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said the South Africans he is on-selling to—thugs he informs me—also have my family’s address.
    It’s my fault. He was my choice. But if Carlos was to be kept out of trouble, he couldn’t know who we were selling to. Julia would never have agreed to Carlos’s part in the private sale if he had had to do anything other than just turn a blind eye. It was my promise to the pair of them to wear the consequences. Predictably, my oldest friend hadn’t liked it when I said I would shoulder all the risk, but I joked that I owed him for a lifetime of misdemeanours that he had wanted no part in. This was my chance to put it all right. I might have laughed, but I have rarely been more sincere. In front of Carlos I had held Julia’s hands and looked into her dark, wet eyes and assured her that it would all work out fine.
    But now I am not so sure. Dmitri, without the knowledge of anyone else on board, has smuggled guns on to the boat—or so he claims. He won’t tell me where they are. Perhaps it’s all a bluff. He says he was to sell them to his South African buyers along with the fish, and that they could come in useful if we are boarded. He had the deluded eyes of a madman when he told me that. But I think I have convinced him that Namibia is our safest option. I agreed that Montevideo is out of the question—the catch would be seized—and argued that with the Australian patrol lying in wait, Mauritius is a risk we should try to avoid. Instead, Dmitri’s buyers could meet us at Walvis Bay. I’d already discussed this with Carlos just a short while before.
    Dmitri still can’t understand why I have kept his role in our plan a secret—why Carlos would be content for me to make all the arrangements. Dmitri caught me looking at the photograph of Julia, which is taped to the wheelhouse wall, and said that if he were Carlos, he wouldn’t be so trusting.

J ULIA
Montevideo, Uruguay
22 September 2002
    Julia looks at her watch, and back out through the bus window across the seamless stretch of white sand beach that lines the Río de la Plata. The water appears polished in the morning light, and she thinks that, on days like today, the harbour separating Uruguay from Argentina was indeed well named: The Río de la Plata, the River of Silver. If she didn’t have to be back home this afternoon, she’d be tempted to stay on the bus for longer, and leave the drab city buildings of Montevideo well and truly behind. She and María could head east along the Atlantic coast to even better beaches. If there was time, they could go all the way to La Paloma.’
    â€˜We’ll have a couple of hours on the beach, and then we’ll have to catch the bus home again, mi chica ,’ she tells her daughter. ‘Sofia’s coming over to play this afternoon, remember?’ Julia keeps to herself her annoyance about Cecilia’s last-minute child-minding request, taking off her watch and zipping it into the beach bag. She won’t let that woman’s expectations ruin this precious time. If they get home slightly late, then Cecilia can wait.
    â€˜Is she bringing her Barbie dolls?’
    â€˜I’m sure she will. She brings them every time she comes, doesn’t she?’
    â€˜ Si, and she always has a new one. Why do I only have one?’
    â€˜Sofia doesn’t need so many.’ Julia reaches down, lifting the yellow brim of María’s sunhat and kissing her on the forehead. In truth, Julia can’t stomach the North American dolls, with their anatomically impossible forms and sparkly clothes and accessories. But she knows she can’t force her own values on her child, who seems to derive real pleasure from twisting the long bodies into bone-cracking arrangements of dress and undress.
    Julia remembers her best friend Paula’s story of giving a Barbie to her son in front of her parents in an effort to break the gender