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undetectable. Meyer’s supplier was a step ahead of the testers.’
    ‘Did he tell you who was supplying?’
    ‘Of course not. By the time he realised the drugs were causing anxiety and rage, he was hooked. He began to believe that, before Rio, WADA would find a test to detect whatever he was taking. He became obsessed with the idea that he was going to be caught and that he’d ruin his legacy. He was terrified. The closer he got to the Games, the higher the stakes rose and the more paranoid he became.’
    I watch the blurred horizon, the sea washing into the cloudless sky. I think about Meyer, a colossal man reduced to a paranoid wreck, downing pills to end his misery. Jaffari’s theory is possible. Across the table, Paz catches my eye and I remember she’s due to pick up Felipe from school. I get the feeling Jaffari has spilt as muchas he’s prepared to share anyway. I thank him for his time and we walk back through the hotel lobby, feeling that we’re leaving with more questions than answers.
    We are both quiet as I ride with Paz to Felipe’s school. I think about Meyer lying comatose in a bed in the Bonsucesso Hospital. I wonder how long they’ll take to test his blood, and whether the doctors might find something that the drug-testers couldn’t. And I wonder what kind of recovery Lucas Meyer might make – if he makes any kind of recovery at all.

CHAPTER 10
    I WAKE UP at 3 a.m. the following morning, to find the ceiling of our bedroom spinning and Juliana looking with concern into my opening eyes.
    ‘It’s just a dream, Rafael.’
    The familiarity of her voice wraps around me and pulls me back from the night terrors. I realise that she has gently taken hold of my hand. I’m sweating and my heart is thumping.
    When my pulse begins to slow, she says simply, ‘You were calling out, Rafa.’
    I don’t remember the dream, but I know in my bones it was about Gilmore. Juliana fixes me a glass of orange juice and one for herself, and we sit in bed sipping the drink and listening to the stillness of the night. It’s a familiar routine. It happens during the tough cases. The ones that chew me up. Here I am, days from retirement, and I have never cared more.
    ‘Don’t tell Paz.’
    Juliana’s delicate fingers wrap around my forearm.
    ‘Tell her what? That you care?’
    I shrug.
    ‘Just don’t tell her. It won’t help.’
    We turn out the light and the conversation slows until we drift back into sleep. The second half of the night goes better, and by the time I meet Paz the next morning, the nightmare is a distant memory.
    Like a ship weathering the storm, Casas Pedro has ridden the waves and bobbed back to equilibrium. The Olympic revellers from the opening night are gone and a sense of normality has returned. Paz is looking through the menu, even though she’s eaten here a million times. Thiago, son of the famous Pedro, makes his way to our table and shakes my hand.
    ‘Feijoada?’ he asks, a pencil poised above his waiter’s pad.
    I give it a couple of seconds, to pretend that I’m not such a creature of habit.
    ‘Why not?’
    ‘With the fried cheese rolls?’
    ‘Is there any other way?’
    Paz rolls her eyes.
    ‘How have you lived so long, Carvalho?’
    Thiago smiles, and so do I.
    Paz orders orange juice and toast. When Thiago is gone, she lights up a cigarette from her crushed pack of Belmonts.
    ‘Sleep well?’
    I look at her through the haze of smoke.
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘Me neither.’
    She takes a lungful of nicotine and leans back in her plastic chair, looking around at the other diners.
    ‘I can’t understand how Gilmore and Meyer would have known each other? They’re not teammates; they play different sports for different countries.’
    ‘Different continents,’ I agree.
    Paz blows out smoke and frowns. Then she slips her fingers under the sleeve of her black vest and pulls at her bra strap, the way she always does when she’s thinking.
    ‘Maybe Jaffari’s right about the