Marina leaned against the counter, brushing the powder off her hands and sniffing her fingertips – the smell always disturbed her sleep, as though war could permeate her dreams as well as her waking life. She sighed, feeling a wave of exhaustion break over her; her feet burned from standing on them so long, for she had finished a shift at the Palace hotel earlier. She and Luciana both worked there now: waitresses by day; milicianas by night.

Some sounds outside made her look up, alert again, and she automatically crossed the room, peering out carefully from behind the shutters. A black Rolls-Royce was parked on the street below, a pair of legs emerging from one side, Miguel Modesto’s impressive form already erect on the other. Notorious around the city, the car actually had a nickname – El Rayo, or Lightning – and was conspicuous for its presence at the highest profile ‘trials’.

‘It’s the others,’ she said, looking back to find Luciana already watching her.

The other woman simply nodded. ‘I shall put the broth on.’ She rose from the table again, her palms pushing down on the tabletop as though she needed help getting up. She looked older than her thirty-seven years.

Marina stood stiffly as she watched the men look around the empty street before entering the building, bracing for the sound of their footsteps on the stone floor, their keys in the door, the timbre of their low voices vibrating through the rooms before them. And then they were there, Sindo removing his hat and placing it on the hatstand with his usual precision, Modesto shrugging off his overcoat, his eyes falling immediately to her as they always did.

‘Good evening, ladies.’

‘Good evening,’ Marina replied, forcing herself to walk across the room and take his coat from him – it was a courtesy, a sign of friendship, something which was ever more important these days as his power grew and her resistance showed no sign of waning. Several times he had made subtle approaches to her – offers for dinner, a new dress – but every time, she politely found an excuse, knowing all the while his patience was growing thinner and thinner, until one day, she would wake to find herself out of favour of one of the most powerful men in the city. And what would happen then?

‘We were just hearing from Ivan about the day’s successes,’ she said, folding his coat and going to fetch him a rebujito without being asked.

‘A modest gain. We had hoped they were storing a lot more guns in there. We have still lost thousands of weapons that should be ours, weapons that are killing our own.’

‘The snipers though, they had been problematic, had they not?’ she asked, handing him the drink and trying to find the positives.

He nodded, his stare weighty upon her. ‘Their position had been favourable. The towers gave them a 360- degree view that was difficult to penetrate. Reclaiming the church brings back that corner of the district.’