She looked in the direction of the window, but there was nothing in front of her eyes other than the deep blackness.

She listened. The window creaked—at first almost inaudibly, then louder. He was trying to get in. Bob rumbled threateningly, deep in his throat, but seemed to understand the sudden squeeze she gave his muzzle.

The night became quieter. Lucy realized the storm was easing, almost imperceptibly. Henry seemed to have given up on the kitchen window. She moved to the living room.

She heard the same creak of old wood resisting pressure. Now Henry seemed more determined: there were three muffled bumps, as if he were tapping the window frame with the cushioned heel of his hand.

Lucy put the dog down and hefted the shotgun. It might almost have been imagination, but she could just make out the window as a square of grey in the blank darkness. If he got the window open, she would fire immediately.

There was a much harder bang. Bob lost control and gave a loud bark. She heard a scuffling noise outside.

Then came the voice.

“Lucy?”

She bit her lip.

“Lucy?”

He was using the voice he used in bed—deep, soft, intimate.

“Lucy, can you hear me? Don’t be afraid. I don’t want to hurt you. Talk to me, please.”

She had to fight the urge to pull both triggers there and then, just to silence that awful sound and destroy the memories it brought to her.

“Lucy, darling…” She thought she heard a muffled sob. “Lucy, he attacked me—I had to kill him…I killed for my country, you shouldn’t hate me for that—”

What in the world did that mean…? It sounded crazy. Could he be insane and have hidden it for two intimate days? Actually he had seemed saner than most people—and yet he had already committed murder…though she had no idea of the circumstances…Stop it…she was softening up, which of course was exactly what he wanted.

She had an idea.

“Lucy, just speak to me…”

His voice faded as she tiptoed into the kitchen. Bob would surely warn her if Henry did anything more than talk. She fumbled in Tom’s tool box and found a pair of pliers. She went to the kitchen window and with her fingertips located the heads of the three nails she had hammered there. Carefully, as quietly as possible, she drew them out. The job demanded all her strength.

When they were out she went back to the living room to listen.

“…don’t cause me trouble and I’ll leave you alone…”

As silently as she could she lifted the kitchen window. She crept into the living room, picked up the dog and returned once again to the kitchen.

“…hurt you, last thing in the world…”

She stroked the dog once or twice and murmured, “I wouldn’t do this if I didn’t have to, boy.” Then she pushed him out of the window.

She closed it rapidly, found a nail, and hammered it in at a new spot with three sharp blows.

She dropped the hammer, picked up the gun, and ran into the front room to stand close to the window, pressing herself up against the wall.

“…give you one last chance—!”

There was a scampering sound, from Bob, followed by a terrible, terrifying bark Lucy had never before heard from a sheepdog; then a scuffling sound and the noise of a man falling. She could hear Henry’s breathing—gasping, grunting; then another flurry of Bob’s scampering, a shout of pain, a curse in the foreign language, another terrible bark.

The noises now became muffled and more distant, then suddenly ended. Lucy waited, pressed against the wall next to the window, straining to hear. She wanted to go and check Jo, wanted to try the radio again, wanted to cough; but she did not dare to move. Bloody visions of what Bob might have done to Henry passed in and out of her mind, and she badly wanted to hear the dog snuffling at the door.

She looked at the window…then realized she was looking at the window; she could see, and not just a square patch of faintly lighter grey, but the wooden crosspiece of the frame. It was still night, but only just, and she knew if she looked outside the sky would be faintly diffused with a just-perceptible light instead of being impenetrably black. Dawn would come at any minute, she would be able to see the furniture in the room, and Henry would no longer be able to surprise her in the darkness—

There was a crash of breaking glass inches away from her face. She jumped. She felt a small sharp pain in her cheek, touched the spot, and knew that she had been cut by a flying shard. She hefted the shotgun, waiting for Henry to come through the window. Nothing happened. It was not until a minute or two had passed that she wondered what had broken the window.

She peered at the floor. Among the pieces of broken glass was a large dark shape. She found she could see it better if she looked to one side of it rather than directly at it. When she did, she was able to make out the familiar shape of the dog.

She closed her eyes, then looked away. She was unable to feel any emotion at all. Her heart had been numbed by all the terror and death that had gone before: first David, then Tom, then the endless screaming tension of the all-night siege…All she felt was hunger. All day yesterday she had been too nervous to eat, which meant it was some thirty-six hours since her last meal. Now, incongruously, ridiculously, she found herself longing for a cheese sandwich.

Something else was coming through the window.

She saw it out of the corner of her eye, then turned her head to look directly at it.

It was Henry’s hand.

She stared at it, mesmerized: a long-fingered hand, without rings, white under the dirt, with cared-for nails and a bandaid around the tip of the index finger; a hand that had touched her intimately, had played her body like an instrument, had thrust a knife into the heart of an old shepherd.

The hand broke away a piece of glass, then another, enlarging the hole in the pane. Then it reached right through, up to the elbow, and fumbled along the windowsill, searching for a catch to unfasten.

Trying to be utterly silent, with painful slowness, Lucy shifted the gun to her left hand, and with her right took the axe from her belt, lifted it high above her head, and brought it down with all her might on Henry’s hand.

He must have sensed it, or heard the rush of wind, or seen a blur of ghostly movement behind the window, because he moved abruptly a split-second before the blow landed.

The axe thudded into the wood of the windowsill, sticking there. For a fraction of an instant Lucy thought she had missed; then, from outside, came a scream of pain, and she saw beside the axe blade, lying on the varnished wood like caterpillars, two severed fingers.

She heard the sound of feet running.

She threw up.

The exhaustion hit her then, closely followed by a rush of self-pity. She had suffered enough, surely to God, had she not? There were policemen and soldiers in the world to deal with situations like this—nobody could expect an ordinary housewife and mother to hold off a murderer indefinitely. Who could blame her if she gave up now? Who could honestly say they would have done better, lasted longer, stayed more resourceful for another minute?

She was finished. They would have to take over—the outside world, the policemen and soldiers, whoever was at the other end of that radio link. She could do no more….

She tore her eyes away from the grotesque objects on the windowsill and went wearily up the stairs. She picked up the second gun and took both weapons into the bedroom with her.

Jo was still asleep, thank God. He had hardly moved all night, blessedly unaware of the apocalypse going on around him. She could tell, somehow, that he was not sleeping so deeply now, something about the look on his face and the way he breathed let her know that he would wake soon and want his breakfast.