Chisholm was trained to act on instinct and the shot, from this range, couldn’t possibly miss. The 9mm round struck Lucas in the face, boring a hole in his forehead just above his nose and almost perfectly between his eyes. It was a small mercy that he died immediately and he did not see his wife lunging across the room with the blade clasped in her fist. Five swung her gun arm around in a blur of motion, preternaturally fast, and fired another shot. The range was too close to miss, again, although Beatrix had anticipated it and arced away from the bullet’s track at the final moment; it missed the centre of her body and sliced through the flesh and bone in her left shoulder instead. Her nerves screamed but the rush of adrenaline drowned them out. She tackled Five, the sudden impact of the collision tipping the armchair over and onto its back, spilling both women onto the floor. Five tried to block Beatrix's downward stab but her arm was pinned and Beatrix had all the momentum. Their wrists clashed but Beatrix forced the blade down and down until she couldn’t press it down any more.

Isabella screamed, leapt to her feet and ran for the door.

Five’s Sig was on the floor; Beatrix reached for it and rolled over onto her back, aiming and firing twice as Ten came back into the room. Her broken ribs impeded her aim and the first shot went wide, splintering the door jamb, but the second hit him in the leg. He dropped his gun and collapsed, falling sideways to the floor.

Five struggled to her haunches and then fell backwards onto her backside. Her head hung forwards, but at an angle, and her breathing came in ragged hisses in and out. Beatrix aimed the gun as Chisholm raised her head and looked at her.

The letter knife was buried halfway into her throat.

There was sound of hurried movement from upstairs. She had no time. She got to her feet. Isabella was at the door. Her face and the white dress she was wearing had been sprayed with blowback from the shot that had killed her father.

“Isabella,” Beatrix moaned through the sudden curtain of pain that fell across her. “Come here, darling.”

She was covered in blood: her own, and Five’s.

The girl hesitated.

“Isabella, come to Mummy.”

She took a half step but it was too late. The door opened and Eight was there, encircling her waist with his left arm and aiming the gun at Beatrix's head with the other.

“Drop it!” he said.

Beatrix aimed back at him. “If you hurt her…” she began, the words trailing away. Nine and Eleven were clattering down the stairs. They would go around through the kitchen and flank her. This was a standoff she couldn’t win.

“Put the gun down,” Eight ordered.

Beatrix ignored him as she backed away. “Listen to me, very carefully. If anything happens to her — and I mean if you hurt a single hair on her head — I’ll hunt you down and kill you and everyone you’ve ever loved. That goes for the rest of you and Control, too. It goes double for him. Tell him. The only thing that is going to keep me from doing that is my daughter. If anything happens to her, I’ll have nothing to lose.”

Eight nodded. He was wise enough to know when to compromise. “Fair enough.”

Beatrix held the gun steady, aware that by aiming at Eight she was aiming at her daughter, too. “Isabella,” she said. “I want you to listen to me. I want you to go with this man. He’s going to look after you. Mummy has to go away now. I don’t know for how long, maybe for a very long time. But I’ll always be watching you. And I will always love you. Very, very much. Do you understand that, baby?”

The girl was only three years old. How could she understand? She had been sitting next to her father as he was shot in the head and then she had watched as her mother had been shot, then stabbed a woman in the throat and shot a man in the leg. If she could understand what she was telling her now, she did not show it; she stared at her dumbly, her mouth slack. Beatrix desperately wanted to remember her blue eyes with their usual sparkle of mischief but now they were empty and dull.

She backed away, her eyes beginning to blur from the tears, and opened the door to the garden. Ten was on the floor, clutching his leg, and Eight did not come after her; perhaps he was tending to Five, perhaps he recognised that it made more sense to accept the truce. The pain of her wounded shoulder blazed as she ran into the garden, scattering the chickens pecking at their seed, and clambered up and over the fence and into the garden of the adjacent house beyond. She thought of Isabella, and the fear and confusion in her priceless face, and choked down a sob as she opened the gate and passed into the road beyond.

PART TWO

TEXAS

Present Day

Chapter Nine

The detective removed the handcuffs from John Milton’s wrists and he rubbed the skin where it had chaffed against the metal bracelets. The officer dropped the cuffs on the scuffed and scarred surface of the table, went around to the other side, drew back the chair and sat down.

“Sit,” he instructed.

Milton did as he was told. The detective was young. He couldn’t have been that long out of the Academy. Young and fresh and keen to make a name for himself. Just his luck.

There was an old-fashioned tape recorder on the table. The detective tore the plastic sheath from a micro-cassette, took it out of its box and slipped it into the slot. He set the unit to record.

He cleared his throat. “All right, then. For the record, the speaker is Detective Dennis Bennington of the Victoria Police Department, and, also present, Detective Robert Kenney. The man being interviewed here this afternoon is Mr. John Smith. That’s S-M-I-T-H. Can I have your address, please, sir?”

“I don’t have one.”

“No fixed abode?”

“I’m travelling.”

“I see. And your accent?”

“I’m English.”

“Alright, then. Before we get started, you must understand your rights. You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to talk to a lawyer for advice before we ask you any questions and to have him or her with you during questioning. Do you understand that?”

“I do.”

“If you cannot afford a lawyer, a lawyer will be provided for you at no cost. Do you understand that?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Fair enough. Put your initials right here, please.”

Bennington gave Milton a pen and a printed form that noted that he was waiving his rights. He initialled it. “Can we get on with this, please?”

“You say you’re English but you have an American passport?”

“My mother,” he said. It was a lie. The passport was a fake, but it had been useful to have one as he passed through South America.

“Where were you before you came here?”

“Just got out of San Francisco.”

“How long were you there?”

“Six months, give or take.”

“Doing what?”

“I had a couple of jobs. I worked for an ice distribution company in the day and drove taxis at night.”

“Why did you leave?”

“Is it relevant?”

“Answer the question, please, sir.”

“It was just time to go.”

“And where are you headed?”

“Nowhere in particular. Wherever I end up.”

“Alright, then. What did you do before that?”

Milton hesitated. What would they say if he told them the truth? I was an assassin for the British government for the better part of a decade, I killed one hundred and thirty six men and women, my employer ordered that I be eliminated after I tried to resign and now I’m on the run.