The women stood the other side of the dying man, the other side of the thick lake of blood that was welling up and out of him, across the floor, up to the walls.

‘Sweet Jesus,’ said Mama, ‘Sweet merciful Jesus. Look what you did, Stanislav. Look what you did to this man.’

Elena shrank back behind her, using her bulk to shield the ruination from sight, but Luiza grabbed hold of her cousin, and started barking at her in Romanian. Stanislav was already down the corridor, at the junction. His face was set hard, and he shouted one word: ‘Hurry!’

Dalip took a deep breath. ‘Mama, we don’t have a choice now. We can’t go back. But we can get out of here: just come with me.’

Reluctantly, Mama took hold of Dalip’s proffered hand and she jumped over Pigface’s body. The man was no longer moving, breath no longer rasping, fingers no longer twitching.

‘Go. The door. Do what Stanislav told you.’ Dalip eased her past him and away.

Luiza all but threw Elena at him, and leapt the obstruction herself. Dalip muttered his apologies as they squeezed by, but Luiza merely tutted her frustration and shoved Elena hard in the back to speed her up.

They diverged at the end of the corridor. The women went into the guard room, Dalip into the pit. It was completely dark, something that neither he nor Stanislav had bargained for.

‘We need a light,’ the older man growled, and hurried out, coming back with a lantern from the guard room.

The glow it gave was feeble, and Dalip could barely see the edge of the parapet. Even though he’d jumped up to it several times now, groping around in the dark wasn’t going to make it any easier.

Stanislav put the lantern on the floor and judged his position. Dalip trotted over to the far wall and braced his back against it.

‘Ready?’ he called.

‘Yes.’ The shadow was so deep that it was almost impossible to tell. They’d just have to trust that they’d trained enough.

‘Okay. Three, two, one.’

Dalip ran, half-blind, hoping that Stanislav could see him better than he could see Stanislav. He raised his foot and stamped it down at the undifferentiated mass of darkness, and then he was flying. He remembered in time to raise his leg, turn his body, reach out in case he hadn’t risen quite far enough.

The landing was brutal. He’d overcompensated and so had Stanislav. He slammed, sight unseen, on to the balcony, having cleared the parapet completely, crashing into the throne and shoving it across the floor until it wedged against the wall. Parts of him were tangled with the legs of the chair, and not for the first time, he could taste blood in his mouth.