Now Zara's black boat rested in the shadow of that canal mouth, lying so low in the water it too might have been slowly sinking; except this vessel was designed to ride almost level with the waves. Fifty feet long, ten wide at the stern once its chisel-edged prow had finally flared out, the boat was an ex-UN-issue combat craft. Stealth-sheeted and proof against infrared sensors.

Its retractable glass antenna was just visible at the rear. Turned off, the antenna was transparent to radar. Only in the brief periods when it was broadcasting or receiving did the inside of the hollow glass whip turn to plasma, as a single metal electrode at its base stripped electrons from gas.

The last time Raf had seen a VSV had been ten years before on CNN when one of the 15,000bhp craft had been in the middle of being freighted aboard a McDonnell Globemaster V to be air-lifted to some emergency in Indonesia. If he remembered correctly —and, as always, he did — out of the water it looked like a cigar tube that someone had pinched flat at the front end. That, and the fact it had once been the fastest ocean-going vessel in the world.

'Well ...' Raf glanced from the old VSV to the grey card in his hand. 'Why not?' There was a lot about Zara he didn't know. In fact, he suspected that there was a lot about her that a lot of people didn't know, starting with her parents.

A slot next to a small door at the rear of the long cockpit swallowed the card and then spat it out again. Without any sound, without a single diode lighting or any other clue that the VSV 's computer even knew he was aboard, the door frame scanned Raf for weapons and confirmed the card was real. The multiple check-sums matched those in memory and Felix's revolver was judged not hazardous.

A lock clicked and the door opened outwards. The cabin inside was as clean as the boat's outside was filthy and Raf realized the litter on the decks, the tide marks and oil smears were intentional. Someone had ripped out the original bucket seats that had run down both sides of the cabin and replaced them with two metal beds, a small fridge, a bank of comms kit and, most bizarre of all, a shower cubicle.

The only other thing in the stripped-bare cabin was a white telephone, the old-fashioned kind with a handset that needed to be picked up. The phone was busy taking a message and a read-out on its base announced that its memory was already backed up with ten others. Probably all from the same man by the sound of it ...

'Zara.' Anger fought worry in the caller's voice, worry winning. 'Your mobile's turned off and I've tried everywhere else. If you're there, pick up ..."

'Zara, are you there? Zara ...'

For a second, Raf was tempted to leave the receiver in its cradle and let Zara deal with her father when she finally turned up: always assuming she did and that sending him ahead wasn't her ploy to get Hani away from a dangerous maniac. But there was something approaching desolation in Hamzah's gruff voice. His fury a flip side to a love he'd probably never put into words but which was there all the same.

Raf lifted the receiver. 'She's not here.'

'Not...' Hamzah sounded stunned. 'Who is ... ?'

Realization hit him a second later.

Zara refused to use the word beat. Grown-ups either hit children or they didn't, in her opinion. Calling it something else might soothe an adult conscience but it made little difference to the child.

'It's okay, honey. You're allowed to tell me.'

Hani didn't answer. Partly because she'd never really seen another person naked and she was looking at Zara with the disturbed fascination of someone who knew that, one day, strange things would happen to her body too. And partly it was because Hani didn't know the right answer.

Hani tried very hard to give only right answers, even if other people thought that wasn't true. Other people had always been Aunt Nafisa and Donna, but now her aunt was dead and Donna was still at the madersa and other people were Ashraf and the woman standing in front of her, struggling to get into her filthy shirt without letting the cloth scrape her back.

'Do you want me to do that?' Hani asked.

Zara nodded, and sat back on the edge of the camp bed.

'This arm first,' Hani said.

Obediently Zara threaded one arm through the offered sleeve.

'Now this one ..."

'Did she?' Zara asked, gently moving Hani round so the child stood facing her. The child blushed, though at what Zara wasn't certain.

'She did, didn't she?'

Very slowly Hani nodded.

'Often?'

'Sometimes.' By now the child was gazing anywhere but at the young woman in front of her.

Zara didn't need to ask if the blows were hard. She'd faced that question for herself and could answer as a child. All blows were hard when it was someone who was meant to love you and someone you were meant to love — did love — until you finally taught yourself not to ...

'Something happened, didn't it?' Zara said gently.

Hani shook her head.

'Yes,' said Zara. 'When Lady Nafisa came home ... You saw her come in and something happened. Was she angry?'

'No,'Hani said, nodding. The answer was there on her tongue but her mouth was closed into a bitter, troubled trap, holding in secrets too heavy to speak.

Tell me,' Zara said. 'She came home and you were where ... ?'

'In her study,' Hani's voice was a whisper. 'She'd taken Alì-Din.' Hani clutched the rag dog tight, as if someone might be about to confiscate the toy again.

'So she hit you ...' Zara could understand the child's hurt. She'd inhabited that world until first thing this morning. Now her world would be different.

'No,' said Hani. 'She missed. So I ran away.'

'She missed?'

Hani nodded. She was thinking. Remembering, but not quite understanding. 'Aunt Nafisa was falling over. She shouted at me because her head hurt.'

'What?' Zara asked quickly. 'What did she shout?'

'To get a doctor — and to leave her alone.'

'So what did you do?'

Wide eyes regarded Zara. 'I shut the door and locked it ... She was drunk. It's wrong to be drunk.' Hani nodded intently, reassuring herself. 'When Donna got drunk Aunt Nafìsa slapped her and said next time she'd call the police ...'

So you didn't call a doctor, thought Zara, because you didn't want the police to come. And then your aunt was killed and the police came anyway. No wonder you're traumatised.

'Honey,' said Zara as she stroked Hani's cheek, 'it's okay. You did right. And I promise we won't let anyone know she'd been drinking.'

The anger coming down the line was almost palpable. Hamzah's fear finally finding a target it could hate. 'I will kill you if you've hurt her ... Do you understand?'

'Me, hurt Zara? I thought that was your wife's job.'

That earned Raf stunned silence. Raf could do misdirected hatred too, better than most. Raf and Hamzah were two minutes into what passed for a conversation and were already headed for a brick wall.

'You shot Felix Bey,' Hamzah said finally. As if that was proof Raf intended to slaughter his daughter as well.

'News travels ...' So did a memory, sliding out of the past. Felix discussing the General. Felix bad-mouthing the Minister. Felix talking about skimming his percentage off men like Hamzah, but still not looking the other way. In a city like Iskandryia anyone could have sent that bomb.

Raf ran tired fingers across his scalp, feeling stubble. It needed washing along with the rest of him. He felt old and tired, centuries older than when he had first arrived in the city. His face was narrower, his dark blond beard made his lips look thinner and chin more pointed. There was a vulpine cruelty to his own face that Raf didn't recognize.

The prince must make himself feared in such a way that, if he not be loved, at least he escapes being hated.