He’d pitched up next to Ginger’s Porsche Boxster in the line of cars at the port of Piraeus, outside Athens, waiting for the ferry to Mykonos. Both cars had their tops down. Carver and Ginger had exchanged looks, started talking, and discovered they were two unattached adults who’d both chosen to spend a couple of weeks exploring the islands of the Aegean. It made sense to join forces and see how that worked out. So far it seemed to be going pretty well.

‘Thanks,’ said Carver, ‘but I think I’ll stay here and enjoy the view.’

‘Ah, yes,’ said Ginger with a knowing smile, ‘the famous windmills.’

‘Exactly,’ said Carver, and kept his cool, green eyes fixed on Ginger as she picked her way between the open-air restaurant tables in tiny Daisy Duke shorts that a woman her age had no business wearing so well. He smiled to himself as he realized he wasn’t the only man looking. A waiter was standing by the open door that led to the kitchen, leaning against a glass aquarium filled with live fish and lobsters, and nodding in appreciation as Ginger went by.

They were lunching at a waterfront joint called Little Venice, their table pressed right up against the waist-high sea wall, so close that they could feel occasional sprinkles of sea-spray against their faces. Ginger was about fifteen metres away now. She had reached the pelican and was crouching down on her haunches in front of it, with her camera to her face. The pelican seemed entirely untroubled by her presence, posing like a seasoned professional for a few seconds before opening its beak wide, its leathery throat pouch sagging beneath it like a fat man’s chins in expectation of a reward.

The first bullet blasted through the pelican’s neck, blowing the head right off its body. The second, third and fourth hit Ginger, the vivid scarlet eruptions on her chest lifting her off her feet and throwing her to the ground, where she lay quite still, sprawled on her back.