Icily: 'If you don't mind allowing me to finish, Mal…

Thank you. We're going to show the flag up there, have an arrest sweep. We have to react. You're a local-language speaker so you'll do the initial screening and interrogation, see who should be passed down the line.'

'Be happy to – if your Jocks haven't beaten them all half insensible.'

'That is fucking outrageous, an insult.'

'Please yourself.'

The adjutant was at the door. He knew the answer to what he'd say, knew what training the Intelligence Corps people had – pretty little plump Cherie couldn't hit a main battle tank at twenty-five yards with her Browning 9mm, and the quartermaster who took her on shooting practice wedged his knee between her thighs to keep her steady and held her arms out rigid, but she still missed the biggest target they could knock up. He put the question: 'You're trained on combat weapons and patrol procedures? You should be if you're going up to Buffalo Bill territory, Bravo's ground… Of course you are.'

He knew she was not back yet, and it made him fidget. Malachy was aware of all of the night sounds of the Amersham, every noise from the plaza at the back. He should first have heard the clatter of Dawn's flat shoes and the shuffle of Mildred Johnson's feet, then the screech of the grille gate, the front door opening and shutting, the blast of the TV through the common wall.

She had disrupted what little peace he owned. He could not have told her how much he appreciated the two sessions a month of tea and sandwiches and listening to her talk, and now he sensed the relationship was broken, past repair. He still sat on the floor, wrapped by the darkness that was barely reached by the plaza's lights. Her prying had brought back the pain of memory, not to be escaped from.