One of the men was still trying to force Kate into the back of the car, but he was distracted by Callum’s shouts and a growing crowd: Kate was able to get a sharp elbow into his groin. He groaned and grunted, but she wriggled from under him. As he straightened, she swung away from him and now the heel of her palm to his nose delivered the desired result. He cried out in pain and staggered backwards.

Knowing he was no match for the Russians in a fight, Callum had retreated, but the moment the driver doubled back he used his considerable bulk to slam into him from behind again, sending him tumbling to the cobblestones.

The crowd was thickening and some were joining Callum’s cries for help. The first assailant faced Kate, a stocky, balding man with dense stubble and a swarthy complexion. He looked Georgian or Bulgarian and made one more attempt to subdue her, coming in hard. But Kate was more than a match for any man one to one and, this time, he retreated, barking an order to the driver before both of them barged through the crowd and disappeared.

Kate leant back against the wall, misjudged it and slipped to the ground. Anxious onlookers crowded in. Callum forced his way through them, kneeling before her. ‘Are you all right?’

She nodded.

‘I’ll get an ambulance.’

‘No.’

‘Kate, you’ve got blood all over your face!’

‘It’s a graze.’ The pain seemed to be coming from everywhere – her back, arm, face. ‘I don’t need an ambulance.’ She pushed herself to her feet.

‘Don’t be an idiot,’ he told her. But she pulled him close. ‘Do as I say.’

She started hobbling away. He came alongside her and offered his arm. She used it to steady herself. ‘Are you sure?’ he asked, as they pushed through the bewildered onlookers.

She waited until they were clear, before she answered. ‘We don’t need close questioning by the authorities, as I’m sure you can work out. Move fast.’

Her body might have been screaming at her to stay and rest, but her mind had other ideas. They went to their rooms, checked out immediately and had left the hotel by the rear entrance before the police or anyone else caught up with them. They walked a few hundred metres and climbed into a taxi for the airport.

As soon as the doors closed, she asked the question that had been at the forefront of her mind. ‘What were you doing following me?’

Callum looked surprised, even shocked, at the question. ‘I was just walking back to the hotel,’ he said. ‘You thought I was tailing you?’

Kate didn’t answer. Her mind swam with questions and they passed most of the rest of the journey – to the airport and indeed back to the UK on the plane – in uneasy silence. But she discovered as they arrived in London that she had much bigger problems than what Callum might have been up to.