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.

They passed into an area of office buildings, and Duffy pulled over and parked next to one of them. It was four storeys tall and, compared to the dilapidated state of the building stock in the area, reasonably well maintained. Beatrix looked out as she passed him. The building bore a sign with the Roman insignia of the Manage Risk logo.

She drove a little farther and then turned the SUV around and drove back. She passed the office and parked fifty yards farther down the road. Making sure that the hijab was properly obscuring her face, she set off back towards the office.

She looked left and right. She passed an Iraqi in a cheap, shiny suit.

There was a small group of people sitting in a shaded bowyer, eating sandwiches. None of them paid her any heed.

As she closed in on the office, the front doors opened, and a tall, brawny military type stepped out. He cursed as the heat washed over him, shook his head in disbelief at how a place could be as hot as this and walked straight at her. He gazed in her direction, but looked right through her. The hijab made her almost invisible.

She slowed as she reached Duffy’s vehicle. She reached into her pocket, took out the GPS tracker and slapped it so that it fastened to the chassis of the Land Rover above the wheel, obscured by the wheel arch.

She went back to the Freelander.

She waited.

Duffy drummed his fingers on the desk as the encryption software exchanged handshakes with the server in America. Control was at his desk when the connection was made.

“Duffy,” he said. “What is it?”

“She’s here. We were checking a lead. Western woman who might’ve matched her description had checked into the International. We went up to the room. It was her, alright. We’d just missed her.”

“Alright. It goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway: be careful. She got up close to Spenser and Joyce and close enough to Chisholm. Expect something like that. I doubt she’ll do it from a distance. You’d already be dead if that was good enough for her.”

“So I have to look over my shoulder.”

“Yes.”

“How long do I have to do that for?”