It’s a wide room with a low ceiling over a tiled floor, maybe for ease of mopping up tears. There are pews rather than seats, mostly full. I take a seat up the back, so Thistle won’t notice me. The lumberjack, inexplicably, sits next to me. Boxing me in. Which is bad, potentially for both of us. Now that I’ve thought about eating him, it’s hard to stop.

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 12

I am an odd number. Take away a letter and I become even. What am I?

‘Please state your name for the court.’

Thistle leans in close to the microphone. ‘Reese Catherine Thistle.’

She’s changed into a suit that doesn’t fit her very well; it probably belongs to her lawyer—a tense-looking white woman with narrower shoulders and a lesser bust.

Thistle doesn’t look nervous, but she’s highly alert. Aware that she’s under attack.

Bucetti, whoever he is, hasn’t turned up. His lawyer is an old man in a brown suit—from here I can only see the top of his liver-spotted head. It seems strange that the lumberjack came along for moral support when his friend isn’t even here.

After Thistle—who’s an atheist—swears on a Bible, the bald lawyer stands up. He’s taller than I expected, and his voice is louder.

‘Miss Thistle. Let’s pick up where we left off last week, shall we?’

‘Let’s,’ Thistle says.

‘When you shot Anthony Iuculano, was that the first time you’d fired your service weapon?’

‘No,’ Thistle says. ‘I go to the range every week.’

‘But it was the first time in the line of duty, correct?’

Thistle’s lawyer is on her feet already. ‘Objection! Leading the witness.’

The judge is a middle-aged black woman with sagging cheeks and a head which hangs low, as if weighed down by decades of bullshit. ‘Sustained,’ she says wearily.

The bald lawyer rephrases. ‘Miss Thistle, was this the first time you’d fired a gun at an actual suspect?’

‘Yes,’ Thistle says.

‘It must have been hard,’ the lawyer says, ‘lining up a shot on an actual human being, putting your finger inside the trigger guard for the first time …’

He lets the words hover in the air for a moment.

‘Was that a question?’ Thistle asks.

‘Meanwhile, Iuculano was lining up a shot of his own, taking aim at your partner, Agent Mario Bucetti.’

‘I’m still not hearing a question.’

‘Miss Thistle,’ the judge warns. ‘I strongly discourage you from being flippant in my courtroom.’

Thistle clenches her jaw. ‘Sorry, Your Honour.’

I’m starting to understand why Thistle is here. Not because of who she shot, but who she didn’t.

‘Unlike you, Iuculano didn’t hesitate,’ the lawyer says. ‘He—’

‘No, but my aim was better,’ Thistle says.