He came back inside, perplexed.

Then saw the folded note on the kitchen table. He snatched it up and read:

Ben,

I know you’re going to be pissed off with me, but I had to go back to help Kim and the others. It’s the right thing to do. I knew you wouldn’t let me go unless I slipped away. Please don’t be angry with me…

I love you. We’ll be together soon, I promise. It’ll all work out, and don’t worry about me. I know how to take care of myself.

Kisses,

Z

He stamped about the flat, furious with himself for letting it happen. Even more furious with Kim Valentine for luring Zara into putting herself on the line. Valentine and her colleagues should have known better than this, after what had happened to Linda Downey. He thought of the photograph of the agent’s mutilated body, and it made him shudder.

He snatched out his phone and was about to dial Valentine’s number when he thought better of it. He’d go there instead, talk some sense into Zara and bring her away. Then off to Le Val as planned.

He quickly gathered up the few things he’d brought with him, and stuffed them into his overnight bag. The gun was still lying under a chair where he’d thrown it carelessly down the previous evening. He grabbed it and chucked it into the bag as well. Locked up the flat, ran back down to the Mini. The squeal of tyres echoed through the concrete cavern as he skidded out of the parking lot, hit the ramp and burst out into the street.

He sped through Paris until he got snarled up in a major traffic jam caused by an overturned delivery van that was blocking a main street. Ben drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and cursed under his breath as the angry Parisian drivers sounded a cacophony of horns. Then police cleared the road, the mayhem dissipated and fifteen minutes later he was on his way again.

It was almost ten by the time he skidded to a halt outside the house in the suburbs. He marched up to the entrance and thumped loudly to be let in.

The door swung open of its own accord. He stepped inside. They must have been expecting him, he thought. But it seemed strange to have left the door open like that. Careless. ‘Zara?’ he called down the hall. ‘It’s me.’

No reply. ‘Valentine? Where are you? We have to talk.’

He reached the door at the bottom of the passage. It was ajar, maybe an inch. No sound from inside. That worried him. Had they already left? Was Zara on her way back to San Remo? Then he was too late. That fucking traffic jam.

He pressed his palm against the door and pushed it open. It creaked on its hinges and he stepped into the doorway.

The blinds were drawn, and the room was dark. There was a strange feeling underfoot. As though someone had spilled a lot of water, or there’d been a flood. He felt a squelch as he stepped into the room, groping on the wall for the light switch.

That smell. It was sharp and distinctive and triggered memories. Not good ones.

His fingers found the light switch and flicked it on.

What he saw in front of him made him stagger back towards the doorway.

Valentine, Harrison and Wolff were all staring at him from inside the room. Their mouths were gaping open, but they had nothing to say. Their three severed heads sat in a neat row on the makeshift coffee table. Blood was congealed thickly across the Formica slab, dripping down into the soaked carpet.

The rest of their bodies were scattered about the room. It was hard to tell which bits belonged to whom. An arm here, a leg there. The place resembled an abattoir. It was like the picture of Linda Downey. Even worse.

Ben fought back a gag reflex. ‘Zara-’ he said out loud.

That was when he heard quiet footsteps behind him, and turned. A figure was standing in the passage behind him, silhouetted against the pale square of light shining through the dappled glass of the front door window.

The figure stepped closer.

‘Hello, Benedict,’ Harry Paxton said. Only the blunt, black shape of the 9mm SIG Pro in his hand made him appear anything less than welcoming. It was trained on Ben’s heart.

‘What have you done with Zara?’ Ben asked.

‘You mean my dear, faithful wife?’ Paxton replied.

‘If you’ve hurt her-’

‘What? You’ll kill me? I really don’t think so.’

‘Believe it,’ Ben said.

Paxton chuckled. ‘She’s alive. For the moment, at least.’

‘I want to see her.’

‘She’s not far away,’ Paxton said. He snapped his fingers. Ben heard a door click open behind him in the room, and wheeled around. Across the room, on the other side of the grisly row of heads, a man appeared in the doorway from which Zara had emerged the day before.

She was there with him. A fillet knife was pressed to her throat and there was a strip of silver packing tape across her mouth. Her eyes were huge with terror.

Ben stared at the man holding her. He’d seen him before.

‘This is Berg,’ Paxton said. ‘He’s an associate of mine.’

It was Thierry, the launch pilot who’d ferried Ben and Kim Valentine to and from Porto Vecchio in San Remo. Ben watched him, and all he could see in his face was that placid, stony blankness that comes with mindless cruelty.

‘See?’ Paxton said to Zara. ‘I told you he’d come. He is in love with you, after all.’ He turned back to Ben. ‘You don’t think I knew about agent Valentine and her friends from the beginning? And little Miss Loyalty here, arranging for them to spy on me? Oh, yes. I knew all about it. I only had to fit a GPS tracker to my intrepid wife, while she was off pretending to visit her sick friend. She led me straight to them.’

‘You’re dead,’ Ben said. ‘No question about it. You’ve just dug your own grave and you’re standing right on the edge of it.’

‘Don’t overreach yourself, Major. Remember who you’re dealing with. There isn’t a single trick in your book that I didn’t write there for you. And remember that it’s thanks to me that you’re still alive.’

‘May 14th, 1997,’ Ben said. ‘Who are you kidding?’

‘Sparing a life is as good as saving one, Benedict. Remember waking up in the hospital that time? Me sitting by your bedside? I was all ready to smother you with your pillow if you’d recalled anything that happened. So you really do owe me your life, whatever might have happened that day.’

Ben could hardly find the words. ‘Why did you do it, Harry? How could you? They were your unit.’

Paxton shrugged. ‘Smith had his suspicions about me. I did what I had to do, before he went and told anyone. I had to protect my business. You’d have done the same. It’s called survival.’

‘Your business. You mean selling death.’

‘I cater to the demands of my clients, that’s all. What they do with my products is what humans have been doing from the dawn of history. That’s just the way things are, and always have been. “Only the dead have seen the end of war.”’

‘Plato,’ Ben said. ‘Don’t try to glorify what you do by quoting classical philosophy. You’re just a cheap gun runner.’

‘Don’t be naïve. If it’s not my guns being used to kill people, it’ll be someone else’s.’

‘There’s a saying, Harry. You are what you do.’

‘I’m a necessary evil.’

‘But evil just the same.’

‘You’re the last man I’ll take a lecture in morality from,’ Paxton said. ‘There’s no blood on your hands? You think you were in a different business? And you were one of the best at it. But I think you know that.’

‘I left, Harry. I don’t fight dirty wars for corrupt men any more. I got out of it, but you went in even deeper. That’s the difference between you and me.’

‘We’re not as different as you like to pretend,’ Paxton said. ‘That’s why there isn’t a man better suited to do a job for me.’

‘I did the job. It’s over.’