‘You’re not having second thoughts?’ Lona had picked up on Silva’s misgivings. ‘About killing Hope?’

‘She murdered my mother.’ Silva could see the villa now. The house clung to the cliffs on the far side of town, facing the sea. The angle was acute and at this distance – around three quarters of a mile – there was only a speck of green wall and a smudge of terracotta roof. ‘I just want to make sure we do this right.’

‘Good.’ Lona turned and left the room.

‘I’m thinking ditto,’ Itchy said. ‘About the second thoughts. You still good to go?’

‘Yes. Like I said to Lona, she killed my mother. It’s just…’

‘It’s not like picking off random Taliban fighters? They’re nameless, brutal killers. If we don’t slot them they slot one of our mates or plant an IED and a British soldier goes back home to his wife and kiddies with no arms and legs. You want to take it to its logical conclusion, Hope’s no different. Worse, in fact. The people she had killed were innocent non-combatants.’

‘You’re right.’ Silva turned away from the vista and smiled at Itchy. ‘We’ve gone over this before. I’ll shut up before you think I’ve gone soft in the head.’

‘I’ll admit for a minute I was worried about my twenty-five K.’

‘Well, then,’ Silva gestured back outside. ‘We’d better start doing some two plus twos while we can still see.’

On Thursday Holm and Javed took a flight to Schiphol, touching down a little after four p.m. local time. The inside of the airport was cavernous and sterile and the Avis desk could have been anywhere in the world. The assistant spoke impeccable English and had impeccable make-up, teeth and manners. The car was an equally perfect Audi A4 in bright red with virtually nothing on the clock. Holm had to concede Javed had done well with the model, but he wasn’t so keen on the colour.

‘If we’re following a lorry, don’t you think the driver’s going to spot us in the mirrors?’

Javed shrugged. He’d had a word with the woman at the desk and it was the A4 or a white, bottom-of-the-range Micra.

‘Never mind. Let’s get going.’

They headed south for Rotterdam, but there wasn’t much to look at. The countryside was flat and boring and half of it seemed to be covered with tarmac. Despite the highway system, or perhaps because of it, the traffic was appalling and they arrived at the port one and a half hours after they’d left the airport.

They drove in beside a railway line, beyond which lay stacks of containers. The quayside was over a mile and a half long and several huge ships were berthed against it, cranes moving back and forth, loading and unloading containers.