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across the huge body.
    Faces. Zip saw faces. Masses and masses and masses of faces. A wall of faces . . . an entire constellation of staring eyes . . .
    ‘Cool . . .’
    Zip never backed off from a fight; eagerly, he threw himself at the mound. Abruptly, there was a sense of being enclosed . . . being swallowed.
    The robber was held in a crushing grip. Teeth from dozens of jaws bit deep into his skin. The CRACKLE he heard was the sound of his ribs breaking. The GASP he heard erupted from his own mouth.
    Nothing less than a tidal wave of agony broke over him – that’s when he really started to scream. This habitual torturer eventually understood what torture really felt like.
    And the worst pain? That was still to come.

EIGHT
    A t ten minutes to six, Tom Westonby locked the front door of Mull-Rigg Hall. He didn’t want to stand waiting at the gate for Nicola as if he were some overeager teenager. Instead, he headed round the back of the house.
    When she knocked, he could stroll round the corner in a nonchalant way. OK, maybe he was overdoing the relaxed nonchalance. The trouble was, he still hadn’t figured out how he’d made that significant transition between telling the stranger in white to clear off and inviting her into the garden for that drink she’d asked for.
    She was beautiful. He was twenty-three and had been without a girlfriend for months. So that might account for something. And he knew that sexual attraction played a large part in his motivation.
    Tom also remembered a teacher from secondary school pointing out (when Tom was distracted by sixteen-year-old girls promenading by the class window) this important fact: ‘Westonby. In the Middle Ages, if you said a girl had “glamour” it meant you were calling her a witch. Don’t let those glamorous girls cast their spell on you. At least not until you’ve finished that essay on Dickens.’
    Nicola had glamour. Without a shadow of doubt, she had glamour. The vital question was:
has she cast her spell on me?
He’d reached the back lawn when the phone in his pocket croaked, ‘Tom! Your air tank’s run out! You’re gonna die!’ Scuba-diver humour even extended to ringtones.
    The name on the screen ID’d the caller.
    ‘Chris,’ he said, ‘how’s it going?’
    ‘Any sign of that seventeen grand?’
    ‘I’ve been doing some calculations. I converted what we’ve got in the equipment fund from pounds sterling. That comes to seven thousand dollars.’
    ‘So where do we magic up the other ten thou?’
    ‘My dad’s paying me to get the house ready, so I’m going to ask if I can stay on here for another three months.’
    ‘You mean at Money-Pit Hall?’
    ‘Mull-Rigg Hall.’
    ‘That’s what I said, Money-Pit Hall. I didn’t know your dad was loaded.’
    ‘He isn’t. But my aunt left some cash; they’re spending it on the renovations.’
    ‘Tom, I
need
the rent. We can’t wait three months for you to make that money refurbing your parents’ house.’
    ‘The place out there is really that good?’
    ‘It’s perfect. Just seconds from the beach. We’ll be right next to masses of hotels. There isn’t a better location in the whole of Greece. I know one hundred per cent – shit, one million per cent – we’ve got the right place!’
    ‘I planned to persuade my dad to give me an advance on my wages.’
    ‘He’ll give you the money upfront?’ Chris sounded doubtful.
    ‘That’s what I’ll be asking him.’
    ‘Tom, there might be another way to solve our problem.’
    ‘Oh?’
    ‘Listen. I’ve got some important news, though I wish I could talk to you face-to-face.’
    ‘Go on.’ Tom had a sinking feeling.
    ‘You’re not going to like this . . .’ Chris sounded like a man breaking bad news. ‘Well, here goes: Carol’s here.’
    ‘I thought you broke up with her last year?’
    ‘We did. The thing is, she’s wanting to try again.’ He finished the rest in a rush. ‘And she’s got the seventeen thousand dollars we need.