“A protest,” Chen said, pushing open his door.

The Chinese detective and Caprisi did not seem to have noticed Natasha, but as they got out and walked around to the front of the car, Field watched her.

She was smiling as she gave away each leaflet, but she did not look happy. A couple of police sirens wailed in the distance. She raised her head sharply, trying to make out where the sound was coming from.

The sirens closed in quickly. Field heard a whistle and saw a group of Sikh policemen charge past the car and begin to flail at the edge of the crowd with their batons. Protesters screamed as they were clubbed to the ground.

Natasha had frozen. She was staring at them.

Field pushed the door open, stepped onto the sidewalk and lunged for her, but her instinctive response was not submission but resistance. She pushed him away, punching him, then grabbing his hair as he tried to move her toward the car.

“Chen!” he yelled, but the effort distracted him and she bit his hand hard. The pain made him rougher than he’d intended, kicking her legs out and bundling her headfirst toward the rear of the car as the Chinese detective came up to help him, moving easily, as if the assault at Lu’s house had had no discernible effect.

Caprisi climbed in the other side. “Let’s go,” Field said. Natasha was no longer struggling. Her hair hung limply over her face. She still clutched the leaflets. Caprisi took them from her and glanced through them before looking up at her. “Big mistake,” he said. “Big mistake.”

They reversed away from the crowd.

It took only a few minutes to get to the Central Police Station, and Natasha did not raise her head on the journey. As they pulled up outside, Caprisi told Chen to take her down to the cells. Field resisted the temptation to look at her as she was taken away.

Inside, Caprisi said, “I’m hungry. You want to get some lunch in the canteen?”

Field tried to think clearly about what he ought to do.

“If you want my advice,” Caprisi said, “I would leave her to think it over.”

Downstairs, there was a long line for lunch, and Field might have given up if his stomach had not been loudly protesting its hunger. He chose meat that he was assured was beef, potatoes, beans, and overboiled carrots. It was like being back at school.

On the way to their table, a big gray-haired Scotsman, who’d played lock forward against him two days before, slapped Field on the back. “Well played.” He laughed. “Teach that fucking Yank a lesson.”

Field smiled at Caprisi as they sat down. “Friend of yours?”

“Brits.” He shook his head.

Field poured himself a glass of water and covered his food in salt and pepper in an attempt to instill some taste into it.

“Will you ever go back to America?” he asked, trying to focus his mind on something other than the woman in the basement.

Caprisi didn’t react. His elbows rested on the table, his fork pointing down toward his plate as he chewed.

“It’s hot in Chicago at this time of year?”

“It’s hot.”

“But not as hot as here?”

“Nowhere is as hot as here.”

“The Gobi desert, possibly.”

He gave Field a thin smile. “It doesn’t rain in the Gobi.”

“Did you meet Capone?”

“No.”

“Did you like Chicago?”

“Yes.”

“Do you ever answer questions with more than one syllable?”

He smiled again. “No.”

Field put a potato into his mouth and spoke as he chewed. “Okay, let’s have a competition-see who can come up with a topic of conversation that will take us further than three sentences in a row.”

“Where are you from?”

“Uh-uh. No. If your past is off-limits, then so is mine. I’m from Yorkshire, you’re from Chicago-that means we’re quits.”

Caprisi leaned back. He pushed away his plate, exchanging it for a bowl of custard and some kind of cake pudding. “You went to one of those smart schools, I know that.”

“Not that smart. Where did you go to school?”

Caprisi shook his head, in the midst of another mouthful. “Your uncle’s one of the elite.”

“He is, yes.”

“And your aunt.”

Field pushed his own plate away and started on his pudding. “You know, I could lose my sense of humor in a minute.”

“Who’d notice?”

They were smiling at each other now. Field looked down at his food and sighed. “God, this is disgusting.”

“Leave it,” Caprisi said. “I’d hate to see you poison yourself. I’m looking out for you, remember.”

“You’re just like my mother.”

“She’s got hairs on her chest?”

“That same look of anguished concern, as though I’m not capable of looking after myself.”

“Maybe it’s not you she’s thinking about.”

Field frowned. “What do you mean?”

The American looked up from his food. “She’s looking at your face thinking that she’s devoted her whole life to you and now you’re gone. So the anguish is for her, not for you.”

“How do you know that?” Field said quietly.

Caprisi shook his head. “I’ve already said enough.”

“You can’t say one minute that we’re friends and then leave us knowing nothing about each other.”

“What I like about you, Field, is that you’re the best of British-solid and uncomplicated-so don’t-”

“You think I am, but you don’t know. Solid maybe, I’d like to think so. Uncomplicated? I’m not so sure.”

There was a long silence. Caprisi stared at his food as though it were suddenly the most interesting thing he’d ever seen. When he looked up, Field saw something in his eyes that spoke of a loss that was beyond words. Field knew that look.

“My wife’s name was Jane and we were childhood sweethearts. My father owned a hardware store and Jane’s family lived in the house opposite, just across the street. As kids, we used to wave at each other at night.” Caprisi looked down again. “We started dating.” He rubbed the bridge of his nose. “We got married and it always felt right. In a way nothing has since. We had a boy…” He seemed about to say the name but was unable to manage it. “He was a good kid.” Caprisi looked up, shaking his head slightly, his lips tight and his eyes narrowed as he fought to contain his emotions. “He was a great kid. Affectionate… Jane wanted a big family, but we couldn’t… you know, we only had our one boy. It was okay, we had each other, we’d always said that, you know, even before we got married, we said if we couldn’t have kids, that would be all right, because we were in it for each other.” Caprisi shook his head again. “It’s too cute. I should come up with a better story.”

Field did not know what to say.

“Have you ever been in love, Field?”

“I don’t know.”

“Then you never have been.” Caprisi sighed. “We had what both our parents had, and it was all we wanted and the boy was a blessing. He was a God-given extra. Do you believe in God, Field?”

“No.”

“There’s nothing out there, just darkness?”

“I don’t know what’s out there, but I don’t think it’s God.”

“Jane would have tried to convince you. She was a believer. The little boy was so loving, it made everything all right, you know? It was okay that there would be no more. We’d come to accept it, that he would be enough, that that was it. We were a family.”

Caprisi was gazing at a point over Field’s shoulder. The silence stretched between them.

“We went to a party. A christening. It was bootlegged, of course, and I always went for the whiskey. Jane hated that, but I guess it helped me. I guess it helped me not to think too much about work, about what was going on in the city… It wasn’t until I got here that I realized Chicago wasn’t the only place justice and truth are in pretty short supply…” His voice trailed off. “She didn’t want me to drive, but I insisted. We argued; she gave in. She didn’t want to fight about it, she said. Not worth fighting about.” He looked at Field, his face a mask of pain. “I got out without a scratch.”