“I’m just tired,” she said. “I need to get home.”

The tailor left her alone again. She listened to the noises of the city outside the window: car horns, engines, a jet streaking across the sky. It was busy, and yet she felt utterly alone.

She took out her cellphone and dialled the only number that she carried in her memory.

Mohammed’s voice sounded very far away. “Hello?”

“It’s me.”

“It is good to hear your voice.” Like her, he was careful not to use names on an unshielded line. “How are you?”

“It’s done.”

“Very good. And you?”

“Tired. Very, very tired.”

“Where are you?”

“In theatre.”

“You can get out?”

“Yes,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

“Would you like to speak to your daughter?”

“Yes.”

There was a pause, a quick conversation conducted sotto voce, and then Isabella’s voice.

“Mummy?”

Beatrix felt a surge of emotion, and for a moment, her throat felt tight and choked.

“Mummy?”

“Hello, sweetheart.”

“Are you alright?”

“Yes. I’m fine.”

“I’ve been practising on the range. I’m getting better all the time.”

She winced, more remorse. “That’s good,” she said, substituting enthusiasm for the regret she felt.

“When are you coming home?”

“Today.”

“I’ve missed you, Mummy.”

“And I’ve missed you, sweetheart. I’ve missed you very, very much.”

“It’s nearly done though, isn’t it?”

“Nearly done,” she said, noticing that her hand was gripped tight around the phone. “Two more and that’s it.”

Connor English sat at the row of leather chairs in the departures lounge at Basra International and watched with a mixture of disbelief, wariness and elation as the woman he clearly recognised as Beatrix Rose went by. He had a picture of her from a decade ago on his phone, and he looked down to double-check that he was right. She had been younger then, obviously, but there was no mistaking the sharp cheekbones and the cobalt-blue eyes. She was wheeling a small suitcase behind her and had no other possessions with her apart from her boarding card, a bottle of water and a copy of the Chicago Tribune.

The disbelief was because he couldn’t believe she would have been so reckless as to exfil from out of an airport.

The wariness was because he knew exactly what she was capable of doing.

The elation was because now, maybe, he would be able to put an end to the threat that had been dogging his sleep ever since Oliver Spenser had been gunned down outside the dacha in the Russian steppes. Four down already and just two more to go. Him and Control.

Perhaps now he could put an end to the fear that he wouldn’t wake up or, if he did, that it would be with one of her knives pressed against his throat.