He glanced at me and there was urgency in his voice when he said, “What about you, Stacey? What do you believe in? Really believe in with all your guts?”

I didn’t even have to think any more, not after the Hole. “I shared a cell in Cairo with an old man called Malik.”

“What was he in for?”

“Some kind of political thing. I never did find out. They took him away in the end. He was a Buddhist – a Zen Buddhist. Knew by heart every word Bodidharma ever said. It kept us going for three months.”

“You mean he converted you?” There was a frown on his face. I suppose he must have thought I was going to tell him I couldn’t indulge in violence any more.

I shook my head. “Let’s say he helped shape my philosophy. Me, I’m a doubter. I don’t believe in anything or anybody. Once you believe in something you immediately invite someone else to disagree. From then on you’re in trouble.”

I don’t think he’d heard a word I’d been saying or perhaps he just didn’t understand. “It’s a point of view.”

“Which gets us precisely nowhere.” I flicked what was left of my cigarette into the water. “Just how bad are things?”

“About as rough as they could be.”

Not only the villa belonged to Herr Hoffer. It seemed the Cessna was also his and he’d provided the cash that had gone into the operation that had got me out of Fuad.

“Do you own anything besides the clothes you stand up in?” I asked.

“That’s all we came out of the Congo with,” he pointed out, “or do I need to remind you?”

“There have been several bits of banditry in between as I recall.”

He sighed and said with obvious reluctance, “I might as well tell you. We were in for a percentage of that gold you were caught with at Râs el âyis.”

“ Kan -How big a percentage?”

“Everything we had. We could have made five times its value overnight. It looked like a good proposition.”