‘Geoffreys doesn’t have a clue,’ Leni said. ‘Doesn’t even know we got rid of the last one. He doesn’t want any trouble on the boat.’

Cavalier noted that Amaz volunteered to kill him if there were any clues that he was spying on them. The others chided her on her bloodlust and bravado. She was not only the sole woman in the group; she was also the least experienced.

‘You should let us men do this dirty work,’ Hollos said.

Amaz was annoyed. The men had a good laugh.

‘Where’s Dubois going tonight?’ Castro asked. ‘He says he won’t be with us.’

‘He’ll be fucking some teenager in the village, for sure,’ Amaz said. ‘He always does.’

‘Do you trust him?’ Castro asked Hollos.

‘No, but he is good at what we want him to do. Very good in fact. Remember who tracked that Australian agent in the bush. None of you wanted to do it.’

‘A serious psychopath, if you ask me,’ Leni commented.

‘Nobody asked you,’ Hollos snapped, ‘did they? So what if he’s a psycho? He’s our psycho. That’s what counts. He shoots and—’

‘Asks questions later,’ Leni said with a cynical tone.

‘Wrong,’ Amaz said. ‘He never asks question. He just does.’

Cavalier now knew the identity of Deere’s killer. When he wrapped up his review of the tape, he was in a quandary about what to do. His first instinct was to isolate Dubois and assassinate him. But that would be difficult. And his priority was to protect Pin.

Cavalier looked at his watch. It was 4 a.m. He had to come up with something by dawn. In the meantime, he spent an hour handwriting a report on the gang of six for Wombat:

Their ‘leader’, Neil Farquar, in his mid-thirties, is well over six feet with the physique of a bodybuilder. He covers a weak chin with a goatee beard. He has links to Conquer and Tasmania. There are few laughs in a stern face, made more serious in expression by close-set eyes. He left the trip at the Golden Triangle before the boats began the river voyage.

The second of the ‘team’ is Emmanuel Hollos, who claims a Mexican background. He stands just over six feet, and is as heavy as Farquar at about one hundred kilograms. Hollos’ head is shaved yet he is hairy in all the wrong places. From some angles he seems not to have a neck. The just discernible partition between head and shoulders makes him appear more bull-like than the biggest of rugby league footballers. Hollos has a pockmarked face and a granite jaw. This fellow, too, is a gym freak. He is so muscular that he wears a multicoloured sleeveless vest, probably because he wouldn’t fit into any shirt with sleeves.