The most necessary and basic essentials put into force, Jordan strolled into the town as far as the railway station, reestablishing its layout in his mind and isolating new constructions and shops since his last visit. He walked in a gradual familiarizing loop via the park to a corner cafe he’d enjoyed during a previous visit for coffee and pastries. Gazing out over the sun-starred water he calculated that it would only take three months – four at the most – for his last victim, a flamboyant, frequently gossip-columned London investment banker, to restore his credit rating. Harvey Jordan prided himself upon his Robin Hood integrity, always establishing the financial resources of those whose identity he stole and used. Another working rule was that, with only ever one exception, he never stripped them to the monetary bone, as he had been stripped with pirhrana-like efficiency. It had taken Harvey Jordan two years, after crawling almost literally out of the vomit-ridden gutter, to discover the identity of the man who had first stolen his identity and along with it his legitimate computer programming business. Then it took a further year, using the man’s genuine identity, to recover financially everything, and more, of what had been taken from him. He hadn’t, of course, been able to recover Rebecca. Or the bankrupt business. It was a matter of integrity, he reassured himself, that, having personally learned it the hardest way imaginable, he provided a very necessary lesson to those from whom he stole to never again be so careless with their personal details and information. It wouldn’t, Jordan knew, be a defence if he were ever caught – which he was equally determined never to be – but he considered the money he took not so much illegally obtained as justifiable and well-earned tuition fees. If he didn’t do it who else was there to teach them?

In the early evening Jordan drove the anonymous rented Renault to Monaco and ate at one of his favourite restaurants in the principality, a specialist fish bistro overlooking the harbour and the pink-painted royal palace, and afterwards climbed the hill for coffee and brandy on the Hotel de Paris terrace, watching the early arrivals at the casino.