The marina was lit from every available angle, but it was darker at the edge, beneath the patio I’d just come from. I rounded another corner and found what I was looking for: a couple of lads in waiter gear having a quick break by a doorway. Pots and pans clanked in the background, and some poor fucker was getting yelled at inside for overcooking the fillet or underdoing the seasoning. Whatever, it was the back entrance to the kitchen.

One of the lads pinched out the tip of his cigarette, tucked the bit he hadn’t smoked into his trouser pocket, and disappeared inside. The other stayed where he was, one thumb hooked in his not-very-fancy designer belt. He took a final drag, spun the stub into the water, and ruffled the tuft of beard on his chin.

I gave him a conspiratorial grin, fished the half-empty pack of Ukrainian Marlboros out of my pocket and offered him one. He nodded his very curly and youthful head, took one, then another for later, and leant forward to give us both a light. I hated the fucking things, but a drink or a smoke has always been the quickest way of making a complete stranger your new best friend.

‘Français?’

He chuckled. ‘Non. Je suis d’Oman.’

I chuckled too. ‘Muscat? I love Muscat.’ I’d been there with the Regiment, training the Sultan’s troops, but he didn’t need to know that.

‘Salalah.’

I shoved out my hand and gripped his. ‘Beautiful.’ I took a drag on my Marlboro and did my best not to cough my guts out. ‘Salalah. Beautiful. Even more beautiful than Muscat.’

I didn’t have all night to swap holiday memories, but I was prepared to waste five minutes finding out whether this guy could point me straight to Mr Lover Man’s door.

‘Really? You have been there?’

I nodded. ‘Visiting my brother. He worked for a bank. HSBC …’

I got the impression the word ‘bank’ had suddenly earned me his full attention. ‘He loved Oman too. Took me all over.’ I paused. ‘So what brings you here?’

He shrugged, and glanced over my left shoulder. Maybe he’d spotted a boat he fancied behind me. Maybe he was about to give me a big fat lie. ‘I go to college. In Lyon.’ Then he sighed. ‘But what brings anybody from my world to yours, Monsieur?’

‘My world isn’t that special, mate. Believe me. But I tell you what – maybe we could help each other out …’

His eyes glistened as I took out one of Frank’s fifty-euro notes and slid it into his shirt pocket. ‘What shifts have you done this week?’

‘The usual. Starting at five, finishing at two in the morning …’

‘In the restaurant?’

He nodded.

‘Room service, sometimes?’

‘Sometimes. I prefer it to the restaurant.’

‘Better tips?’

Time for another fifty. His belt was leather and had a Gucci buckle, but it was probably a fake. The marks on it and the misshapen holes told me he’d got progressively thinner in the last few months, and everything else about him – including his scratched Casio watch – said that every cent counted.

‘I’m looking for a guy …’

He recoiled. Not much, but enough to let me know he suddenly wasn’t enjoying this as much as he’d thought he would.

‘Don’t worry. Not … in that way. And he isn’t in trouble. He’s a friend of mine. I just haven’t seen him for a while. Big black guy. From Nigeria. Dreadlocks. Looks like a rapper.’ I gave him another grin and held up the cigarette pack. ‘Smokes these things too.’

He relaxed. ‘He arrived yesterday. I like him very much. Very … spiritual. A true believer.’

‘What’s his room number?’

‘His room number? His room number is …’ His eyes glistened and his hand twitched.

Another fifty found its way out of my pocket, but before I passed it over I heard a scuffle somewhere above us. Then a shout and the sound of breaking glass. Fuck. Why always breaking glass? But not a car window this time. A wine bottle, maybe. The talking had stopped on the patio. So had the laughter. A woman screamed. We both looked up.

I couldn’t see a thing until I stepped back towards the moorings. I spun the rest of my Marlboro into the water and craned my neck.

The fight wasn’t outside the restaurant.

It was on one of the top-floor balconies.

Two figures had started to beat the fuck out of a third, pushing him hard against the rail. I could only see his back. But it was enough to show me I didn’t need the help of my new Omani mate to find Mr Lover Man after all.

If he had been a smaller unit, it might have been more difficult to tip him over. But he didn’t have a low centre of gravity. So once he’d lost his balance, there was only one way for his dreadlocks to go.

He managed to grip the rail for a moment, and bought himself a few extra seconds.

Then, arms and legs flailing, he arced into space.

21

He bounced once, on the stone balustrade that bordered the paved area above us. I heard the cracking of bone – maybe his ribs, maybe his back, maybe both – as he crashed down in a heap on the planking that lined the marina, less than four metres away.

The waiter gasped, and started to gibber. I couldn’t blame him. Not everyone can deal with a twenty-stone body falling five storeys and hitting the deck beside him. Even if he had immigration papers. I batted him away. ‘Go. You don’t need this shit …’

I didn’t need this shit either. I wanted this fucker alive and talking. I couldn’t fuck about. If he wasn’t unconscious already, he soon would be. Plus the crowd wouldn’t spend all night rubbernecking from the gallery above me. They’d find their feet any second now.

I knelt by the body. I saw the waiter hanging around in the kitchen doorway, and I sensed a growing audience on the level above me, but I didn’t look up: iPhones would soon be recording, and when they did, I didn’t want anything visible beneath my baseball cap.

He’d landed face up. His eyes were open, but the back of his head wasn’t healthy. The dreads were like snakes, swimming in a pool of blood.

Most of the damage seemed to be low down, though, so I reckoned that, with a little encouragement, he’d still be able to talk.

His left arm didn’t look too clever. The chunky gold chain hung limply from his wrist. And his leg was folded back underneath him at a severely terminal angle.

I touched the pulse in his neck with my fingertip. His heart was pumping like a piston, doing everything it could to oxygenate his failing body.

I leant my ear right up close to his mouth and heard him let out a halting, pain-racked breath. His eyelids fluttered. I was pretty certain he wouldn’t be able to feel anything from the chest down, so I put some pressure on his smashed-up arm.

His jaw clenched. Then his lips parted and a crimson bead rolled down his cheek from the corner of his mouth.

‘Why did you kill Frank?’

He tried to suck some air into his lungs. It wasn’t working. He only got enough to whisper four syllables. ‘Ly … u … bo … va …’

Four syllables that made up one word. Lyubova. I’d never used it myself, but I knew what it meant. Lyubova was the Russian word for love.

‘Who wanted him dead?’

His chest quivered and his eyes closed.

They sprang open when I gripped his arm again. Gave it a twist.

‘Who?’

‘You … ran …’

‘What the fuck are you talking about?’

‘You … ran …’

His voice was so weak it was almost drowned in the sound of footsteps on the stairs.

Then I heard the sirens.

For the benefit of the spectators, I shook my head sadly as I got to my feet. It also gave me a couple of seconds to decide on my next move.

Hesco and his sidekick would be legging it as quickly as they could now that the gendarmes were getting closer, and so should I, if I was going to have any chance of gripping them.