“What about another kind of potion?”

“Nah, Celine is part of the school anti-drug programme. She wouldn’t touch that shit, no way.”

“You sure?”

“I’m very sure.”

“Okay. That’s the common-sense stuff out of the way. You think they fell foul of one of the gangs down here?”

“I thought that it might be a kidnap job. But there’s been no ransom call, no demands.”

Danny took a deep breath. “That still leaves a few options.”

“Yeah, none of them good.”

“Aye, I hear that. Clay, I know Celine’s like family to you. This might not have a happy ending.”

A low growl rumbled in Clay’s chest. “She’s the closest thing I’ve got to a daughter. I’m gonna find her and bring her home.”

“I’m with you every step of the way. We might just have to go a bit easier than normal. The outfits down here are the real deal.”

“I’ll kill every last one of them if they’ve hurt her.”

“That’s the thing, Clay, we need to find out who they are first.”

A group of tourists, dressed in board shorts and baggy T-shirts, jumped as Clay sounded the horn. They scuttled to the side of the road. The closest of them began to flip the bird. Clay glowered back at him. The bird retreated into its nest.

“I forgot what a sunny disposition you have when you’re travelling,” Danny deadpanned.

“Bunch of assholes. They don’t even know how to cross a road properly.”

Danny rubbed the back of his hand across his face. “They’re just kids on holiday, Clay. They’re not the ones we’re here to sort out.”

Clay grunted in agreement, but gave the young men another sour look in the rear-view mirror before turning his attention back to the road ahead.

“We’ll drop our stuff at the hotel and then start asking questions. A quick shit, shower and shave and I’ll be ready,” said Danny.

“Shit, shower and shave? Who said that, Socrates?”

“Aristotle Onassis.”

Danny rolled down the window, enjoying the sensation as the warm air hit his face. His skin was tanned dark from his time in Miami. He lowered his sunglasses as a woman dressed in a bright orange thong bikini strutted past the car. She too was tanned to a golden hue, and had curves in all the right places. She returned Danny’s gaze for a moment then looked away, evidently uninterested.

“She loves me, she loves me not,” laughed Danny.

“The fact that she’s twenty years younger than you might have something to do with it,” added Clay.

“I’m hardly an old man.”

“You’re probably the same age as her father.”

Danny gave a wry smirk. “Shut up, Clay. Since when did you become the voice of reason?”

Clay bared his teeth, which elicited another brief chuckle from Danny. He pointed to an ornate road sign. “Heads up, that’s us. Mayan Fiesta dead ahead.”

The towering building was a shrine to steel and smoked glass, stepped like the famous pyramids that dotted the Yucatán landscape. Manicured palm trees lined the entrance.