Her instinct was to just call him straight back. But she knew she had to come off the boil first. No point talking unless she was steady. And that was the rule, anyway: after the separation, she’d told herself she wouldn’t speak to him unless she was calm.

She pushed redial, feeling nine-tenths of normal. Close enough. Rounding was permitted.

Her call went to voicemail. The greeting she’d recorded had been deleted. These days it was just the beep. Her erasure from their lives had been scrupulous.

She said, ‘Tony, please ask Alex to call me back.’

That was okay: level, mature. Conciliatory, almost warm.

She clicked off and put the phone on the cradle. It was stupid, really: letting a small conflict mar what should have been a happy moment. She had one more event in LA, and then in a week, she would be in Chicago. From this range at least, it didn’t look like fully hostile territory: there had been a column in the Tribune admonishing people to engage with the content of her argument, and not just dismiss her as an imperialist. The writer had used a quote from William F. Buckley—that there’s a difference between intervening in a foreign country to curtail suffering, and intervening to establish Coca-Cola plants. Notwithstanding the fact he’d been defending the Vietnam War, she appreciated the principle.

The phone rang.

But it was the interviewer, fifteen minutes early.

She waited a moment while he put her on hold, and then waited some more while she was transferred to a producer. Then back to the interviewer, who apologised profusely for calling early, and they small-talked amicably for another thirty seconds. Then they were recording, and the guy’s whole manner changed: hard and sharp and accusatory as he asked her to explain how she’d transformed from a level-headed liberal in her twenties to a neo-con and a hawk in her thirties.

And that’s when she heard the gunfire.

Almost a purr at first, and then louder: a fierce rat-tat-tat as a window broke, bright glass pebbles raining and then bouncing on the patio. She raised an arm in reflex, glass catching the light and dimpling the water, and then the body of Casey Freeman made the three-storey drop and hit the poolside concrete on its back.

ELEVEN

ELEVEN

She lost a second just staring at him. Blood all over his suit, mouth this great red grin—absurd, macabre: like this was exactly what he wanted. More gunshots, snapping her out of it, making her think—

Run—

But not past the pool—

Or they’ll see you from the window.

And not upstairs—

Or they’ll kill you.

So hide.

The interviewer’s voice faint and fading as she dropped the phone and ran back into the apartment. No goal in mind, but she knew she had to move.

More shots—loud, from the stairwell beside the bedroom.