There were other ways that she could get the information that she needed, but they would be messy and unpleasant. Time was pressing, and this, she knew, would be the quickest way.

“Spread your fingers, please,” she said.

“What?”

“Spread your fingers.”

“No.”

“It’ll be much better if you do.”

She raised the knife, tip pointing down at the back of the woman’s hand.

“Sascha!”

The woman spread her fingers just as Beatrix stabbed down at the table, the blade tapping into the wood between her thumb and index finger. Beatrix raised it and brought it down again, the blade pecking between Sascha’s index finger and forefinger, then again between her forefinger and ring finger, then again between her ring finger and little finger.

Beatrix started again, a little more quickly.

“I used to be good at this,” she said as she moved the blade with fluid speed. “I could do it faster, but that was a long time ago. I’m older now. The reflexes . . . well,” she darted the knife faster and faster, “I’m getting up to how fast I’d be comfortable doing this if it was my hand and not your wife’s.”

The colour had drained from Sascha Duffy’s face, and she couldn’t speak.

“A little bit faster, then?”

“No,” Duffy protested. “Stop. Stop! ”

Beatrix raised her fist to the height of her head and then slammed the blade down, hard, the point buried into the wood between the woman’s thumb and forefinger, millimetres from the fleshy web that joined them.

“Stop, Rose. Stop. That’s enough.”

“Shall we try again?”

“I’ll tell you what you want.”

“Where’s West?”

“A safe house.”

“Where?”

“We have an office.”

“You were there yesterday?”

“You were following me?”

“That was the office?”

He jerked his head in a nod. “Yes.”

“How safe?”

“It won’t be easy to get him out.”

“We’ll worry about that later.”

“Guarded?” Faulkner asked.

“Of course it’s guarded,” he said derisively.

“That’s better, Duffy,” Beatrix said. “Now, the second man. His name is Faik al-Kaysi. Your men shot and killed his mother and arrested him.”

“Name’s not familiar.”

“But?”

“But we’ve scooped up plenty of troublemakers recently. It’s possible. What’s he got to do with you?”

She ignored his question. “Where would he be?”

“I don’t know. I’ll have to make a call.”

Beatrix frowned at that.

“I can’t tell you what I don’t know, Rose. We give them all to the Iraqis. Local police. God knows what they do with them afterwards. He’s probably in al-Mina.”

“Local prison?”

“Yes.”

Beatrix turned to Faulkner. “Give me your phone.”

“I don’t know, Rose . . . You think that’s a good idea?”