“Bochko.”

“Just tell me what I do. I do it good.”

“How many girls are here?” She was working his buckle again.

“Two. Three.”

Yes, two now, he thought. That was who Kitty was. The third. He pushed her face away from his zipper. “No,” he said. “I don’t like that.”

“Please,” she appealed. “Cameras see you unhappy. Bochko come.”

He hadn’t thought of cameras. He grabbed her by the shoulders and pulled her up to standing. He pushed her backwards against a wall and stood very near to her. He pushed against her and put his mouth under her ear.

“I’m police,” he said quietly. She stiffened beneath him. He held her hands down between their bodies. “I’m here to help you. How many men are here? How many guns?”

She grabbed his hair and pulled him away, spinning him off the wall and pushing him so hard against the bed that he thought he was going to have to defend himself. But then she had raised his feet and she was taking his shoes off. Her eyes told him he’d better cooperate. His buckle was still undone and she tugged his pants off and clambered on top of him. She kissed the base of his throat and spoke quietly and direly into his skin. “We both die, you polis. Both. You want?”

“No,” he murmured.

“You fuck me.” She began to unbutton his shirt, and he put his mind in neutral and focused on not getting them both shot. The girl helped him remove his shirt. How old was she? She looked nineteen. Perhaps even twenty. Maybe not. He prayed she was at least eighteen.

There was a hammering at the door. “Hey! What’re you sittin’ on the couch for?” came Plaskett’s voice. It had taken him less than one minute to get from wherever he could see them on his monitor to the room. That was all the lead-time Wingate would ever have here.

“We’re just getting to know each other,” Wingate said.

“Nothing to know, Buddy. Just get in and out and fill out a customer appreciation form. What’s the hold-up?”

Probably there were angles on the whole room. There was no hiding. “I just couldn’t believe how fucking hot she was,” he said as confidently as he could, and squeezing his fists together as he pulled the covers back. “Can I have some privacy now, though?”

“Well, get going.”

“Come,” said the girl impatiently. “Take off. All.”

The thought that he had to get out of there – and immediately – was competing with the necessity to remove his clothing. If there was a signal coming from the device in his now-shucked shoes, he wasn’t sure it was being picked up. The limit was seven metres, and the tunnel on the way to this part of the compound – the house – had gradually declined at least another five feet. It was possible no one was coming.

He would never be quite so naked in his life. He stood and took his socks off and threw them away. The girl had already tossed his shirt onto the couch. He went to the bed in his underwear, but she stopped him and slipped a finger into the back of his waistband. “Cameras,” she reminded him. “Fuck and live.”

She was going to find out exactly how impossible that was going to be, given all the circumstances.

He got into the bed and she came in after him, drawing the covers back for them both and then covering their bodies. She pushed him onto his back and lowered herself onto him, finding a discreet way to keep them on the safe side of intimate. He was grateful to her for whatever judiciousness she was now showing in her actions atop him. His forehead poured sweat. “I move, you stay still,” she said, lowering herself to kiss him.

“I won’t do anything.”

“You will be okay.” Her face came down beside his ear, and he felt the slow gyric motions of her body over his thighs as she enacted their travesty of lovemaking. She kissed his mouth and then along his chin, and she settled her mouth below his ear. The unbidden scurrying feeling in his gut that came with her mouth against his neck only confirmed the absolute absurdity of his situation.

She said, “My name is Katrina Volkov. I come from the city of Elizavetgrad, in Ukraine. I win a beauty contest, I fly to Montreal for Worlds. Next thing, I am here. They drug me. Put me in a van. Three months ago.”

“Tell me who Kitty is.”

“Kitty is dead.”

“No. Kitty is alive.”

“Alive? Ha.”

“Shh,” he said, and he held her close to his body. “Do you know how she got out? Did you know Henry Wiest?”

Someone hammered on the door. “Five minutes.”

Cherry suddenly threw herself back, whipping her hair around in a circle, and she began making animal noises, pretending to revel in her pleasure. He now saw how very great the cruelty of this crime was. He pulled her back down to him and flipped her over, pushed her back against the pillows. She looked startled for a second and then smiled at him. Such a look of gratitude. He was going to save her.

She pulled him down to her, as if to kiss him, but she put her mouth against his ear. “Kitty is alive?”

Her breath was hot. “Yes. She’s killed two men.”

“Good girl.”

“She’s looking for something.”

Cherry laughed softly. “We all look for something. Sometime, it make for trouble.”

“Do you know where she’s going? Who she’ll try to see?”

“Mr. Sugar,” she said. “She will kill Mr. Sugar, too.”

“Who is Mr. – ”

“Time’s up,” said Plaskett, throwing open the door. He strode toward the bed before either of them had a chance to adjust and ripped the covers off of them. Wingate leaped up and stood beside the bed, his police instincts telling him to have his weapon in his hand, and he stood with his hands apart and slightly bent forward, ready for anything. Plaskett laughed roughly. “Get enough, soldier?”

Cherry was calmly dressing and he patted her on the rump.

“Old Reliable,” he said. “Gene’ll take you back to your suite, dollface.”

Wingate wanted to pull the man’s eyes out of his head.

Cherry left without saying another word. Plaskett was facing him, his hands on his hips. “Well? She the goods?”

“She’s … yes, very good. Expert. Are all the girls like her?”

“The other girls are young and firm and taste like peaches, pal. Not like this beef jerky. And there’s more coming in all the time. Lots of turnover. Mind you, if you like Cherry, you can have her for the rest of the week. Make sure you like the service. But next time, you pay your bid like everyone else.”

“When can I bring the rest of the money?” he asked, moving around the man to get his pants. He couldn’t find his underwear and remembered that he’d stepped out of them beside the bed. This was overtime, danger pay, and a bonus all rolled up into one.

“You come back when you got it.”

“Okay.”

“I’ll take you up.”

He led him to the stairs that led down to the laundry room just off the river. He went back out into the riverbed. He was René Arsenault now. This new card would work in the reader. It would open the door to the river. Somehow, you made your reservation, then you showed your ID at the smoke shop, and you showed it again in the taxi. They would all know you were coming. He’d been lucky the security was so tight they could have faith in it. Or perhaps Thurlow would have thrown him to Plaskett. Because, certainly, when someone needed correction, Plaskett delivered it.

He walked back to the casino area, which then led up and out through the door in the river. He walked it out, pacing it and estimating the compass directions as the tunnel curved and then turned back to the hole with the stairs embedded in it.

Thurlow was waiting for him when he emerged, and without a word being exchanged, he drove Wingate back to the Eagle. Wingate transferred from the cab to the rental car he’d picked up in Mayfair, and which was parked in the same space Wiest’s pickup had been left in. If the space was a signal, he’d wanted to trigger it. But Kitty did not step out of the woods looking for something she thought he had on her. She was still at large, and the OPS had a much bigger, darker case on its hands than anyone had imagined. He got into the car and then dialled in.