I

Boris sat bolt upright in his bed as he remembered last night’s gunfight. It wasn’t remorse for the two men that had pricked him, but the belated memory of a mistake he’d made. He’d gutted that tomato with his knife before the Raging Bull had taken his face off, but then he’d wiped off his knife and put it back in its sheath and taken it away with him. How could he have been so stupid? The Malagasy police wouldn’t be up to much, from what little he’d seen of them, but even they would have to wonder where the knife had disappeared to. And that would surely lead them to conclude there’d been someone else at the scene.

He threw back his sheet, pulled on trousers, went over to Davit’s cabin. The big man was still fast asleep, Claudia snuggled against him, holding hands like teenage lovers. He gave their bed an extra-hard kick.

‘What time is it?’ grunted Davit.

‘Time we got shifting.’

They dragged the boat down to the sea’s edge, stowed their camping gear, food and other supplies, fixed the outboard. Davit helped Claudia to her seat, then he and Boris pushed it out beyond the breakers and clambered aboard either side to make sure it didn’t capsize. With all that weight, however, it sank low in the choppy water.

‘Maybe we should leave Claudia behind,’ suggested Davit.

‘Maybe we should leave you behind,’ grunted Boris.

‘You’d like that, wouldn’t you?’

‘It was a joke,’ he sighed. ‘Look at the size of you two.’

‘We’ll see how it goes,’ said Davit. ‘We’ll just have to take it slow and stick close to shore in case anything goes wrong.’

‘And if it does?’

The big man shrugged. ‘Then we’ll just have to try something else.’