‘I know you’re waiting for someone else,’ the man in the coat says in excellent English that’s not quite free of Slavic diphthongs. ‘I apologize for the fact that we had to hack your friend’s email and be so – how shall I put this? – mysterious.’

‘Who are you?’ Klara says. ‘Where is Gabriella?’

‘Gabriella is, as far as we know, still in jail,’ he says coolly. ‘The evidence against her is apparently quite damning.’

‘What kind of evidence?’

Klara takes a slow step back when the man steps towards her.

‘This is not your fight,’ he says, holding up his hands as if to calm her. ‘You were pulled in by chance when a project of ours in Syria took an unexpected turn.’

He stops, maybe trying not to scare Klara any further.

‘Someone contacted your friend Gabriella. A person we had eyes on and who had access to sensitive information. Something we could not allow him to share. We thought it would be enough if we had our Swedish colleagues put a lasso around Gabriella so we could take care of it in Brussels. But, but… We didn’t account for you. Or that this Jacob would end up being so resourceful. Or that our man would fall in love with him. Or…’

The Russian looks slightly disappointed as he throws his arms wide.

‘Nine out of ten projects are so predictable,’ he says. ‘But the tenth? The tenth defies all description. Unfortunately, you’ve landed in the tenth.’

He starts to walk towards her again, purposefully.

‘But now it’s time to take care of all this. You have something we need. A memory card.’

‘No,’ Klara says, shaking her head. ‘I don’t have it.’

The man looks disappointed and cocks his head.

‘We are on the same side here,’ he says. ‘I give you my word that we’ll get your friend out of detention. The evidence against her could quickly prove to be thin as air. Do you understand? And if you’re worried about letting something happen, I’ll give you my word on that too. Do you think we’re beasts?’

‘I don’t know,’ Klara says, looking straight into his eyes. ‘How should I know what you’re capable of? I don’t even know who you are.’

He stares at her with such coldness that Klara almost has to look away. But only almost.

‘What do you know about making this kind of decision?’ he asks. ‘What do you know about the world, Klara Walldéen?’

She sees the man in Gore-Tex moving towards her now, something intentional in his eyes, the gun in both hands. There are a lot of things that could go wrong here. That insight goes off inside her head like a bomb. She thought she was in control, but anything can happen now. Anything at all.

Her knees start to tremble but she pushes away her growing panic.