The car had three bullet holes in it – one through the boot lid, the others in the driver and passenger doors – and Murphy’s shot had not only punctured the right front tyre but also buckled the wheel rim and smashed the brake disc. It was now going to have to be hauled away behind a recovery truck. But, Richter reasoned, Murphy hadn’t just been waiting around there on the road out of Zounáki on the mere off-chance that Stein would turn up there. Obviously he’d been following the Seat, which meant that there was another vehicle parked somewhere in the vicinity. He could hopefully use that to get back to Máleme. But Richter needed to do a bit of a clean-up first, because he wanted to leave a satisfactorily tidy solution for the Cretan police to find. He first checked Stein’s body and found, as he had expected, that the bullet from the sniper rifle had gone straight through the American agent’s left thigh – Richter could clearly see the entry and exit points in the fabric of the trousers – and vanished into the scrubland beyond.
