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There was a knock on the door. He didn't answer. The door handle turned and the brunette stole inside. She was beautiful, no point denying it. But then Sasha had been, too. And when you've loved and lost someone truly beautiful, other beauty seems hollow, it doesn't touch you. She crossed the bedroom towards him.

He held up a hand. ‘I don't want you,' he said, as curt as he could manage.

She stopped. ‘You want one of the other girls?'

Her voice was deeper than he'd expected. Like Sasha's.

‘No,' he said. ‘I don't want anyone.'

She stayed where she was. ‘If I leave now, I'll be punished,' she said.

Too bad. He'd held true to Sasha all these years. The brunette's face grew sad, then resolute, like she knew what was coming. She turned to leave. He imagined Sasha, watching. She'd scold him.

‘Wait,' he said. ‘You can stay. But no sex.'

She didn't move. ‘He'll have his men check.'

‘Check what?'

‘The sheets.' She lowered her voice. ‘Me.'

He imagined Sasha storming out to find a gun to shoot Kadinsky, though not in the face.

‘It's okay,' she said. ‘I respect you for it.' She glanced over her shoulder. ‘You're lucky you have the choice.' She moved to the door.

All these years he'd imagined Sasha by his side, watching over him. He'd never told anyone, even when drunk, that he still carried her around with him. He imagined Sasha at the door. She would say that one of them had to leave, and it was her. Make it quick, she'd say, as she closed the door behind her, and don't tell me about it. Ever.

‘Wait,' he said. The room felt empty, just him and the brunette. ‘Get undressed.'

She smiled, mouthed
Spasiba
, and let her dress fall to the floor.

She was perfect, the ends of her tawny hair just reaching her nipples.

‘How long has it been?' she asked.

‘A lifetime.'

She came over to him, knelt down and pulled his boots off one by one, then leant forwards and pulled his jumper up, her breasts brushing against his chest. He touched them, gingerly, as if they might break, then withdrew his hands.

‘I'm fat. I must be hideous to you, a whale of a man.'

She ignored the remark, and stood up to pull the jumper over his head and arms. ‘I've had handsome men, ugly men, fat men. You all come the same way. I see beyond the flesh.'

She gestured for him to stand. She undid his belt, his zip, and eased off his pants. He felt gross, for the first time ashamed of the massive size he'd allowed himself to become. Before, he'd grown large as an excuse, to avoid contact with women. And for Sasha, who'd loved eating, but couldn't any longer, so he'd eaten for two. But now… surely this girl was repulsed.

‘And what do you see beyond this mountain of flesh?'

She removed his underpants. He was semi-erect. She sat back on her knees, looked up beyond his overflowing stomach into his eyes.

‘I see a man who's forgotten how to be loved.'

She touched him, and his semi became full. He grasped a lampstand to steady himself.

‘What's your name?' he asked.

‘Natasha,' she said.

Almost certainly a lie. She leaned forward and took him into her mouth, making him groan. The metal lampstand snapped inside in his hand.

She lay next to him on the bed. He hadn't asked her to leave, and she didn't seem in a hurry, probably because she was safer here. She'd spat into a handkerchief. Evidence.

His mind was silent, a voice missing. Sasha had gone for a long walk. He wondered if she would return. He didn't want to lose her now, when he was so close to joining her.

He began talking to the girl to fill the void. He told her about Sasha, about his life, about everything, all except the current mission. The words flowed out of him like air from a deflating balloon. She listened, occasionally asked a question. Eventually he grew quiet.

‘A love like that… Almost worth dying for,' she said.

‘Why don't you leave here?'

‘I have a sister. Or rather Kadinsky has her. And so he has me.'

Lazarus understood the emotional arithmetic. Kadinsky was good at it.

‘But what I don't understand,' she said, ‘is why he has you, Lazarus?'

It was the first time she'd called him by his name. He still didn't know hers, her real one. He tried to think of Sasha, but instead he stared at this girl. His hand caressed her, tracing the curve of her torso. He touched her, the way Sasha had taught him.

‘I'm freelance, but when Kadinsky asks for work, it‘s unwise to refuse.'

She moved his hand a fraction, left hers on top of his, setting a rhythm. ‘He's afraid of you. That's rare.'

Lazarus no longer felt like talking about work. He kissed her, and she moved on top of him. ‘Give me your wrists,' she said, then held them down on the bed, as if she was pinning him there. He could have thrown her off in an instant, but he surrendered. She rocked back and forth, using him. He held out as long as he could.

The sharp knock on the door surprised him. He'd fallen into a deep sleep for the first time in years, woken like an innocent child, forgetting who and what he was. It was still dark, but the clock by the bedside said 04:00, and he remembered he had to get ready for the flight. He took a quick shower and got dressed, and headed downstairs from where he could see a sedan in the driveway. The girl stood in her black dress, barefoot, by the doorway. She handed him a flask.

‘Coffee,' she said.

He took it, swept her into his arms and kissed her full on the mouth, lifting her feet off the floor, then put her down.

‘What's your real name?'

Her dancing eyes drew back, a hint of fear in her expression. She glanced around, then whispered it to him.

In the car, on his way to the airfield, he searched his mind for Sasha, but she had left him. Unbearable sadness threatened to overwhelm him, as it had at her funeral. But in his mind, he signed the last page of that long chapter in his life, and turned a new one. It would be a very short chapter. An epilogue. An ironic one at that. For the first time in years he had something to live for, not just a reason to go on living. Dangerous for a man in his profession. Too bad. Maybe he was being a fool. This had been a night with a whore, nothing more, and she could be a good actress. It didn't matter. He'd do one last thing, a single good deed, and save a flower floating on the river of blood and shit that had been his life, and all those he'd taken. Then maybe Sasha would forgive him on the other side.

Chapter Sixteen

Nadia knew she'd most likely have to kill today. She hadn't been ready with Janssen. Was she ready now? She had to make peace with herself. No, she had to make peace with the two parents she carried inside her, locked in a custody battle that reached beyond the grave. That's the trouble with parents dying, you could no longer reason with them, only what they put inside you. But there was a question she'd never asked her mother. And it mattered.

She imagined the conversation, because it was her only option.

‘Mother, if you came home and found I was being raped by a man at knife-point, and Dad's pistol was within your reach, would you shoot him?'

What would her mother do? She'd fluster, find something in the kitchen to chop, knead, cook. ‘Nadia, only God can take a life,' she'd say. Then she'd stop, turn and face her daughter. ‘If you kill, you rob that man of any chance later in life to repent, to mend his ways. And if you kill others, like your father did, you take so much more. No more thoughts, words, smiles.'

Nadia had her answer. In her mind, she turned to her father. ‘Dad, would you –'

‘In a heartbeat.'

She made her choice.

But she couldn't do this alone.

She sheltered underneath the narrow eaves of Pete and Ben's locked-up dive shack, the rain lashing against her jeans, puddling around her soaked trainers. She hoped she wasn't waiting in vain. Danton had Elise, no other explanation. Fi had gone to the police, who apparently weren't taking Elise's disappearance too seriously at this stage, given the nature of holiday romances and girlfriend-boyfriend tiffs.

Jake had Nadia's Beretta and her mobile, and was out of sight in the nearby café, where she hoped he'd stay. The tracker device was on her, linked to the phone. It was small and round, located somewhere no one should look. She figured Danton wanted to trade Elise for the Rose. But then he'd want to tell her in person, and the inn had become too busy, especially after a constable had been there to inspect Elise's room. So, Danton – the torturer with the hammer – would have interrogated Elise, would know Nadia was trying to dive the Tsuba, would work it out, and would turn up here, sooner or later.

She'd asked Jake if he'd ever killed anyone, and he'd given the answer she'd expected. But he'd said he had killed a bull shark once, to protect his son Sean after they'd been cornered in a cave by one off Gozo. He didn't say how he'd done it, but she knew bull sharks were big and mean. So, she'd killed a bear, him a shark. She shook her head.

What a team
.

A man approached, and she narrowed her eyes to try and see more clearly through the sheets of rain sweeping the empty street. As he drew closer, she recognised his slightly portly frame despite his heavy coveralls, his uncertain, almost hunched gait, and as he drew closer, those haunting, don't-lie-to-me eyes beneath a fisherman's hat.

Ben.

He walked up to her, dug inside his waterproof jacket and pulled out a cigarette, lit it, took a couple of puffs, and handed it to her.

How did he know? She took it, and inhaled deeply.

‘No news on Elise?' he asked.

She shook her head. But there was something about the way he asked. ‘Ben, are you and Elise…?'

He laughed, went to the shack, unlocked it and gestured inside. She took a look down the road, then stepped in out of the rain.

‘I thought I might have a chance with her, especially after Jake left here. Dreaming as usual,' he said, with a sad smile. He caught her eye. ‘She loves Jake.' He said it like it was an epitaph. Nadia was unsure whose it was meant to be.

‘She'll be okay, Ben. I promise.'

He gave her an appraising look, his eyes full of questions, but he didn't ask them.

‘Well, don't know what I'm doing here, really,' Ben said. ‘Just feel I need to do something.' He looked at her intently again. ‘There's more going on here than we know, isn't there?'

She nodded.

‘Is it you, or Jake?'

She shrugged. ‘A little of both.'

‘Well, Jake's a good man. That much I do know.' He flicked his cigarette out into the rain. ‘When Jake arrived, Pete and I could barely stand the sight of each other, still cut up about losing our dad, see? Anyway, Jake sorted us out. Think he was trying to escape his own pain, but whatever the reason, he brought us back, healed us. And pulled me out of a wreck. Truth is, we'd probably do whatever he asked of us.' He put a hand on her shoulder. ‘I don't think you're a bad-un, either.'

She smiled. He'd never know how much she'd needed to hear that right at this moment.

He made to leave, and she stepped back out into the rain. He locked up, then pointed. ‘You see that small boat, the flame-coloured one part-covered with a white tarpaulin?'

She followed his gaze, and spotted it through thick cords of rain. A small boat, sleek but otherwise nothing special.

‘Fastest boat in the Isles. Can outrun a Navy patrol boat. It sits so low in the water it don't show up on any radar.
Dragonfly
. Large enough fuel tank to reach the mainland.'

She stared harder. ‘Who owns it?'

‘It's mine.'

She recalled the hunt for the bear with her father. They'd found a deer, its neck snapped like a twig. Not eaten, just killed by a bear's rage. Harmless. Defenceless. It had been one of the reasons she'd been able to shoot the bear in the end.

She touched his arm. ‘Ben,' she said. ‘When the weather dies down, I'm going to dive the Tsuba.' She thought of the SEALs, of Adamson. ‘I want you to stay away from it.'

He gave her that laser-like stare again. ‘All right. As it's you asking.'

She felt relieved, not entirely sure why. She had the feeling a lot of blood was going to be spilled before the end, and didn't want Ben caught up in it.

Ben looked out to sea. ‘Right, I'm going to go check some old haunts, just in case.' He passed her another cigarette. ‘You take care, now.'

Nadia watched him walk off, his gait surer, no longer hunched.
You could do a lot worse, Elise.
But as soon as she'd thought it she wondered whether the girl was even still alive.

Her cigarette died. She dropped it into a puddle and, out of habit, stubbed it out under her boot.

Come on Danton, show yourself.

And then, through the endless waterfall, she spotted a beat-up Ford Fiesta as it kerb-crawled its way towards her, its windscreen wipers completely ineffectual. The passenger door swung open. The man with the straw hat sat behind the wheel, a Luger in one hand, the other on the wheel. On the passenger seat was Elise's purple neckerchief.

Nadia got in.

The house was a smart choice: secluded, a long straight path rising slowly uphill to reach it, surrounded by grassland. No cover. Nadia sat by the lounge's bay window, her hands tied tight behind her back by a thin nylon cord. Danton lazed opposite her on a sofa from where he could see beyond her and survey anyone approaching. She wondered where the owner was, though she had a hunch.

She studied Danton: unshaven, unkempt sand-coloured hair, muscled in a general way like he'd been doing weights all his life, but no longer a body-builder, and eyes that looked as though they could haunt you beyond the grave. She'd looked into plenty of killers' eyes before – they were usually dead, like holes – but his had a glint. He'd developed a taste for it. He clearly liked power, to be in absolute control. She thought of Sammy, how he must have suffered, and the fact he'd lied about her whereabouts to Danton, despite the torture.