Yes, there it was: a door half-hidden behind a pile of empty boxes. Carver sprinted across the room, kicked the boxes out of the way, barged through the door, and found himself at one end of an alley that ran between two other buildings. It opened up on to one of the narrow, twisting streets, lined with shops, that wind through the town of Mykonos like tangled strands of spaghetti.

Island custom mandated that you could paint your house any colour you liked so long as it was white. But no one said what colour the doors, the windows, the verandas and the staircases that ran up the front of almost every building had to be. Vivid splashes of deep-blue, turquoise and scarlet paint clashed with the shocking magenta of the bougainvillea that grew from every tiny open scrap of bare earth.

The street was packed with tourists, oblivious to the chaos down by the waterfront: couples; groups of women out shopping together; men walking arm in arm in testament to Mykonos’s reputation as a place where anything went so long as no one got hurt. Carver plunged into the crowd, making his way as quickly but unobtrusively as he could, a lean, fit figure in olive-green cargo shorts and a pale-blue cotton shirt, slipping purposefully between the ambling sightseers; a natural predator among a crowd of herbivores.

As he moved Carver was constantly scanning the faces around him, his senses alert for any sign of danger, his subconscious constantly analysing what he saw. Two young women shrieking with laughter at something one of them had said: safe. A young couple nestling together as they walked, his arm across her back, oblivious to everything except their own love: safe. Two men together, both shaven-headed, looking around… one of them glancing at Carver… catching his eye… reaching beneath his jacket… not safe! Not safe!