De Valois laughed.

“Check the cases,” he told Alfie.

Sixty individual bags of heroin. More oblivion than Kit could imagine. Each one heat sealed along its edges and then wrapped again, in polyethylene so thick it looked like oiled paper.

“Well?”

“It’s all there,” said Alfie, in a South London accent obvious enough to remind Kit of black and white films he hadn’t even seen.

“Call Robbie down,” Armand ordered. “Tell him to test it.”

A few minutes later a dreadlocked Rasta ambled from the shadows, holstering a gun as he came. His hair was thinning and had turned to grey. His red shirt had sweat marks under the arms. He looked almost as unhappy with life as Kit felt. So Kit guessed he was the man who’d been shitting in a bag.

“Ah,” said Armand. “My friend…”

Producing a scalpel from his pocket, the Rasta chose a package from the middle and slit it open, carrying a little of the powder to his tongue. “Well,” he said. “It’s the real thing.”

Without needing to be told, Robbie slit open another five bags and carried them to a table near the stage. A small gas cooker, a glass beaker, and a handful of bottles appeared, along with a small pair of scales. Although, in the event, the only pieces of equipment Robbie used were a laptop, a glass of water, and a small white box with a glass lid.

“Residual alkaloids, some methaqualone, also traces of diazepam,” said Robbie, amending it to, “Afghani, sixty-five percent pure,” when Mr. de Valois looked irritated. “Also, sugars for bulk.”

“It’s been cut,” Kit said, “ready for market.” This was what he’d been told to say. “And I’m really sorry about the misunderstanding. I obviously had no idea…”

“That I was still alive?”

Kit nodded.

In the background Razorlight replaced Kaiser Chiefs and were replaced in turn by a dance track with a single looped vocal and an idiotically simple synth line. Golden oldies, what the patrons would expect; and behind Robbie’s table, apparently forgotten, Neku circling her pole in time to the music.

She’d lost weight again. Kit could see ribs beneath her skin and watch the muscles in her shoulders slide across each other as they propelled her round and round the same tight circle of misery.

“Pretty,” said de Valois. “Isn’t she?”

“She’s Kathryn O’Mally’s granddaughter. You know who that is?”

It was obvious he didn’t, and equally obvious that Robbie did. So Kit suggested the Rasta tell Mr. de Valois, who listened in silence to a bullet-point breakdown of Kate O’Mally’s life, while Alfie looked increasingly impressed in the background.

“This woman. She knows you’re here?”

“Of course,” said Kit.

Mr. de Valois shrugged. “Not my problem.”

Kit caught the exact moment Alfie looked at Robbie; crop-haired thug and grizzled Rasta, whatever passed between them, it passed in silence.

“All the same,” said de Valois, gesturing towards Neku. “The kid’s good. Where did she dance before this?”

“Dance…?”

“She has the moves, even has a couple that are new. I was just wondering where she’s been.”

“Tokyo.”

“Ahh,” said de Valois. “That would certainly help explain her lack of English.” He glanced at Neku, his gaze sliding over her naked breasts and tiny G-string. “I think it would be good if you asked her to join me for a drink.”

Perhaps Kit was wrong to treat this as an invitation, because Mr. de Valois’s smile froze at his counter-suggestion that perhaps Neku and he should think about getting home, now that Mr. de Valois had his consignment and Kit had made his apologies.

“Not yet,” said de Valois. “You see, we still need to agree on a price.”

“There is no price,” Kit said. “The consignment is yours. All I’m doing is returning it.”

Armand de Valois’s laugh was loud enough to make Neku flinch. “Not a price for me,” he said, with a grin. “For you, for causing me problems in the first place.” He nodded towards Neku. “Also her, if you want her back I will require a transfer fee.”

“She’s Kate O’Mally’s granddaughter.”

De Valois looked irritated. “Other people would kill you,” he said. “I am being generous, very generous. In future you will work for me. As will she. But first, we have business.”

When the music stopped it left Neku frozen in mid swing. “Tell her to come here,” de Valois said, looking at the girl.

Instead of climbing from the stage, Neku vanished through a door at the back and when she reappeared it was wearing a tatty silk dressing gown that reached her ankles and was tied tightly around her waist. Sweat dripped from her face and a pulse beat steadily in her neck. Kit could smell her from five paces away.

“I need a shower,” she told him.

“Later,” said Kit, keeping to Japanese.

“What did she say?”

“That she needs a shower.”

Mr. de Valois grunted. “There’ll be time for that later,” he said. “Tell the girl I have a job for her. A very suitable job.”

So Kit did.

Neku’s eyes were arctic, devoid of light and so cold they made Kit shiver. It would have been better if a sneer or scowl gave anger to her face, but instead she smiled, almost blandly. “Tell him I’m always willing to help.”

Things moved swiftly after that.

From somewhere a chopping board was produced, along with a stained Sabatier knife and a chrome bucket full of ice. Armand demanded rubber bands and when these failed to appear announced that string would have to do.

“You ever seen this done before?”

She had, Kit realised, having translated Armand de Valois’s question. Which was more than could be said for Kit, unless one counted films. Because he’d just worked out what was about to happen.

Kit only knew a gun had been pulled when he felt its muzzle touch the side of his ear, a cold kiss just behind the hair line. Alfie’s hand was shaking. A poor start for someone holding an automatic so cheap it lacked a safety catch.

“Taking my drugs, trying to trick me, and not showing sufficient respect. Three transgressions,” said de Valois, handing Neku the knife. “That means you cut three times, one joint after another.”

He smiled while he waited for Kit to translate.

“My finger,” said Kit, meaning, My finger, not that man’s throat.

Neku weighed the blade in her hand.

“Just do it,” Kit said. “And we’ll get ourselves out of here.”

She knew exactly where to make the first cut. Placing Kit’s left hand face down on the board and positioning her knife above the first joint of his little finger, Neku slammed her palm across the back of the blade.

Fuck.

The severed tip of a finger was rolling across the board before Kit even registered the pain, but by then Neku had his hand back on the board and her blade against the same finger, one joint lower.

A slam of her hand and two segments of finger rested beside each other.

“Take the last joint,” said Neku, “and I’ll have nothing to tie off.” Barely bothering to wait for Kit to translate, she held Kit’s hand to the board and repositioned her knife.

“She’s good,” said de Valois.

“The best,” Neku said, in fractured English.

Armand de Valois laughed. “Okay,” he said. “Tell her to have this one on me.”

Cutting a length of string, Neku bound the last section of finger and tied it off in a quick knot. “One section you can re-attach,” she whispered, “two is much more difficult.”

She was supporting him. Her single hand beneath Kit’s elbow to brace his entire weight, should he need time to compose himself.

“We’re done here,” Kit said.

“Almost,” promised de Valois. “But first, Ben…your finger, it hurts?”

Of course it fucking hurts.

“A little.”

What was he meant to say? A lot, hardly at all… it was, Kit suspected, a question to which there were only wrong answers.

“Luckily,” said de Valois, “I have just the cure. Sixty-five percent pure and freshly delivered. Here we go—” wiping the Sabatier on a beer mat, de Valois dipped the blade’s tip into an open bag of heroin.