"You've butchered several, haven't you?" Stella said. Ruth nodded. No pride, no complacency. No bravado. No regret. "Why did you do it?"

"It's what I do." Ruth's eyes dropped down under the makeupless pale lids. Her lashes were long and thick and black, like trimmings of her amazing hair. "But I got it wrong. And this man you mean—he was the last one, wasn't he? The one who came to the house."

"Yes," said Stella. Her voice was grit and it hurt her throat.

"I'm sorry," said Ruth, "I thought he was threatening them and that I had to stop him. But he wasn't. I was mistaken."

"That won't alter my mind."

"No, I'm not trying to alter your mind about me," said Ruth.

"No amount of pleading—"

"I won't plead," said Ruth. "I want you to do it."

"Why?" Stella said.

Ruth said nothing.

Stella refilled their glasses, replacing ice, throwing out the old lemon and adding fresh. Two-thirds of the bottle was gone.

When Ruth took her glass back, Stella noticed for the first time that she was left-handed.

"The man you killed had a nickname. It was Nobbi. Daft, isn't it. Like some sort of bad penis joke. Actually he was a wonderful lover. And anyway, I loved him."

"Yes," said Ruth. She raised her eyes. "Yes, tell me."

"I lost my mother you see—horrible euphemism. She died and my cat died—" Ruth made a tiny movement with her mouth. What they called a moue. "That can be traumatic."

."Yes," Ruth said, "my cat died, too. It was very old. It died in its sleep."

"Mine—yes, mine was like that."

Stella drank her vodka.

Ruth said, slowly, "And then you met the man."

"Yes, I met him and I was in love with him. I just looked at him and I was in love."

"Yes," Ruth said.

"He was married to somebody else, so we didn't have much time together. But what we had was delirious —yes, it was. And I used to think he'd leave her. Stupid, perhaps. Perhaps he wouldn't have. But I used to think we'd be together. And have cats and dogs. And—just be with each other."

"Yes," said Ruth.

"Maybe even I'd have had his child. It's not that I'm maternal. I just liked the thought of reproducing him. You see these bloody people, absolute rubbish, and they fill the earth with their rubbish, and they breed. But the best ones don't have children. Or not enough."

The train moved. Outside was the night. Now and then a dislocated light would gleam nickering in rain. It might be anything. A factory, a window, a beacon on a hill to tell of the coming of the Armada.

"And now there's no future," said Stella. "There's nothing."

"It will be so easy for me," Ruth said. "I've got nothing, either. And you'll put an end to that."

"Stop asking me to make you happy by doing you in," Stella said.