There were shuffling footsteps. Cursing. Amanda tasted concrete dust and blood in her mouth.

“A cop is different.”

“She’s not a cop. Look at her.”

“She told me she was a cop or an investigator or something.”

There was a pause. The grind of boots on grit on tiles. Amanda felt her wallet wrenched from her back pocket. Her phone was already long gone. She struggled as one of them took her wrists, began winding tape around and around them. She fought, and they were surprised by her sudden wakefulness. She slid awkwardly onto her backside, looked up at them.

Two young men, the same ones she had encountered the first morning after the murders, at the front of the Songly house. Damo and Ed. Or Bran and Jay, as she now knew. Two dark-eyed, rough-bearded men, distinguished by the shapes of their faces. One wolfish and lean, the other box-headed and brutish. They stared down at her, measuring, as she was measuring them. Amanda felt blood running down the side of her neck from her ear.

“Which one of you arseholes punched me?” she snapped.

The men looked at each other. One had her wallet, the wolfish-featured man, his eyes dancing between the item and her.

“Amanda Pharrell,” he said, reading her credit card. “You a cop or not?”

“Last time I checked they frowned upon neck tattoos and violent homicide in the academy,” Amanda said.

“Homicide?” the wolf scoffed.

“Look me up.” Amanda spat blood on the floor. “I’ve killed. But I won’t kill you. I’ll just smash your face in. One for one, that’s how I like it.”

“Jay, this bitch is crazy,” the wolf said.

“My ear is throbbing,” Amanda wailed.

Jay bent and took a pistol from his back pocket. He pushed the slide back and pointed the barrel at Amanda’s face.

“Girl, your problems aren’t limited to a punch in the fucking head,” Jay said. He was the mean one, Amanda could tell. There was always a mean one. One ideas man and one easily led man. One brain, one brawn. This would be the man who hit her. She was sure of it. “You better forget about who punched you and think about whether you want to die fast or slow.”

“Don’t.” Bran nudged his partner with his boot. “We need to talk about this. We might need her as leverage. She’ll be missing from somewhere, mate. Someone will come looking for her.”

Jay and Amanda watched each other. Amanda knew the man before her was looking for her fear. But there wasn’t any. Wouldn’t be any. Fear was one of the things that Amanda felt most rarely. It was an impossible equation to solve in her brain, a puzzle that now and then partly assembled itself before the pieces inevitably fell away.

“I’m gonna break your nose,” Amanda said. Jay frowned and got to his feet, followed his partner into the other room.