Huddled on the opposite side of the bed, hand over her mouth, she could see his black boots. His breath wheezed out of him like the air was full of needles. Each breath another puncture. Every step a fight against some invisible pull.

Five minutes ago she was cleaning her mother's vomit out of the floorboards. Fifteen minutes ago, paging her friends in Styria. Twelve years old and still watching Wallace and Gromit. Waiting for Papa to come home from his week-long business trip so he could tell her about the world. Mama didn't drink so much whenever he was around.

When he turned his back to her, she would sit up carefully and take aim. Shoot him in the back of the head and the nightmare would be over.

The pager went off. The man's ragged breath sharpened. Madeleine didn't hesitate, throwing herself over the side of her bed. With the gun on one arm, his aim was imprecise. It tore up the floor and the wall beside her. She unloaded the clip into his chest.

In the old black-and-white crime serials, there wasn't any blood from a gunwound. A pained grimace and the man would keel over. Madeleine would stay up to watch them with her mother who wouldn't scold her if she was drunk enough. Men or women, down on their luck, falling in what they often called love. Love was a lot of pointless violence all for the sake of winning someone else's attention. Or embezzling money. They were just stories, said her father. Good as entertainment.

The gunman didn't bleed. But the impact was enough to startle him. He lost his footing and toppled over the banister and hit the floor below with a solid thud that shook the house. Madeleine couldn't hear over the ringing in her ears. After a minute she got up and looked and saw him crumpled like a discarded toy. He wasn't moving when she came downstairs. The mask had fractured in the fall from where his face struck the banister. His face was heavily lined with scars. Trace of blood from the corner of his mouth.

Madeleine went into the living room where her mother was draped across the couch. Her eyes shifted to the spot of vomit she'd scrubbed away on hands and knees ten minutes ago. Her throat was tight. She picked up the blanket from the floor. She covered her mother's body as if she were only sleeping. She walked back into the hall with blood on her hands and her boots.

In black-and-white crime serials, murderers always had to get rid of the body.

The gunman weighed twice as much as her, and blood was slippery. She had to grab him by the legs and haul him behind her like a sack of flour. On the way out, his rifle got stuck in the doorway. She let him fall inert and walked over and kicked him hard in the ribs and he did not react. She nudged him a few more times until he was lined up with the doorframe and picked him up by the legs again and began to drag him out into the snow. Out the front door, preoccupied with the situation and his body weight, she missed her next step and fell on her ass. He didn't react.

There were plenty of tools in the garage that were suitable to get rid of a body. She wasn't strong enough to dig a shallow grave and when the snow thawed there would be a carcass left to be picked over by animals. Or police. But if she tied him down with something heavy he'd sink to the bottom of the lake and never resurface.

The gunman sucked in a breath and began to cough profusely. Madeleine threw herself away from him on her hands, onto the snow. Her hands stung but it didn't matter as much as the dead man pushing himself upright, spitting a small excess of blood and saliva into the snow. Their eyes met. Madeleine was running.

She had to get away. Out onto the frozen lake. The ice under her feet creaked. Rush of water beneath her boots. Even professional athletes gasped for air once their bodies submerged. If her head went under she'd take in water. Cold shock would kill her in just two minutes. If she stayed above the water, in fifteen to thirty minutes, she'd lose the ability to control her limbs and hands. Cold incapacitation. Seventy five percent of people succumbed to cold before hypothermia settled in.

She turned around. He had a limp but he would catch up quickly.

If she took him with her this wouldn't be for nothing.

The ice opening up before she could scream. Clawing upwards but her fingers only kissed ice. Taking water into her lungs. Barely registering the footfalls on the ice above. The whiz of bullets past her head. The hand plunging into freezing water grasping her by the forearm wrenching her upwards. Into the arms of her mother's murder. He was saying something but she couldn't make out the words. On his feet. Putting up a fight was squirming in his grip like a disobedient puppy.

Into the house. Wheezing breath kept her awake. Footsteps lurched. Laid onto something soft. Stench of copper permeating her nose. She could taste it.

Cold skin against her naked throat suddenly aware she was shuddering. His hands were cool. Pressure off her neck. Naked hand on her shoulders, under her back. Glint of silver. She tried to scream and all that came out was a moan. Too hot. Waterlogged clothes refused to let go dragging her deeper into the ground.

One clean stroke of the knife and her throat was untouched. Naked air on wet skin. Soft down blankets wrapped around her waist. Struggling fitful against hands too lithe to be father's and stronger than mother's. Patted dry.

Her arms slid into a white coat that swallowed the rest of her body. Daylight beyond the window. Her hands and feet tingled worse than the rest of her body and her hair was slightly damp.

The last of Madeleine's innocence lay across the room, under the blanket. Only sleeping.

She could smell something cooking. Papa's got the stove on. In a few minutes he would come to check on her.

The gunman appeared in her vision. Outside of the parka, his shoulders and arms were brittle. The rifle was absent. A trace of dry blood caked around his jaw. Bulletproof vest around his torso made him look that much frailer.

He said, Оставайтесь на месте.

His voice was gravelly, and very quiet. He tilted his head in her direction. Madeleline's grasp on Russian wasn't strong enough to communicate. She had to be smarter than her mother. She met the eyes glinting underneath porcelain and asked, in careful English, Did you put me here?

He gave a curt nod.

Why?

I change you into dry clothes, he said. Or else you die.

You wanted to shoot me.

He averted his face toward the window. She could see the set of his jaw. Mottled skin. You should eat, he said. You are still very cold.

I don't want anything from you.

The gunman limped out of sight. He was looking for her father. In her mind replaying the image of her father's gnarled hands placing the gun into her own. Ruffling her hair. Her mother's tired scowl.

Accepting kindness from a monster no different than dying on her knees. Bravery was reserved for men and women in crime novels. They were not born helpless children but sprung into being full-formed, prepared to plunge into the jaws of a beast. They did not waste bullets.

His weight settled on the chair, the smell of him like gunpowder and copper. Looking at her, looking at the bowl of canned soup. A monster in the shape of a human.

I'm not hungry.

You are in shock.

How do I know it isn't poison?

He muttered, Боль в заднице. He reached up to adjust the mask. Madeleine shut her eyes tightly. If I took this off, he said, I'd have to kill you.

Hands on her shoulders, Madeleine's eyes opened. He was shifting her body upright. He took the bowl into his hands and sipped it. He set it down without any urgency.

There are ways to kill someone, he said. Polonium-210. Arsenic. Rat poison. Anything under your kitchen cabinet. There are more efficient ways to hurt in a garden. Calotropis emits a latex from its flowers and leaves, calotropin. Contract into a man's eyes and he is blind. Oleander. Clematis. He paused. You do not frighten easily.

Madeleine saw the shine his eyes beyond the the mask. His mouth a thin line.

If I leave now, you will be sick. Then your father loses a wife and daughter. Thinking bigger picture. Understand?

When her father got home he'd take her someplace safe. After a few phone calls the body would disappear.

Madeleine nodded. He set the bowl down next to her.

The prisoner sent to rot in safety. Sitting on the bed. Sunlight limned across rough concrete and her skin.

Smell of the sea and stale sweat. The taste of dehydration. Mathilde must be very hungry.

Her eyes flitted around the room. Spare furniture. It wouldn't be impossible to hide a camera in the facilities. Why stop with the invasion of her childhood home and her office in Belmarsh? Adhering to the threat of violence rather than inflicting it. Leaving no traces of himself but for memory was his mercy.

His voice disturbed that last scrap of innocence, hidden under the blankets. Only sleeping.

When his eyes raked over her there was no interest. His amusement was the last light of hope snuffed from her eyes. Subjected to the futility of her own clever strategy. Following orders would only delay the inevitable.

With her forehead to his shoulder he smelt a little like rosemary.

Think of anything else. James.

Five years ago, when he put her on the train leaving Matera.

After countless hours poking around in the heads of patients, James shut her out with easy, rehearsed answers. No doubt his psychological evaluations at MI6 were couched on the basis of his charisma. Then he shut her out with alcohol. Out in public he'd take her arm and smile. In private, they were never in the same room. He'd snap at her but never resort to violence. His life was a never-ending field mission. Any desire to settle down was fleeting. Boyish fancy.

There were a lot of ways to hurt someone without killing. No amount of what he inflicted upon her physically or mentally could save him from her own wicked mind.

Lucifer Safin was no different.