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Arkady Demitriev decided he needed to join the dots. There was something he was missing. Simmonds’ presence in San Sebastian was totally out of character with the mundane life he had led up to that point in time, that is apart from his adventure into local real estate, when he had gambled all on the throw of a dice.

His men quickly located the vehicle, it lay in the dense tropical vegetation that lined the road, its roof submerged beneath about half a metre of stagnant water. Not without difficulty they broke the back windows and threaded a steel cable through the Land Cruiser’s compartment, which they hooked onto the crane, then slowly winched the vehicle out of the swamp onto the flatbed of the recovery truck.

As they pull the driver’s door open, a wave of fetid black water rushed out. Behind the wheel was what remained of Simmo, a black slime covered skeleton in shirt sleeves and pants, rotten and slumped over the wheel. He’d probably been knocked unconscious by the impact when his Land Cruiser was forced off the narrow road at about 100 km/h, drowning immediately.