Zorya tried to hide them by folding them into her fists, and felt the fingernails digging into her palms. She pressed down harder, welcoming the sting. It reminded her that she was not yet entirely as this girl was.

‘How many people have you hurt with them?’ Jennifer continued. ‘That’s what you sometimes do, isn’t it? You tear at them with your nails. Perhaps a long time ago, so long ago that you’ve almost forgotten the details, someone hurt you, and now you hurt others in return.’

Zorya twitched, as though to shake off the buzzing of a fly.

‘No one hurt me,’ said Zorya.

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Jennifer, ‘but you still have to be stopped.’

Jennifer was very fast, so fast that Zorya didn’t even see her hand move. Her right index finger cut a line across Zorya’s chin. This time, Zorya felt the skin open, and the wound began to bleed.

‘Why don’t you stay awhile?’ said Jennifer, and her eyes were entirely black. ‘We can play a hurting game.’

But Zorya was already retreating across the bridge. Vienna reappeared around her, the city emerging as though waking from a dream of itself, and her chin was red with blood.

Chapter LXXII

Angel killed the call with Frend and detached the little CV-C voice changer from the cell phone. He could have used an app, but he preferred the CV-C because he knew for certain that it worked. He was of a generation that trusted the physical, and he regarded as deranged anyone who kept their most valuable personal information as data on a mobile device. Angel didn’t even like people knowing his name.

His conversation with Frend had been relayed to Louis over the speaker. They’d been forced to give the lawyer time to come back to them with the information they required, because Frend claimed not to know the location of the Vuksans’ hiding place. He had, he said, elected not to be privy to such knowledge in order to shield himself and his family. It was an arrangement that also suited the Vuksans as it placed an additional layer of separation between Frend and themselves. It was all about protection, Frend said.

‘This can end happily for the Vuksans or for you,’ Angel had told him, ‘but not for both. It’s a simple choice: Who do you care about more, your clients or your daughter?’

‘You know the answer,’ the lawyer replied. ‘Don’t harm her.’

‘Are you ordering me?’

‘No, I’m asking you, as a father. Please don’t hurt her.’