I’d done it with artillery fire overhead. With the wind chill blackening my cheeks and freezing my bollocks off.

So why not now?

Instead of tossing and turning and speaking aloud to the ghost of a half-Ukrainian seven-year-old.

Maybe it was the coffee and Monster cocktail.

It wasn’t.

Thin grey light spilt through the partition window. I cranked myself up and rubbed my eyes, then slid open the door and went back to the driver’s seat. My forehead was sticky with grease, sweat and Fanta.

I tried to swallow, but my throat was coated with sandpaper.

I scrabbled around for the water bottle, first on the seat and then in the foot well. I found it underneath my feet, crumpled but intact. I unscrewed the cap and took five or six mouthfuls, then splashed my hands and face. I pulled a small towel out of my day sack and dried myself.

Stefan’s towel.

What the fuck did it matter? He wasn’t going to need it again.

I took a long, slow breath, then another, and wiped more water over my face. My eyes stopped stinging.

I gave the final Monster a good shake, pulled back the ring a fraction and gunned it before it sprayed everywhere. I could almost feel the caffeine blasting its way into my bloodstream as I fired the van up and moved off. Troop drivers in Afghan were restricted to two cans of this stuff a day because it made them so hyper.

The boy might be dead but I wasn’t. And I planned to keep it that way.

Nothing had changed.

Find out what’s happening. Stop it. Kill it. Do whatever’s necessary to get me out of this shit now I’m the only one left.

22

I steered around the northern edge of Zürich.

The Üetliberg – the eight-hundred-metre mountain on its western flank – seemed a good place to aim for. Densely wooded and crisscrossed with hiking trails, which turned into toboggan runs in the winter, it was easily accessible and had plenty of cover. And a small train station connected it directly to the centre of town.

A viewing tower and a bunch of platforms overlooked the city, catering for people admiring the spires and the bridges at its centre, and the lake beyond it. They wouldn’t be looking the other way. So as long as I stayed clear of early-morning cyclists, sightseers and bearded tree-huggers in socks and open-toed sandals, I should be sorted.

I found a secluded spot at the far side of the hill, off the road, on the lower slopes, and replaced the SIG with the Sphinx in my waistband. Once I was certain that I didn’t have any spectators, I dug Hesco’s bags out of the toolbox and opened them over the Fanta-soaked wooden floor. The huge pool of crimson that had gathered around his head had also been sucked up by the plywood, but it wasn’t yet dry.

I pulled Stefan’s towel out of my day sack and added it to the pile, along with the Moleskine. I hadn’t needed to scribble in it for a while now, and I’d never liked it as much as they claimed Hemingway did. The deeds to the chateau, the Adler invite, Hesco’s passport and his Adler pass went on too.

I’d toyed with the idea of trying to use it to access the St Gallen HQ and have a look around, but now reckoned that the risk outweighed the potential reward. I glanced at the boarding pass for the Naples flight and wondered whether Dijani would be on the plane. Then I crumpled it into a ball and chucked it on as well.

I hesitated before binning Stefan’s passports. Fuck knew why. He wasn’t going anywhere, thanks to me.

Before I stepped out into the open again, I pulled the last two disposable cloths out of their bag. Then I removed the vehicle’s fuel cap and rammed them down the spout, leaving a nice long tail.

I slit the front seats with my knife and soaked their stuffing and the cloth bung with unleaded, then emptied the jerry-can all over the contents of the load space.

Finally, I threw a lighted match through the cab window and the sliding door, ignited the cloth, and legged it. It was burning front and back as I disappeared into the trees. Mr Molotov would have been proud of me. The diesel wasn’t going to explode when the flames reached into the tank, but the heat it generated would be intense. It would finish the job very nicely.

By the time I’d got halfway up the hill, black smoke was billowing up through the canopy. I hooked my thumbs through the straps of the day sack and carried on walking.

The sirens began to kick in as I crossed the crest and the cityscape spread out below me. I didn’t bother with the train. There were only two an hour and I wasn’t in the mood to hang around and be pinged.

As I stretched my legs on the downward path, I assembled the components of another Nokia and punched out Laffont’s number. As before. Eight rings, then his recorded voice in three languages. Maybe he was being guarded about an unknown number.

I called him again half an hour later, before I hit the outskirts. With the same result.

So I called Adler HQ in St Gallen instead. The receptionist on the main switchboard picked up immediately. I asked if I could talk to Mr Dijani. I had no idea how I was going to play things if I got through, but it didn’t come to that.

‘I’m sorry, sir. Mr Dijani is currently away on business. He won’t be returning until the middle of next week.’ She had one of those voices that made whatever she said sound like I’d just won the lottery.

‘Ah, he’s already left, has he? I was hoping to catch him before we get together in Italy …’

‘If you’d like to leave your name and number, sir, I’d be very happy to pass on your message.’

I believed her. The happiness was coming off her in waves.

‘Don’t worry. I’ll ring him on his mobile.’

I thanked her and she thanked me, and she very much hoped I’d enjoy the rest of my day.

Obliging was obviously her default position. But I was glad I hadn’t pushed too hard. I hadn’t wanted my call to be memorable for the wrong reasons. She hadn’t confirmed Dijani’s whereabouts, but she’d done the next best thing when I mentioned Italy. She hadn’t reacted at all.

I dismantled the phone and lobbed the bits into the first stretch of deep water I came to, the canal that ran past the main train station.

I didn’t have to hunt around for a cyber café here. I headed straight along the river Limmat to the one in Uraniastrasse which boasted fine food and fast Internet. It was surrounded by the solid architecture that must have been all the rage in this part of town during the nineteenth century, but had gone for the vibe of an airport departure lounge. It must have been a cool place to be, though: a bunch of very shiny, raked Harley Davidsons were parked nearby, alongside an underground car park that looked like Hitler’s bunker.

I bought a frothy coffee and the Swiss version of a sticky bun, then selected a monitor at the end of a row with my back to a wall the colour of Hesco’s favourite brand of Fanta. I ate and sipped and played catch-up on the news channel.

There had been another jihadist gangfuck, not in Lyon this time, in Marseille. A nightclub. Hostages. The GIGN had sorted it, but with five civilian casualties.

An Italian security expert was being given some serious shit for warning anyone who would listen that Italy – the cradle of global Christianity – would be the next on the extremist hit list. It wasn’t just the people-traffickers who had worked out that Sicily was only a hundred and seventy Ks north of Libya.

The French police had enlisted the support of Interpol in their search for the killer of Ukrainian billionaire Frank Timis and his missing son. A lad in a quilted jacket waffled into a big fat microphone outside the gates of Lyubova’s smouldering chateau as the police and fire crews did urgent stuff behind him. He was doing his best to report the next chapter of the unfolding family drama with the seriousness it deserved, but his eyes shone with excitement. Stories like this didn’t come by every day on the shores of Lake Konstanz.