Billy considered his neighbour Tom an interloper. Billy had got there first. He’d met with a stroke of good fortune in the first week of his new life on the island back in 1980, when he’d sat propping up the bar of a nightclub in the then tiny but burgeoning resort town of Puerto del Carmen. He was on the hunt for real estate, and he found himself sitting next to a down-on-his-luck Swede desperate to sell his half-built house after his daughter had died and his wife had left him. A chance encounter. They moved to a table and agreed a fair price over a bottle of Tequila. Billy went to inspect the place the next day. Torbjorn fell over himself with gratitude, it being near impossible to sell anything half-built. And, of course, there was no estate agent taking a cut. The guy even left Billy
