I could hear him closing in as I gripped the shaft with both hands and heaved the fucking thing in a circle behind me.

As I turned I saw the jaws make contact with his leg and heard the crunch of metal on bone. He screamed and let go of the chain. The anchor crashed into one of the boats and he collapsed on top of me. Fuck knew where his knife was.

All I could do was wrap my left arm around the back of his neck and force his face against my chest, my right hand searching frantically for my UZI.

He was still screaming, but it wasn’t just pain. I could feel the force of his anger rattling my chest. His hands came into view. And the blade. I turned to the left, trying to get on top of him, trying to take control. Then his free hand grabbed a fistful of my hair and I knew what he wanted to do. He wanted to hold his target still while he plunged in the stiletto.

I gripped the pen and slammed the point of it down on to his head.

At first it sounded like I was trying to puncture a table top. I felt the third blow fracture his skull. And the fifth penetrate the bone plate.

As soon as I’d buried the bit I wasn’t holding in his cerebral cavity, I gave it a couple of twists and turns and his body went limp.

I rolled him off me, sat up and took long, deep breaths.

Fuck, I’d wanted him alive.

I removed his mobile from the back pocket of his skinny jeans and his keys from the right-hand front one. I let him keep his ring.

I found a bit of frayed cord, tied it around his neck and fastened it to the chunk of metal he’d tried to finish me with. Then I wrenched the UZI out of his head and wiped it on his shirt. As blood started to leak from the hole, I heaved the whole package over the edge of the dock. The bottom half of his left calf bobbed along the concrete as if it was only attached with string.

I picked up my baseball cap and the stiletto, retracting the blade while I checked he was now out of sight.

I could see the lights of the ship getting closer. And the glow from the bridge – faint, but strong enough and high enough to show that it wasn’t carrying a full load.

More importantly, I could see its silhouette. It was the same as the one on the blueprint.

15

The third key I tried unlocked the boatyard gate. I didn’t go straight to the cargo quay. Minerva was still some distance out to sea, and I wanted to make sure everything and everyone was in place before I gained entry.

When I’d put some distance between me and Elvis, I powered up his phone. Of course the fucking thing was locked. It didn’t matter. I now knew for sure where I’d find Dijani. That fucker was going to live just long enough to tell me where Anna and the baby were.

I walked round to the slipway beside the stretch of water where the fishing boats were parked, past the pontoon I’d spotted Elvis on before the sun went down. The only light filtered from the windows of the apartments and houses at the edge of that part of the harbour, which made it a great place for couples to walk hand in hand and teenagers to sit cross-legged on the paving stones, roll their own cigarettes and pass round cans of beer.

Minerva’s lights glistened across the water as I passed the rowing boats and lobbed his phone into the harbour.

A very shiny white powerboat was tied up further along the quay. Unless they’d decided to shut every hatch and suffocate themselves in the heat, no one was aboard. The lettering on its back end told me it belonged to a charter company, so the guys who’d hired it might have been enjoying a nice dinner somewhere in town before coming back to get their heads down. A bunch of people were sitting, drinking, eating and fucking about on the boats at each end of it.

The mini-lighthouse was dark. Maybe it was no longer needed. Maybe it just couldn’t be arsed. I circled the bunker beyond it: four-metre-wide, domed structure, with thick, blast-proof walls and four horizontal apertures that provided a one-eighty-degree view of the sea, Minerva and the cargo quay.

A couple was getting to know each other better on one of the huge breakwater cubes on the far side of it. Fuck ’em, they could get on with whatever they wanted. I was staying where I was.

The woman saw the pervert in the shadows first. She pushed the guy off so they could straighten their clothes and head back the way I’d just come. There was no one else around.

I brought out my binos. They hadn’t enjoyed their collision with the boatyard concrete, but they still did what they were supposed to do.

The Suunto told me it was after midnight. I reckoned Minerva was forty-five minutes to an hour away. Once I’d adjusted the focus I could see a big white ‘N’ illuminated by the lights on its hull.

I tapped out Luca’s number on the Nokia and waited while the call was transferred.

I kept it crisp. ‘It’s on its way now.’

He did too. ‘So am I.’

But neither of us cut the line. We both knew the question I had to ask next, even though his silence had already given me the answer.

‘Anna?’

He sounded less like a strangling victim now, but I could still hear his pain. ‘Not yet. But Pasha is in Vinnitsa. He’ll call me as soon as …’

I put the phone down on the concrete bench beside me and continued to watch Minerva, checking that the thing was still getting bigger and brighter.

The whole place didn’t exactly spring to life as the boat drew nearer, but a row of overhead lights sparked up so I could see some signs of activity. The mobile crane moved into position at the seaward end of the quay. An empty minibus stopped right next to it, I assumed to lift off the crew.

A second set of headlamps swept towards the entrance and the gates swung open again. A three-ton truck with a canvas cover over the load space joined the party. I couldn’t immediately ID make or colour. I guessed Fiat and blue.

The driver nosy-parked, jumped down from the cab and opened up the back. Then he found a bollard to sit on and started to smoke his way through a pack of cigarettes. He must have left his mate at the barn. He didn’t show the slightest interest in the minibus.

A tug appeared from the direction of the boatyard and steered into the waves. The one remaining cargo vessel was moored with its pointy end facing the exit, and the one that had left earlier had been too, so I expected to see Minerva towed in and put through a one-eighty-degree turn before parking up. Particularly if it was planning a quick getaway.

An hour later it was in position, ‘NETTUNO’ emblazoned across its flank, Minerva on its tail. There were no containers visible at deck level. The three-tonner was now completely obscured by the ship’s hull, but I could see about ten crew members being ferried away in the minibus, and a gleaming BMW SUV taking its place. The SUV’s windows were tinted, but there was no mistaking the George Michael lookalike who swung open the passenger door. Unless it really was George Michael.

And, judging by the beard and the burn on his neck, Rexho Uran had been doing the driving.

16

I pocketed the Pentax and filled my lungs as I walked back past the still unoccupied powerboat. Most of the others had closed down for the night as well. The Nokia went into the water between them with hardly a splash.

I didn’t continue round the inner harbour this time; it was pretty much deserted. I went left through the archway by the fortress and right along the street where I’d tried to intercept Elvis. It made no sense drawing attention to myself any earlier than I had to. After a couple more rights and a left I was on course for the road that took me past the chimneys.