He didn’t see Beatrix. She ghosted out of her hiding place, reached up to snag his hair with her left fist, yanked back on his head to expose his throat and then, before he even had time to draw the breath for a warning shout, she brought her right hand up and sliced through his throat with the blade. His body went limp; Beatrix dropped her left arm so that she could loop it beneath his left shoulder and clasped him around the chest. She dragged him to the side so that he wouldn’t be visible from the open doorway through which he had just emerged.

One down.

Three left.

Beatrix left the bloodied knife on the counter and crept back to the doorway. There was a hallway, with two doors to the side and a flight of stairs that ascended to the first floor. She quickly cleared the ground floor rooms: there was a small sitting room and a bathroom, both empty. She came back into the hall and started up the stairs.

And then she stopped.

A noise.

Distinctive and unmistakeable.

The sound of a baby’s crying.

She paused, trying to place it. The noise was muffled, as if passing through a closed door.

Beatrix held her breath.

The baby cried out again.

Upstairs.

She started to climb the stairs again, pausing just before she reached the top.

The stairs opened onto a landing. There was a door to the right and two to the left.

She risked a glance around the corner. The door to the right was open, and the room beyond was empty. It had bare floorboards and there were empty cardboard boxes stacked up against the wall.

She swung back behind the wall, took a breath, and readied herself.

She switched the machine pistol to three-shot burst mode and gripped it hard, almost as if she was twisting both hands to keep her elbows tight into her torso. She stepped out of the stairwell, turning to the left and holding herself in a line-backer stance, one foot slightly ahead of the other, and squared up to the two open doors.

Two bedrooms.

One of the men was in the bedroom to her right and the other was in the room to her left. The one on the left was facing away, and so she took aim first at his colleague. She held herself in a strong stance, her right foot slightly behind her left for the additional support that she needed when firing. Beatrix pulled the trigger. She had the luxury of an aimed burst, and all three rounds found their target. The man went down.