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Kubat said something in Turkish that Jack didn’t get, then spoke in English. “Only two attendants free. They can do your father and Rafa first. You come and talk to me.”

Jack sat next to him on a marble seat at the side of the room.

“You go to school in England?”

“Yes. We just moved house so it’s a new school for me.”

“I wonder about sending my children to school in England.”

“The schools are fine. The weather is awful.”

Kubat laughed again. “You like our weather better?”

“Much.”

Jack did his best to maintain eye contact as they talked about school.

“How long are you here?”

“Only the weekend. My father needed to buy a carpet for a client.”

Kubat asked him where it had been bought, how much they’d paid and Jack told the truth.

It was safer. There was no problem in it being checked.

It was a worry that Rafa heard the details because there was no plan to kill him too, but maybe Thomas would have other ideas.

Still, if all went well, neither he nor Thomas would be under suspicion over Kubat’s death.

When Kubat’s thigh pressed against his, Jack didn’t move away.

“You have a boyfriend?” Kubat whispered.

“Yes,” he whispered back. Did he? He needed to say he did to make Kubat feel on more secure ground.

When Thomas finally rose to his feet, so did Rafa.

“You don’t need to wait,” Jack said. “Make sure you don’t eat all the baklava and Turkish Delight.”

“I’ll be in the lounge. Just down the corridor,” Thomas told him.

“Okay.”

“Our turn,” Kubat said.

Kubat removed his peshtemal but Jack didn’t.

For a while, the attendants worked on both of them.

Jack expected Kubat to dismiss them and suggest he did the massaging.

Jack needed to be the one doing that. When the attendants left, he wasn’t surprised.

He lay on his stomach with the syringe pressing against him and looked across at the Turk.

“Can I give you a massage?” Jack sounded as shy as he could manage.

“Yes. I would like that.”

Kubat began to turn over but Jack moved to stop him. “I’ll do your back first.”

“Okay, beautiful English boy. What’s your name?”

“Alex.”

“I’m Hakan.”

“No one will come in, will they?” Jack asked, making himself sound nervous. “I don’t want my father…”

“No. Quite safe.”

Jack climbed on the slab, his knees either side of Kubat’s arms and pulled off his peshtemal. Kubat was so fixed on the way Jack dropped it within his eyeline that he didn’t register what he’d put at the side of his knee. Kubat groaned as the massage began.

As Jack squeezed muscles, pressing into his shoulders with his thumbs, he took a risk and rocked lightly against the guy’s backside. It was tricky figuring out how far to go.

Kubat let out a long sigh. “Are you a masseur?”

“I want to be a nuclear physicist.”

“A waste.”

Jack wished he could have said assassin. He pressed hard over the vertebral artery as he drove the needle into Kubat’s neck and pressed the plunger.

“Arrgh!”

“Sorry! Sorry!” Jack tucked the empty syringe into the waistband of his underwear and massaged lower down Kubat’s back.

“Are you okay? I don’t know my own strength.”

“Okay.”

Not for long, Jack hoped.

“That’sss gooood.” Kubat was slurring his words.

The next sixty seconds felt like the longest of Jack’s life. But when he heard the sounds of Kubat struggling to breathe, he climbed off. He wrapped the peshtemal around his hips. As yet, there was no visible puncture wound. Hopefully it would be hidden by Kubat’s hair.

He moved so that the man could see his face and gave him a stricken look. “What’s wrong? Are you okay?”

He couldn’t answer. Nor could he move. His eyes were wild with fear.

“I’ll get help,” Jack said.

Out of Kubat’s line of sight, he secured the empty syringe in the shampoo bottle before he went to the door.

Kubat would be aware of where he was and of what was happening to him—in so much as he would realise he couldn’t move, though he wouldn’t know why—unless he’d guessed.

He was being suffocated by a drug that would slow his respiration until he had no muscle strength to breathe.

Once Jack was sure recovery was impossible, he ran out of the room screaming. An attendant appeared almost immediately.

“Help,” Jack shouted.

Rafa came hurrying towards him.

“Kalp krizi,” Jack blurted. Heart attack.

Thomas appeared and Jack flung himself into his arms. Rafa ran into the room where Kubat was lying. A few moments later, he came out shaking his head. Jack managed to burst into tears. A useful skill. Though part of it was relief he’d managed to go through with it.

It had all worked. Now they had to get away without finding themselves under suspicion.

Jack retrieved his towel and the shampoo bottle and they showered.

As they finished dressing, the manager of the hamam came to speak to them.

Jack was still breathing shakily and leaning into Thomas, doing all he could to look traumatised.

As soon as Jack even hinted that Kubat had made advances towards him, the manager visibly paled.

It wasn’t long before they were ushered off the premises.

“Well done,” Thomas said. “Now you need to dispose of the evidence and make sure we’re not being followed before we head for the airport.”

Jack kept wiping his eyes as if he were crying as they walked away.

Only several streets away, out of sight of any cameras, did he bend to tie the laces of his trainers and drop the syringe into a drain.

A couple of streets further on, the shampoo bottle went into a bag that had been momentarily left unattended by a rubbish collector.

Finally, Jack led Thomas into a café from where they could watch people passing, and hopefully confirm they weren’t under observation. Thomas ordered coffee and baklava.

“Are you okay?” he asked Jack.

Jack nodded. The taste of adrenaline still lingered in his throat.

“How do you feel?”

Jack thought about it. “Satisfied.”

“Good.”