Then when Durrant was first arrested, he saw from the news that it wasn’t the man he’d seen that night. He read as much as he could about the background to the case, but there was no possible doubt: the other eye-witness had only seen oneman leaving the scene, and the timing matched exactly with the guy he’d seen run past. It wasn’t Durrant!

But the problem was, he couldn’t see a way of coming forward without also holding his hands up to the grand-theft auto. Five to seven years, maybe more if they linked the MO back to other luxury auto-thefts over the past few years.

Cole managed finally to push it to the back of his mind; but then when Durrant’s execution date was set, it was back at the forefront, with a vengeance! And so he sent the e-mails; as far as he felt he could go without putting his own head in the noose.

Cole shook his head, a shiver running through him as he felt his stomach cramp and tighten again. Surely they couldn’t go through with killing Durrant? He’d told them in those e-mails that it wasn’t him! What the fuck more did they want: five to seven years of his own life?

Atlanta customs, Miami, Nassau… Havana.

A re-run each time of Jac’s ordeal going through the passport check at New Orleans, perspiring, his stomach doing somersaults, praying that they didn’t notice his hand shaking as he handed over his passport.

But it was worse after the call from Mike Coultaine. Far worse.

Jac had landed at Atlanta an hour and fifty minutes beforehand, had just twenty minutes before boarding for the next leg to Miami, when Coultaine’s call came through. Bad news, Jac. Bad news.

Coultaine explained that while he believed he’d successfully quelled the suspicions of the officer that had called, he thought it worth keeping an eye on. Just in case. And so he’d called an old police contact who owed him a few favours, said that he’d just had a strange call from a certain Joe Rayleigh of Eighth District regarding Darrell Ayliss, an old lawyer buddy of his. Probably nothing, but could he contact him on the QT if anything came up on police radar about it.

‘And he just called a few minutes ago, Jac. There’s an APB been put out for Ayliss. Carrying false identity, false impersonation and fraud.’

‘Oh, Jesus!’ Jac closed his eyes momentarily, glad that he was sitting when the news came.

‘But what’s odd is the “approach with caution” note. Bit extreme for the crimes mentioned… until, that is, my friend told me the contact name on the APB: Lieutenant Derminget! And it all suddenly fell into place and made sense.’

Jac only half-heard Coultaine go on to say that it looked like Derminget had somehow worked it all out: McElroy, Ayliss… the disguise.‘Don’t know how, but he obviously has.’ The echoing terminal activity and pounding pulse in Jac’s head half-drowned it out.

That pounding heavier still, legs shaky and uncertain, as fifteen minutes later he rose to go through passport control.

And then that same ordeal at Miami, Nassau and finally Havana. Not knowing how he managed to face each one, feeling almost physically sick after passing through each time, his nerves mounting again in flight as he steeled himself to face the next one. So by the time he went through the last check-out at Havana, he was exhausted, emotionally drained.

Part of him felt like jumping in the air or doing a quick fandango in relief and excitement, but his body had hardly the strength left to put one foot in front of the other. His step heavy, laboured, eyes bleary and unfocused from lack of sleep as he headed away from customs — before the guards, no doubt with their eyes still on his back, changed their minds — and sought the car-rental desks.

Closed! Jac shuffled over to the cafe area at the end, one of the few things open, and on the second try found a waiter with good enough English.

‘They open at seven o’clock, senor.’

Jac looked at the clock on the cafe wall: 6.23 a.m. His friendly waiter said there wouldn’t be other car-rental companies open yet in the city, most in fact wouldn’t open until 9 a.m., and the train to Sancti Spiritus took eight and a half hours. With already fourteen hours eaten up getting to Cuba, Jac hated to lose even one more minute of what little time Durrant had left — but with little other option, he ordered a coffee and waited, meanwhile checking his phone messages. He’d switched his cell-phone off immediately after Coultaine’s call and hadn’t used it since, worried that with the APB out, the police might be able to zone-track where he was. He risked turning it on now briefly. Only one call: Bob Stratton. New Orleans was one hour behind: 5.31 a.m. He’d call him back in a couple of hours.

Jac finished his coffee and ordered another, his body suddenly craving more caffeine to combat his over-tiredness, kick some life back into it.

Realizing, as he finally got on the road at 7.09 a.m., squinting at road-signs as he sped across a dawn-lit Havana, that he’d have risked falling asleep on the drive without the caffeine. And, having chosen the car-rental company’s most powerful option, an Audi A6, hoping that he could make up the time. The caffeine didn’t help his already wire-taut nerves, his stomach jittery and his hands trembling on the steering wheel, but at least he was alert.

Cienfuegos… Trinidad… Sancti Spiritus…Jac’s route was by now indelibly implanted on his mind. As Jac swung on to Highway A1 and he saw the first sign for Cienfuegos, he put his foot down hard. Six and a half hours driving time, they said. Maybe he could cut that to six or even five and a half hours.

The car-rental companies were already open when Nel-M landed, but he lost time through having to buy a gun in Havana’s old town, an old Browning 9mm, before he could get on the road again.

He was just under four hours behind Ayliss as he hit the start of the A1 highway towards Cienfuegos.

With the call from Glenn Bateson while he was at Miami International waiting for his flight to Nassau — ‘ It didn’t work. My guy only managed to injure him… and not that seriously’ — everything hinged more than ever on catching up with Truelle as soon as possible.

If Bateson’s man had been successful, it would have stopped Ayliss dead in his tracks, he’d have probably just slumped his head on his steering wheel in the middle of Cuba as soon as he heard the news. With Durrant already dead, what would have been the point in continuing?

But right now Truelle was like a powder-keg, and if Ayliss had enough time to light the right match, Nel-M had little doubt that he’d explode and tell all. And if so, Nel-M doubted that Roche’s one remaining contingency plan could contain that explosion.

He glanced at the gun on his passenger seat. As so often had happened in his long association with Roche, while Roche troubled himself with fringe details, the core of every problem was left for him to deal with; just as with Roche’s wife twelve years ago that had started it all. Nothing had really changed.

Mack Elliott had drifted out of the Ninth Ward into Bywater because there was a bar on North Rampart that had one of the largest screens around, always tuned to sports, usually football. He’d missed the big Saints game the night before, but there was an early afternoon highlights re-run that he knew they’d have on.

And that’s where he was, cold Beck’s in hand, watching the over sized screen among a lively throng shouting support or derision with the ebb and flow of the Saints’ performance, when the thought suddenly hit him. Highlights! That’s what he’d been watching that night!

It hadn’t been a full game, because the Saints had been playing away in Philadelphia and there was some charity telethon on — but he’d been keen to watch the condensed highlights when they’d come on later. That’s why he’d told the chicken guy to pipe-down!