevation using the range finder and GPS. We just dial that in and bingo!’

Bingo.

Silva liked Itchy’s confidence. In Afghanistan he’d been the same. Nothing was impossible, no problem couldn’t be broken down into its basic elements, each then approached and dealt with.

‘It’s cos I’m not clever,’ he’d once said to her. ‘Not like you. I need to work at stuff. One and one is two. Two and two is five.’

One and one…