The more she thought about it, the more it seemed like a perversion of her youth.

And yet . . .

That she knew how to do those things spoke to the excellence of Beatrix’s tutelage. It meant that Isabella would be able to defend herself, if that ever became necessary. It meant that her likelihood of safety was improved.

But it also meant that the last innocence of childhood had been torn away from her.

Worse, it meant that it was her mother, who should have nourished and protected that unworldliness for as long as she could, who was responsible.

Beatrix’s exile, all those days and months alone with the memories of her bloody career, had imprinted on her the notion that she was an implacable killer with no room for emotion. She had thought that she was a machine.

She knew, now, that she was not.

Isabella had taught her that.

What had she given her in return?

It was impossible not to feel regret about the lengths to which she had been forced to go in order to protect her daughter. The cost had been high. She wondered, again, as she watched as Isabella leaned into her stance and raised the MP-5, if it had been too high.

Beatrix drove them back into town, and at the junction where she would normally have turned left, she impulsively turned right.

“Where are we going?”

“It’s only ten. I thought we could make a morning of it.”

“Doing what?”

“How about some shopping?”

“Shopping?” Isabella gaped at her as if she had suggested something outrageous.

“What’s so funny about that?”

“We’ve never been shopping together.”

“First time for everything. You don’t want to?”

“I didn’t say that.”

It had suddenly seemed like the most natural thing to do. The training had gone well, and Isabella had grown more and more adept with the MP-5. Her aim had graduated from chaotic to undisciplined, and by the time they had exhausted the ammunition, it had improved to reasonable. She had taken to the gun with impressive ease and was soon hollering with satisfaction as she started to nail the targets, her face full of wild joy.

Beatrix found that the image of her daughter with the gun was not one she wanted to carry in her head.

She resolved to overwrite it with other memories.

There was a plaza on Mohammed V Avenue that was full of clothes shops, and Beatrix drove them there. They spent two hours walking between high-end establishments, buying whatever took their fancy. Money wasn’t a problem; she still had plenty from the remission she and Milton had extorted from Control before he tried to double-cross them. The riad was paid for, and there would still be enough for Isabella when she was gone, too.

Beatrix smiled happily as Isabella pointed to dresses, jeans and shoes that she liked, and then she bought all of them for her. Isabella relaxed once she had satisfied herself that this was really happening. All the untimely maturity that had been forced onto her by her disjointed childhood fell away, and she became exactly what she was: an excited thirteen-year-old girl.