Perhaps she was right to be nervous – she was standing next to Del Rio, after all.

Del Rio, one of Jack Morgan’s right-hand men from the West Coast office. He’d done four years’ hard time at the state’s pleasure, and looked perfectly capable of doing so again. But he was on our side of the law nowadays, if not exactly working within it.

But that was the whole point of Private, after all. We weren’t constrained by the same rules and regulations that restricted our uniformed counterparts. That was how we earned our money. And if half the rumours I had heard about Del Rio were true, he was more than willing to take the law into his own bare hands – take it with lethal consequences.

I held my hand out and shook his. If the girl’s grip was feather light, this guy had a grip like an anaconda. Del Rio nodded. He didn’t say anything either but I don’t think it was from a lack of self-confidence. I don’t think you could dent his self-confidence with anything short of an oak pickaxe handle.

‘Dan will take care of you now, but if you ever need to speak to me you’ve got my number, right?’ said Jack Morgan to the girl, who still seemed more interested in her feet than in anything else.

‘Yeah, Jack,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’ Then she looked up and smiled. She had a nice smile.

‘Anytime, night or day.’ Jack slapped me on the back. ‘Take good care of her, Dan. I’m counting on you.’

‘You got it,’ I said, falling into the native lingo. I turned to the young woman. ‘We good to go?’

See.

‘Sure,’ she replied. I didn’t get a smile but figured it was just a matter of time. A six-hour flight is plenty of time to get to know people. I’d break her in under four, I reckoned. The old Dan Carter charm. They should put it in a bottle.