He said, ‘Look …’ And then paused as he chose a memory, thinking how to frame it. ‘I was in Fallujah during the Iraq war—2004 this was.’ He shut his eyes briefly, putting himself back there. ‘I shot a guy standing on a balcony this one morning, because I thought he was about to trigger an IED with a cell phone. Put a three-o-eight right through his eye.’ He shrugged. ‘Maybe I should talk to someone about that. I think about it a lot. But guys in masks trying to murder people in a house, I think the ethics of that are pretty clean.’

Locke let that have a moment’s quiet, contemplated a fingernail. Then he looked up and said, ‘Stay away from Andre. If you backed him down, he’s not going to forget you. And he might look like a charming little guy, but he’s got his nutcase dial cranked up to eleven.’

A light knock, and then a uniformed cop stuck his head around the door. He said to Vincent, ‘Ms Jones would like to see you.’

Vincent stood up, and so did the Marshal, handing him a card.

‘Give me a call if you think of anything.’

‘Yeah. I’ll do that.’

He realised he’d never been given a business card he didn’t then look at immediately. Like some inner reflex made him match the name he’d heard to the name that was written. He stepped around the table, but then paused in the middle of the room. He said, ‘I thought of something already.’

The Marshal put an eyebrow up. He was good at it.

Vincent said, ‘Someone’s out thirty million bucks.’

Locke nodded. ‘So I understand.’

Vincent said, ‘And I assume they were going to write it off, given they tried to kill all of us. Except Erin’s still alive, and presumably she’s just inherited a lot of money. And if they’ve come after her once, why not come after her again?’

And the Marshal said, ‘Yeah.’ Looking off, smoothing his tie. ‘I’ve been worrying about that, too.’

They’d given Erin an office to herself. Celebrity treatment, perhaps. Vincent knocked, and she called for him to enter. He went in, and found her on a couch beside the desk, legs crossed and an arm along the back of the cushions. A coffee table in front of her held a glass of water and a copy of Vanity Fair. She was wearing sunglasses, and below the lenses he could see her cheeks were red and blotchy.