Even with her hands cuffed behind her, Caitlin flew at Baumer in a blur, as straight and swift as an arrow. An armchair stood in the way, a deep, club chair, clad in dark brown leather and studded with burnished brass stud buttons. She mounted it as though running up a set of steps, kicking off as she pivoted on one foot and lashed out with the other, aiming a flying side kick at his throat. She meant to crush his larynx with the blade of her foot.

Baumer was ready for her, and had begun to dodge the impact even as she mounted the chair. He slipped sideways, executing a creditable sidestep that she noted as having all the hallmarks of some karate training. Caitlin turned the pile-driver of her flying yoko geri into a vicious roundhouse snap aimed at his head. Baumer, already raising his hands to deflect the attack, switched to a stopping block but didn’t focus the technique in time. Caitlin’s mawashi geri crashed through his defence. He cried out in pain as she shattered his forearm, snapping the ulna like a dry twig.

Even so, the broken bone absorbed enough of the blow to ward off the worst of the impact on his skull. She felt a glancing, dissatisfying impression of her steel-capped boot cracking his cheekbone, but before the energy could transfer itself into his brainpan, he had spun to the floor. Baumer, she knew, had some hand-to-hand skills – basic attack and defence methodology stolen, ironically enough, from the Israeli-developed krav maga combat system, and polished to a pretty high sheen. But his training was straightforward and practical. Good enough for somewhere like New York. Hers had been obsessive and refined. And all but pointless in the circumstances she now found herself in.

Pain, a bright white neutron star of pain, exploded in her chest, as McCutcheon kicked her away from the man she intended to kill. He appeared within her peripheral vision just as she thudded down on a thick Persian rug, after executing the attempted kick to Baumer’s skull. Caitlin landed on her side, exhaling, dropping as much hip and shoulder as she could into the fall; but she remained at a disadvantage to a man on his feet, with the length of a whole room to line up his attack. McCutcheon drove a snap kick into her centre body mass and she flew into the bookshelf, grunting as it forced the last of the air from her lungs.

‘Enough!’ he barked, quickly backing away, holding a gun on her.

‘I probably wouldn’t have done that in your position, Miss Monroe,’ said Blackstone. ‘After all, you’ll be leaving with young Billy Bob in a few minutes. And now you’ve simply exacerbated the bad blood between you.’

‘What the fuck . . .’ said Caitlin.