I wondered if they would reach us in time or if this was the night that I died. I thought of Scout, and I thought of Edie. If Troy and the goon saw me coming, did they also know that Edie was here? No, I thought. So that was one good thing to cling to.

‘How’s the revolution going, you ugly freak?’ I asked.

‘You dumb bastard,’ Troy told me. ‘You have no idea what you’re messing with, do you?’

He lightly tapped the head of the hammer against the bridge of my nose.

Then Madam Theresa was in the doorway, peering through reading glasses at something in her hand.

‘DC Max Wolfe, West End Central,’ she read from the card I had given Bianca. Then she threw it at Troy. ‘He’s a police officer!’

‘Yes, you old witch,’ Troy said, nodding towards the CCTV. ‘We clocked him the moment he got out of that Merc. We were on to him when your flunkies were still holding the door for him and kissing his arse.’

‘The boss is not going to like it!’ Madam Theresa shouted, her accent growing less Boulevard du Montparnasse and more Bolton with every second.

‘I’m dealing with it!’ Troy screamed back at her.

I chanced a look up at the black-and-white CCTV screen. The Mercedes was still parked by the penthouse lift but there were no signs of life.

I closed my eyes again. They had to be on their way up.

Troy raised his hammer.

‘Not in here, you abomination!’ Madam Theresa said.

Troy sighed.

‘Where would you like me to do it, you mad old bat?’ He waved the hammer at the bath. ‘I do him in here. We chop him up. Hands off, head off, teeth out. Take him out with the rubbish. Get a few of your tarts to give this tub a good scrub and it’s business as usual.’

She thought about it, clearly a bit happier.

‘Well,’ she said. ‘Mind my tiles with that hammer.’

‘So how does it work?’ I said, wincing from the pain in the back of my skull. ‘You find these women in the camps? Or does it start much earlier? Where does it begin? Belgrade or long before that?’

I thought of Rabia Demir, the prettiest girl in the village.

‘Tell me how it works, you ugly bastard,’ I said, reaching up and lunging at his throat, wanting to tear it out.

He easily swatted my hands away.

‘No more words,’ he said.

He lifted the hammer high above his head.

Then he brought the hammer down.

I rolled on my side and the hammer smashed into the tiles of the tub, splintering them with a metallic crack. I lashed out with the heel of my foot, connecting with nothing, and he adjusted his stance, bringing the hammer down again.