Don’t look, darling. Don’t look back in there.

And I smashed the machete down. And the pain was immediate. Scorching, endless pain. But it hadn’t worked – it didn’t come away. So I swung it round and smashed it again. And I screamed so loud I could no longer hear the children. I tried every trick in the book to make it hurt less – it was someone else’s wrist, someone else’s blood. It took three attempts. Again. And again. And again. On my own wrist. I sent the pain to Blackstone. I sent it to Grandad. To Derek Scudd, to Gavin White, to the Men in the Blue Van and Troy Shearer and Patrick Edward Fenton, to the two guys who’d attacked us on the beach, to Ming and to Stuzzy.

And I sent it to Paco.

And the blade hacked through my skin, flesh, veins, ligaments, bone, and after three excruciating strikes, there was release – my arm came away, gushing blood. It was intense agony but I was free and my ragged, severed hand dropped to the rug, limp in its dangling cuff.

Sweating hard, vision still swimming, I staggered to my feet and lurched into the kitchen, puking into the sink, before grabbing some tea towels and wrapping them tightly around my horrific stump. The kids were crying in the broom closet, more muffled now. It was my one window of opportunity. I picked up the machete again, heading for the office.

But I could feel myself slipping away – my eyesight blackening around the edges. White-hot pain scorched up and down the length of my left arm and I felt my blood pump out of me.

Paco had moved the bookcase away from the wall, still trying to find the parts of the panel to push. He was a bulldozer, going at it with his fists, thumping it all over – he didn’t have the lightness of touch Tenoch had.

He turned to face me and did a classic double take. Saw the blood-drenched tea towels. The dripping machete in my one remaining hand.

‘The fuck?!’

He backed against the wall – his gun on the floor, closer to me than him and before he could lunge for it, I grabbed it and pointed straight at his groin, firing twice. He flew back against the panel with a roar of pain, sliding down to the carpet, clutching his package, blood streaming through his fingers, screaming obscenities at me. I stood over him, watching him scream.

But both my legs buckled from under me and I dropped down too. I couldn’t stand. I reached for the door handle to pull myself up but I couldn’t grab it. I was like a marionette – all strings down. And Paco was getting up.

‘Morirás, perra,’ he snarled. ‘Morirás, perra!’ You will die, bitch.