“How was it?”

“It’s done.”

“You look troubled,” he said.

“It’s nothing.”

“Perhaps a glass of tea will help.”

She smiled and nodded that perhaps it would. Mohammed was rightly proud of his grandmother’s recipe for mint tea. He stripped leaves from the spearmint plant in the courtyard every morning, added a handful to boiling water, sugar and a good tablespoon of gunpowder green tea. He took the glasses and poured the tea from a height so that a thin layer of foam settled on the top.

“Thank you,” she said.

Mohammed was the nearest person she had to a friend in the world. They had worked together on an assignment ten years earlier when she was Number Two and he was a corporal in the Moroccan Royal Guard. They had taken out an al Qaeda cell that had been planning a car bombing in the capital, and in the vicious firefight that had followed, she had saved his life. He had helped her buy the riad, and when she said that she was looking for someone to look after the place, Mohammed and his wife had volunteered. Men didn’t come more honest and trustworthy, and she was grateful every day that he had agreed to help her.

“You know I would never want to intrude, Miss Beatrix, but I think you should consider telling her.”

“Is it obvious?”

“It is obvious that you are unwell. Beyond that? No, it is not obvious. But she is not a stupid girl.”

She would have been irritated to have been told what she should or should not do by almost anyone else, but there was something so calming and inherently good about Mohammed that she didn’t mind.

“I know,” she admitted. “I know I should, but it’s difficult. What do I say? How do I say it? She’s only just got me back again, and then to go and tell her . . . I don’t know, Mohammed. It’s going to be difficult. Very difficult.”

“That I do not doubt.”

They sat in silence for five minutes. She sipped her tea and enjoyed the cool breeze on her skin.

“How is she doing?”

“She is a natural. She has been working very hard. I suspect that she wants to impress you. Her aim is excellent.”

“And if she needed to rely on it?”

“It is difficult to say. It is one thing to shoot a target, but quite another . . .”

He didn’t finish.

“Yes,” she said. “I know.”

Mohammed noticed her empty glass. “Would you like another?”

“No, thanks,” she said. “I better not. I’m going to get some sleep.”

“Very good, Miss Beatrix.”

“There are some things that we need to do tomorrow.”

“Whatever you need.”

“There’s going to be a delivery in the morning. A few things we’re going to need.”

He knew what she meant. “I will make the arrangements. Would you like me to put them in the armoury?”

“Yes, please. And can you have the jeep ready? I want to take Isabella out into the desert.”