The men had burst into her room instead, and that had given Beatrix and Faulkner the moment that they needed.

They had hurried down the corridor, away from the men in the lobby, and disappeared down the outside fire escape.

They ran across the parched gardens to Faulkner’s Freelander. Beatrix dumped the kit in the back.

“They’re onto us,” he said when he had slid inside next to her.

“We need to be careful from now.”

“We could have taken him there.”

“Maybe, maybe not. There were a lot of them. It would have been messy.”

“But . . .”

“I want him alive.”

“Why?”

“Because we still need him. We don’t know where West is. He does. And I have another use for him.”

“And are you going to share that with me?”

“We’re getting a man out of custody.”

“I know,” he said impatiently. “Mackenzie West.”

“Someone else, too.”

Faulkner frowned. “Alright. Humour me. Who?”

“His name is Faik. He’s the brother of someone I met yesterday. But she didn’t know where he was, other than that Manage Risk had him. Duffy will be able to help us find him.”

“And then?”

“Yes,” she said. “And then, that’s that.”

There was nothing else to say about that.

“Where are we going now?”

“I need you to find somewhere we can stay. It needs to be quiet. Out of the way. An abandoned building, somewhere we won’t be disturbed.”

“Okay. Fine. And you?”

“I’m going to tail him.”

“He’ll see you.”

She reached into the kit bag and took out the hijab that she had borrowed from Mysha. She quickly pulled it over her head and arranged it so that it fell comfortably to her shoulders. “I don’t think so,” she said.

She got into the driver’s seat.

“I’ll call you.”

She drove the Freelander out of the car park and placed it in a position away from the hotel and yet still close enough that she had a decent view of the entrance. Two cars pulled up and disgorged half a dozen men, all obviously ex-military and all, she guessed, in the employ of Manage Risk. Four police cars followed soon after, and between them, the hotel was quickly locked down. The Freelander was parked in an unobtrusive spot, and she was able to loiter there without attracting attention.

She waited fifteen minutes until Duffy came out, lighting a cigarette and talking to another man and one of the Basra police. He looked agitated, gesticulating angrily as he spoke.

He had a reason to be agitated.

He went back inside, but, after an additional ten minutes, he returned and got into one of the Manage Risk Land Rovers, negotiated the security measures and set off into the streets beyond.

Beatrix followed him north.

The damage wrought by the war had gone unrepaired. Street lights had been bent at unnatural angles by tanks. A deep crater in the road evidenced an IED. Several of the buildings in the street had gaps in the middle of them, neat surgical excisions where laser-guided munitions had carved them out, leaving tangled girders and piles of debris. Strangely, the blasts had spared the neighbouring properties.