‘Can you Google it?’

I could hear him tapping at his keyboard. He gave me a running commentary as he scrolled down the imagery. ‘Old town … beach … swimmers … more swimmers … ancient wall … parasols … swimming-pool … map … trulli … No, that must be a shot of Alberobello …’

I didn’t know what the fuck he was talking about.

‘… church … more parasols … fish … Pippa Middleton at a wedding … fishing boats … no cargo ships yet … more Pippa—’

I was about to tell him to shut the fuck up about Pippa Middleton when he got excited about a big ship – a tanker or a container vessel – and a crane.

‘But only one photograph.’

I told him I didn’t give a shit: one was good enough for me.

‘Nico … I … Anna …’

‘Luca, no need, mate. Really.’

At times like this, you have to cut people away. I needed him switched on. I didn’t want him to take up time or get emotional.

‘But I still need your help. I’m not going to bin this mobile. Call or text if you get any updates about Anna, Dijani, the Urans, Minerva, or any other shit I need to know. And if I find the fucking thing, I’ll call you.’

I powered down and shoved the mobile into my jeans. If I got tracked down, so what? At least I would be one step closer to Dijani.

I just needed it to be on my terms, not his. I had to be in control of what happened next.

This wasn’t just about me any more.

12

A short avenue of cypresses led up to the Monopoli graveyard. Its whitewashed outer walls and the two sets of columns on either side of a heavily barred entrance made it look like a barracks built to withstand a full-scale infantry attack. I passed it on my way to the headland immediately to the south-east of the old town.

I skirted a couple of small sandy bays filled with locals and tourists enjoying the late-afternoon sun, and parked up on the far side of a pizza restaurant that looked like it had seen better days. I bought a litre of mineral water and a slice of something that had been pattern-bombed with cheese, tomato and peperoni, and started on it as I walked out to the nearest spit.

I found a place among the rocks that gave me cover, swallowed the last bit of crust and got some liquid down my neck before bringing out the binos. The map had delivered on its promise of a good, uninterrupted view of my target.

This wasn’t the playground of the super-rich, so the water wasn’t stuffed with jet skis and luxury yachts and perma-tans. Two or three teams of rowers were working up a sweat close to the opposite shore and there was the odd swimmer and marker buoy, but that was it.

From this angle, Monopoli looked like a fantasy travel poster – a combo of blindingly white and light brown buildings, framed by the deep blue-green of the sea and the paler blue of the sky. As I scanned the place left to right, my view was dominated by the cathedral, a pair of massive old factory chimneys, another huge church and a neat little fortress that guarded the harbour mouth.

Then the thing I was really here for: the stone dock that Luca had Googled. It doubled as a breakwater and had two cargo vessels parked up alongside it. Neither of them had ‘NETTUNO’ painted across their flank, but there was room for a third, and maybe even a fourth.

There was no sign of a gantry or any kind of storage facility, but two smart yellow tower cranes and a third hoist, half their size, mounted on caterpillar tracks, stood against the back wall, ready to swing into action.

I lowered the binos and ran them along the surviving segment of the ancient fortifications. Part of it had been converted into what looked like a boutique hotel, with white parasols lining the battlements. I checked out the balconies in case Dijani and the Uran brothers were using it as their operating base. They were both deserted. A couple of lads with bellies overhanging their shorts gutted octopi in a rock pool beneath them.

A circular cannon emplacement jutted out between the hotel and the fortress. A red-and-white-striped mini-lighthouse and what looked like a Second World War bunker stood at the end of the quay a hundred to its right.

I moved across to the other side of the spit. A lone fishing boat was chugging out to sea. A couple of passenger ferries steamed along the horizon, heading for Bari, I guessed, or maybe further north. There wasn’t a single container in sight.

I wandered back to the Seat, wrapped the passports, IDs and money in a plastic bag, pocketed the torch and left the day sack in the boot. The bag went under a rock at the edge of a patch of scrub twenty paces from where I’d parked. Then I took the boardwalk around the edge of the first bay.

I was crossing the outcrop that separated it from the second when the Nokia vibrated in my pocket.

‘Nico, we have traced Dijani’s hotel bookings for last night, tonight and tomorrow. All five star. All paid in advance. In six different locations: Otranto, Brindisi, Bari, Ancona, Ravenna and Venezia.’

‘Pretty much every major port on the Adriatic.’

‘Correct.’

‘Not Monopoli?’

‘Not Monopoli.’

‘Has he checked into any of them?’

‘Not so far.’

‘So he’s fucking about.’

‘Looks like it.’

‘I’m sticking with Plan A. Unless you get a firm sighting of either Dijani or the boat somewhere else.’ I didn’t have a choice. There was no way I could keep rocketing up and down the coast in the hope that I might get lucky. And this place ticked all the boxes.

I slipped off my jacket and hooked it over my shoulder as I joined a random group of punters coming off the beach. I nodded and smiled at a succession of complete strangers whenever I needed to look like someone whose top priority was to find a nice place for a beer.

The walkway beneath the hotel balconies was completely in shadow now. Even the octopus fishermen had pissed off. I stayed with the crowd and turned right, down a paved street that ran along the town side of the old wall.

Every so often cars and slow-moving delivery vehicles crept up behind us, but mostly they were too polite to tell us to get the fuck out of their way.

I ducked into a shop that advertised everything from holiday rentals to Internet access on the door and grabbed a couple of maps – a large-scale street plan of the old town and one of the whole city.

Immediately past the boutique hotel there was a small piazza with parking on each side. The road narrowed again by an apartment block shrouded in scaffolding and tarpaulin sheets, which all looked like they belonged in a different century. A series of poles jutted out from the uprights at forty-five degrees, five metres above the pavement. They supported an awning of timber planks designed to protect people passing below from falling masonry or falling workmen.

The road forked left into another maze of alleys. I carried on right, towards the harbour.

I could see a load of moorings through an archway ahead of me. The fortress that stood beside it seemed a good place to recce what – if I was right about Minerva – would become the heart of the action. It was hosting an exhibition of local painting and sculpture and didn’t shut its doors until 21:00, so I followed a young Brit couple up through the cool, dimly lit interior.

None of us bothered much with the artwork.

As soon as I reached the top of the stone ramp on to the battlements, I knew it was the perfect vantage-point. I was one of a dozen or so visitors there to admire the three-sixty-degree view. There were five pairs of binos on display, so I fitted right in. As far as I could tell, none of them belonged to the Albanian Mafia.

This time I began by looking out to sea. Three more fishing boats, and a liquefied natural gas tanker on the skyline. I swept my Pentax anti-clockwise until I hit the first of the vessels at the cargo quay, then the second.