Panicking.

That was good.

She was right to panic.

“I’m here,” Beatrix said. “I can see you very well. You’re in your car. You’ve just finished your breakfast. Toast and coffee to go.”

Chisholm kept looking, unable to find her.

“What do you want?”

“What do you think I want?”

“To talk? We can talk. Come into the house. We can talk about whatever you want.”

“I don’t think so.”

The car door started to open.

“Don’t do that,” Beatrix warned. “Stay in the car.”

“Come on,” she said, looking round again. “This is crazy. I’m coming out. We can talk . . .”

“There’s a bomb under your car, Lydia.”

She stopped moving.

“A pound of Semtex. Right underneath you.”

The door closed again. Chisholm was still, looking through the windscreen, dead ahead. “What do you want?”

“The last ten years of my life back. My husband. To see my little girl grow up. But you can’t help me with any of that.”

“I’m sorry,” Lydia said. “Control gave us a direct order. I know you have a reason to be angry, but you should take it up with him.”

“I intend to,” she said. “I’m working my way up. But you’re next.”

Beatrix came out of the shed and negotiated the garden, following the boundary fence for the next property until she had a better view of the BMW and the front of the house.

“Let me help you,” Chisholm offered.

“Okay. Where’s Control?”

“I don’t know. I swear I don’t.”

Another car rolled slowly down the road. “Let it go,” Beatrix warned.

She did. It disappeared out of sight.

“Come on,” Chisholm protested.

“What about the others?”

“Spenser is dead.”

“I know. I killed him.”

“In Russia. You and John Milton, right?”

“That’s right. I knelt down next to him, and I slit his throat from ear to ear.”

“And Joyce, too. The thing in Somalia.”

“I’m doing well, aren’t I? Two down. Four to go.”

“I can give you Duffy.”

“I’m listening.”

“What’s that worth to you? You’ll leave?”

“Maybe I won’t kill your husband.”

“Rose . . .”

“Joyce told me Duffy was in Iraq.”

“Yes. He is. He works for us. Manage Risk has a contract with American Petroleum. We run security for their executive team. He’s been out there for months. I can give you a precise location.”

“That’s alright. I can take it from here.”

“So you’ll leave?”

“What do you think? After what you did? Of course not.”

“After what I did? Come on, Beatrix. Listen to my voice. Listen to what you did to me. I sound like a freak. Isn’t that enough?”

“No. Not nearly. Any last words?” She almost laughed. “I’m sorry. That was insensitive of me.”

Chisholm slumped back into the seat. Beatrix almost thought she could see the fight drain out of her. She turned her head to the left and looked up the steps to the front of the house. Beatrix looked in that direction and saw that the front door had opened. A man was standing there. Middle-aged, salmon-pink trousers, blazer. Ex-army. Officer class. She paused for a moment, her resolution wavering just a little, and then she remembered, back to a life that seemed a hundred years ago: Lydia Chisholm in Beatrix’s front room, her husband and daughter on the sofa, fear and confusion on both of their faces. The unsaid agreement that she and Lucas had shared, the shot from Chisholm’s pistol that had killed him, the second shot into Beatrix’s shoulder, the terror on Isabella’s face and then the black well of sadness and loss that she had willingly thrown herself into so that she might save her daughter’s life.