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“I know.” I meet his eyes. “But I want to help decide what we do. I’m not sitting upstairs while all of you make a plan around me again. Not this time.”

For a second, I think he’ll argue. I see it in the line of his jaw.

Then he pulls out the chair across from me and sits down.

“Tell me,” he says.

So I tell him.

“Geoff won’t be there himself,” I say. “At the boathouse. He’ll send other people. Rusakov’s people, maybe, or Brenner. Geoff never goes in first. When I was small, he’d always sit up in the window in the gatehouse with the binoculars and send the younger men down to deal with things. He likes to watch.”

Caleb nods slowly.

“He’ll want to see me arrive,” I say. “To make sure I came alone. So he’ll be somewhere close, where he can see the boathouse without anybody seeing him.” I take a breath. “He’s got a boat. At Belmont Harbor. I told you, the one he bought in July. He showed me so many pictures of it. It’s white, with a blue stripe. He named it after his wife. The Lyudmila.”

The kitchen goes very quiet again.

“He’ll be on the boat,” I say. “Watching. I’d bet anything.”

Ivor laughs over the speaker. It’s a short, startled sound. “Caleb. Where did you find this woman?”

“Her father’s will,” Caleb says, without taking his eyes off me.

“And they’ll expect my car,” I go on. “My old blue Fiat. Geoff knows it. He knows I always park facing out, because Papa taught us that. He knows I always wear a hat when it’s cold, and I always wear Mama’s cardigan under my coat. If somebody my size drove my car into that lot, in my coat and my hat, and parked facing out, he’d believe it was me. From a distance. Through binoculars.”

Caleb looks at me for a long moment.

“Dasha,” he says, over his shoulder.

One of the men by the door, the one I thought was a man, steps forward. She’s slight and quiet, with short dark hair, and about my height. She nods.

“And I reply to the message,” I say. “As me. Because they’ll expect me to reply. Geoff will know if it doesn’t sound right. He’s read every note I ever wrote on every sandwich.” I swallow. “I’ll say I’m coming. I’ll say please don’t hurt her. I’ll ask to talk to her, and they’ll make excuses, and that’ll buy you time to get people in place before two.”

Caleb doesn’t say anything for a while.

“And you,” he says finally. “Where are you while all this is happening?”

“Wherever you want me to be,” I tell him. “Somewhere safe. I’m not stupid, Caleb. I’m not going to try to be brave.” I reach across the table and put my hand over his. “But I want to know what’s happening. While it’s happening. I don’t want to sit somewhere and wait for hours and hear about it afterward.”

He turns his hand over under mine and holds on.

“Ivor’s,” he says. “With Natasha. Ivor’s men on every door. And I’ll keep the line open the whole time. You’ll hear everything.”

“Everything?”

“Everything.” His grip tightens. “I won’t leave you out of it. I promised.”

I send the message at eleven thirty.

Please don’t hurt her. I’ll come. I won’t tell anyone. Please can I talk to her?

I write it three times before I’m happy with it. It has to sound like me. Like the old me. The one who never makes a fuss.

The reply comes back four minutes later. She can’t talk right now. 2 p.m. Alone.

At one fifteen, I’m in Ivor’s penthouse on the Gold Coast, sitting on a white leather sofa with Natasha beside me and her little boy asleep across both our laps. There are four of Ivor’s men in the hallway and two more on the roof. There’s a cup of tea I haven’t touched on the glass coffee table, and my phone’s on speaker in my hand, with Caleb’s line open.

I can hear him breathing. I can hear wind, and gulls, and water slapping against something hollow.