Petrovitch took a while to answer. “Far away. Where no one had ever heard of me, seen me. Somewhere I could start again. Make a better job of it than I did this time around.”

“That your gun?” The sister looked over to where it sat on the desk, moistening the cover of the book beneath it.

“Yeah.”

“Loaded?”

“Not much point in having one that isn’t.” Petrovitch went to pick it up, and she laid her hand across it.

“I should have checked you for weapons. Now I’m going to have to confess that before next mass.” She glanced up. “And accept a penance. You’re nothing but trouble.”

The kettle boiled, and she dutifully made instant coffee spooned from a battered tin.

“What about you?” asked Petrovitch. “You don’t seem, I don’t know, very holy.”

She plugged the fire back in. “Holiness is a work in progress. In the meantime, I can kick your bony ass through a wall, I can group twelve shots at fifty meters and I can take a bullet meant for my priest. The job description didn’t mention sainthood.”

“So what did it say?”

Her fingers tightened around her mug, and she blew steam on her face. “I was fifteen and I was going to end up killing someone. I was full of rage and hate, and I couldn’t control it. Someone offered me a chance; a chance to change what I was going to become. A new start, just like you.”

“Yeah. Not quite like me.”

The lights went out.

In the dying glow of the fire, Petrovitch snatched up his gun and pulled the slide. It was dark, a closed room without windows. He could hear the sister’s clothing rustle softly, then the solid mechanical sound of her own, considerably larger gun being cocked.

He listened intently. There was the rain, the creaking of timbers, the splash of water in over-full containers. There was traffic noise and the clatter of domestic alarms. He could see where the back door was by the slit of light under it. He took two slow steps and stood beside it, back to the wall, ready.

The only movement in the room was now hers. The chair relaxed with a sigh as she rose from it. The air stirred as she walked. She made no sound herself. Even her breathing was below a whisper.

She stopped, and everything was still.

The vestry door gave a very slight shudder, just enough for whoever it was to tell it wasn’t locked. Petrovitch crouched down and reached out with his free hand for his jacket. He found it, and pulled it slowly toward him. He felt in his pocket for his key-fob torch, which he gripped between his lips: his teeth rested against the on switch. He kept hold of the jacket.