The diesel revved again.

She stitched a jagged pattern of bullets into the hood for a second time.

“Get out, Duffy. I’ll shoot your wife if you don’t. And then I’ll shoot you.”

The engine quietened and then stopped.

The driver’s side door opened and Duffy carefully stepped out.

“Hands behind your back,” Beatrix barked at him.

He did as he was told.

“Bryan!” wailed Sascha Duffy.

“If you’ve hurt her . . .” he began, before realising how stupid that was.

Beatrix didn’t respond.

“Come on, Rose. Please. This isn’t necessary.”

Faulkner came up behind him and fastened cable ties around both wrists.

“Get in the car,” Beatrix said.

Faulkner yanked him backwards to the Freelander. Duffy kept his eyes on Beatrix as he stumbled. But he didn’t resist.

Faulkner had found an empty building on the outskirts of the city. It had been bombed during the war and repairs, if they had started at all, had been sporadic. The building looked as if it had been used as a foundry at some point in its history, but it had been wrecked. The windows had all been blown in, and one of the walls had partially collapsed.

They saw no one as they drew up. There was an underground car park, and Faulkner drove inside. Beatrix followed in the Audi.

The car park was empty, save for four cars that had been damaged when the factory was bombed and then scavenged in the aftermath. Faulkner pulled up next to them, adjacent to the open doorway with stairs leading up.

They followed them up to the ground floor. It was in a terrible mess. It was a wide open space with large pieces of industrial machinery. There was a large furnace, moulding machines, grinders, ladles and saws. The floor was littered with fragments of glass, and as they crunched across it, a flock of birds exploded up from a roost beneath an overturned shot-blast machine. The floor was slicked with their guano, and rainwater that had fallen through the holes in the roof had gathered in stagnant puddles.

“Nice place,” Duffy said.

Faulkner led the way to another room at the rear of the space. It was furnished with plastic chairs and tables. There was a metal counter, refrigerators and a large range. It must have been the factory canteen.

“There’s a walk-in fridge over there,” Faulkner said, pointing at the back of the room. “There’s a lock on the door. Should be secure enough.”

“This is perfect,” she said. She turned to Duffy and his wife. “Sit,” she said, indicating two of the chairs.

They did as they were told.

Faulkner covered Duffy with his pistol as Beatrix approached him.

“Listen very carefully. I’m not going to promise that you can get out of this, because you know you can’t, but if you do what I tell you to do, I promise I’ll do you quickly and I won’t touch your wife. Under the circumstances, after what you did to me, that’s a pretty good deal.”