John Carr. James Deegan

With a photo.’

      ‘Aye?’

      They must have taken it as he left the cop shop – the place had still been crawling with media.

      ‘Yes,’ said Nicholls. ‘Not a very good one.’

      ‘Hard to take a bad photo of me, Justin.’

      ‘Low light,’ said Nicholls. ‘Taken from the side. You wouldn’t know it was you.’

      ‘What does the story say?’

      ‘“Hero Brit on beach of hell”,’ said Nicholls. ‘That’s the headline. You can look it up online.’

      ‘What does it say about me?’

      ‘It names you, and says you’re in your forties, and believed to be a former soldier.’

      ‘Does it mention the Regiment?’

      ‘No. It says you live in Hereford. I suppose people will work it out.’

      ‘Does it mention George?’

      ‘Who?’

      ‘My son. He was with me.’

      ‘No.’

      ‘Good.’

      ‘Anyway, I understand you may have seen one of the attackers?’

      Carr chuckled – it amused him, the way the English upper classes tap-danced around things, using euphemisms and hints and never getting to the fucking point.

      ‘Justin, you know I saw him. I’m sure you’ve already read my statement to that effect. Why else would you be calling me?’

      ‘Ha,’ said Nicholls. ‘I haven’t yet seen the statement actually. Though I expect I will fairly shortly. Would you mind giving me a heads-up?’

      ‘Not much to tell. I saw a guy staring at the girls. Just thought he was a dirty old man at first. They pulled a picture of him off of the CCTV. Mean-looking fucker.’

      ‘Speaking of the girls, do you know the identities of the women who were taken?’

      ‘No. Should I?’

      ‘It’s all over social media.’

      ‘I don’t use social media.’

      ‘One of them was the daughter of the Prime Minister.’

      It took a lot to shock John Carr, but that certainly knocked him back.

      ‘I see,’ he said, after a few moments.

      ‘Yes,’ said Nicholls. ‘I understand you’re booked on the one o’clock into Heathrow.’

      Carr said nothing.

      ‘Anyway, I wondered… If anything occurs to you, if you remember something you didn’t tell the Spanish police, would you mind giving me a bell?’

      ‘Sure.’

      ‘You’ve got my number?’

      ‘In my head,’ said Carr.

      He smiled to himself: it was actually stored in his phone under ‘James Bond’, but he wasn’t going to tell Nicholls that.

      ‘Great. Thanks. Look, I’d better get off. It’s chaos here, as I’m sure you can imagine.’

      Carr certainly could imagine: he had a vision of the MI6 HQ teeming with headless chickens.

      Chinless, clueless, headless chickens, at that.

      But he just said, ‘Aye.’

      The call ended and Carr turned to Alice.

      ‘Buckle up,’ he said.

      ‘Who was that?’ she said.

      ‘Your granny,’ he said.

      ‘For fuck’s sake, Dad,’ said Alice, shaking her head. ‘Why’s everything got to be secret squirrel with you?’

      He chuckled.

      ‘I’m a leopard, sweetheart,’ he said. ‘I cannae change my spots.’

40.

      CHARLOTTE MORGAN, MARTHA Percival and their captors had arrived at a compound on the outskirts of Saïdia not long after midnight.

      There the first part of the two women’s ordeal had ended, with their removal from the stinking, sweating hiding places under the floors of the two Land Cruisers.

      They were half-carried, half-dragged quickly in through the open door of a stone house.

      There they were split up, Martha being taken through a further door on the left, Charlotte through a door on the right.

      The two men carrying her stood her upright, and then a third – and the man with the dark eyes and the livid red hole in his leg, the man who had filmed the murder of Emily Souster – began the process of stripping off the duct tape.

      She was dripping with sweat, and it came easily enough off her wet skin, but it pulled strands of her hair out where it was wrapped around her head.

      She did not cry out, and when it was finally all ripped away, she stood there defiantly: she was damned if she was going to show these men her fear.

      Almost four hours she had spent in the 4x4, being bounced around the cramped interior on the rough roads, and fighting to keep her sanity. Several times she had almost lost control, her mind and heart racing, the panic rising as she imagined she was suffocating, dying in this tiny, claustrophobic box.

      If she could survive that, she could survive this.

      Dark Eyes looked her up and down, and grinned lasciviously, a bucket of brackish water in one hand.

      ‘You are a filthy whore,’ he said, in gutturally-accented English. ‘You must be cleansed.’

      He stepped forward and tipped the bucket over her head.

      Charlotte stood stock still, looking him defiantly in the eye, until he looked away.

      A small victory.

      He left the room, and returned a few moments with a sheet, which he threw at her. She wrapped it around her dripping body, and then followed his pointing finger to a shabby Persian carpet against the far wall on the dirt floor.

      She sat cross-legged on the rug, and looked around her. The rough-plastered room was lit only by a single, bare, low-wattage bulb in an inspection lamp on the floor in one corner, but it smelt curiously pleasant, of bread and coffee.

      Sure enough, a moment or two later, the man disappeared, and then he limped back in, holding a flat bread and a steaming glass.

      ‘Eat,’ he said. ‘And drink.’

      Charlotte took the bread and the glass, which was so hot it hurt her fingers.

      Slowly, deliberately, and staring into the depths of his black eyes, she tipped the coffee onto the floor beside herself.

      Then she spat on the flatbread, and held it out to him.

      ‘Piss off,’ she said.

      He leaned forward, smiling.

      ‘Maybe I fuck you later,’ he whispered.

      Then he turned on his heel and left.

      Charlotte hurled the bread after him, and immediately realised that she’d made a mistake. She needed to eat and drink; without that, her strength would fail, and her ability to prepare mentally and remain focused would be inhibited, and she would never get beyond this ordeal.

      Against the far wall, the two men who had carried her inside now sat, unsmiling and silent, AK47s across their laps. They stared at her unwaveringly,