Number Five: Chisholm.

Number Eight: Spenser.

Number Ten: Joyce.

He had been Number Eleven on that day, nearly a decade ago, when Beatrix Rose’s family had been torn away from her.

If it was her and she had a list, his name was definitely on it.

“Is it going to be a problem, skip?”

“I don’t know,” Duffy said, although he did.

If it was Beatrix Rose, “problem” didn’t even get close.

Chapter Twenty-One

Beatrix awoke with the dawn. The sunlight suffused the material that was hung on the walls, the fabric rippling gently in the early morning breeze that was blowing off the desert. She looked up at the ceiling, where the joists met in the middle, and remembered where she was. She had fallen quickly into a deep and dreamless sleep. The night had been cold, and she noticed with a pang, the girl had covered her with another blanket. She pressed against the ground with her right arm and raised herself to a sitting position. Mysha wasn’t there.

The pain returned as soon as she stood, falling over her as if it had just been waiting for the moment when she had almost forgotten about it. She fought against nausea and then the dizziness that followed in its wake as she stood. She wobbled and then shambled to the shack’s single rickety wooden chair. She fell down into it and was still there, breathing deeply, eyes closed, when Mysha yanked aside the tarpaulin and came inside. Her face fell when she saw Beatrix.

“Are you unwell?”

“I got up a little too fast. I’m fine.”

The girl was carrying the jerrycan, and it sloshed with water as she set it down. She must have been to the well. She lit the stove, filled the saucepan and set it to boil.

“Did you sleep well?”

“I did. Thank you.”

Mysha prepared the spiced cardamom tea and brought Beatrix a cup. She sipped it, the spices chasing away the metallic aftertaste of the vomit that had crept up from her gullet.

“Where is the well?”

“The other village.”

“How far?”

“Two miles, there and back.”

“What time did you wake?”

“I get up at four,” she said. “I always have things to do.”

They both heard the single blast of a car’s horn from outside. Beatrix looked at her watch. It was seven, the time that she had arranged with Faulkner.

Beatrix finished the tea and gingerly levered herself upright.

“Are you leaving now?”

“Yes. I expect that’s my friend.”

Beatrix collected her jacket and her Oakleys and checked her reflection in the mirror that was hanging next to the door. There was a picture of a man and a woman tucked into the brass frame. Mysha’s parents. There was a hijab on a hook next to the mirror. It must have belonged to Mysha’s mother.

“Could I borrow this?” she asked.

“Yes,” the girl said with a nod.

Beatrix wrapped it around her head.

“Thank you,” Beatrix said. “And thank you for the tea.”