Now everything happened very, very slowly, as if she were watching it through frosted glass and with muffled ears. Frank had his left hand on her neck, pinning her against the wall. She felt something uncomfortable against her back. Probably the corner of a picture frame, she thought, and it seemed that she had a lot of time to think, that she could just let this happen, sink quietly into blackness and rest. Frank’s face, his fierce eyes, were close to hers now. She saw the whiteness of his cotton shirt. He was breathing heavily. The feel of it, the smell of it reminded her of something. What was it? And then she remembered Lev, talking to her as he delivered her to that flat in Elephant and Castle. What was it he had said? All or nothing? Was it something like that? She didn’t look away from Frank. She mustn’t distract him. Her eyes stared straight into his eyes. What strange things eyes were.

She felt in her pocket. Yes. And, yes, she remembered his words. None of the way or all of the way.

Frank raised his right hand and she saw a glint, the blade of a knife. He moved his face closer now, so that when he spoke it was in little more than a whisper.

‘You can’t speak. There’s nothing to say. I cut Sandy’s throat with this. But he was unconscious. You won’t be. I want to watch.’

As he was talking, Frieda was remembering her first year at medical school, anatomy. What were they? Subclavian and carotid. She gripped on it in her pocket. She delicately pulled her hand from her pocket. One chance. Only one chance. Then her hand pulled up and the blade snapped open. Up and in. Lev had said it was sharp. Very sharp. It must have been, because Frieda felt no resistance, almost as if the handle pressed against the white cotton had no blade. But within a second a rosette of the deepest scarlet spread around it.

Frank looked down in puzzlement and mild irritation, as if he had noticed an untied shoelace or an open fly. He stepped back and Frieda held onto the handle of the knife and pulled it back. There was a gurgling sound and she felt something warm and wet on her face and her jacket. She looked down at the sticky redness. Had she been stabbed as well? She looked back at Frank.

‘You fucker,’ he said. ‘You’ve …’

He couldn’t say any more. The knife fell from his grasp. He tore at his shirt. The blood was coming out of him, not like a hose but in spurts. He looked down at his chest with a kind of interest. Spurt, nothing, spurt, nothing. He made a few staggering steps. Everything seemed to be turning red. The rug, bedspread, even a picture on the wall. Then his legs gave way and he fell heavily, out of control, half propped up against a low child’s bed. His eyes already looked blurry, unfocused.

Frieda took a few steps towards him, still clutching the knife, but she immediately saw that he was no kind of threat. She remembered her training again. Arterial bleeding. What was it her prof had said? Arteries pump, veins dump. How long did he have? A minute? Two? She thought of Sandy, the man beside her in bed, walking beside her, dead on that stainless steel. Was she going to watch him die, just as Frank had been about to watch her die? The thought instantly made her mind up. She sprawled across Frank, sitting on his thighs. He was looking straight towards her but Frieda wasn’t even sure if he was aware of her. She ripped at his shirt, tore a rag off, and pushed it against the wound, as hard as she could manage, with almost her whole weight on it. She could hear herself panting. Had the blood flow stopped? There was so much of it, on him, on her, everywhere around, that it was hard to tell.

Some sort of spark appeared in Frank’s eyes. Was it anger? Frieda leaned closer to him. There was a strange intimacy. She could smell his breath. It was sweet.

‘If you try anything,’ she said, ‘anything at all, I let go and you die. Got that?’

Frank gave a kind of a groan but whether it was a response or a moan of pain or just nothing at all, she couldn’t tell. She managed to free her right hand and move towards his neck. Another groan.

‘I need to check your pulse,’ she said.

It was slow. His blood pressure was falling. Now there was the sound of sirens and a car pulling up and ringing and banging on the door. Frieda’s face was almost against Frank’s and she saw a flicker.

‘I can’t answer the door,’ she said. ‘If I get up, you’ll bleed out by the time I’m back. We’d better hope that they can break it down.’

It seemed that they couldn’t. There was more ringing on the door and banging and then finally, the sound of the door opening. Frieda shouted something and there was a sound of steps. She looked round and saw a young police officer step into the room, the shocked expression on his face, then actually step back out. Almost immediately the room seemed full. She saw uniforms and faces she couldn’t make out.

‘Jesus, Frieda, what’s happened?’

She saw Karlsson’s appalled face. Hussein was beside him.

‘I can’t move,’ she said. ‘If I move he’ll die.’

Karlsson was looking around his children’s room. Frieda could see that there was even blood on the mobile above the bed. Her whole body felt stiff and sticky with it.

‘I’m so sorry,’ she said. ‘So sorry.’

Different people were staring at Frieda and at Frank and some of them went pale. She heard the sound of someone vomiting. Then there were men and women in green overalls lugging bags. One of them, a young man, red-haired, leaned over and stared at Frieda’s hands on Frank’s chest.

‘Fuck,’ he said. He turned to Frieda, then looked at her hands, at the blood. ‘Are you a doctor?’

‘Yes. Of a kind.’

‘What did this?’

‘I did,’ said Frieda. ‘With a knife.’

‘All right,’ said the man, slowly. ‘Keep your hands there.’ He glanced around. ‘Jen, get on the other side. Gauze.’

A young woman rummaged through a bag and produced what looked like a toilet roll. She unravelled it and ripped off a sheet.

‘What’s your name?’ said the man.

‘Frieda Klein.’

‘OK, Frieda. On the count of three, you’re going to remove your hands and get them out of the way. One, two, three.’

Frieda raised her hands and at the same moment felt herself lifted up and away from Frank. She was laid down, almost forced down, on a stretcher.

‘Are you injured?’ a voice said.

‘No,’ said Frieda.

‘She’s bleeding,’ another voice said.

‘I’m not bleeding. It’s not my blood.’

But it all felt too tiring and she just lay back and felt hands on her and the stretcher was being carried down the hall and the sun was in her eyes and the flashing lights and then she was inside the ambulance and the doors were slammed and there was the sound of the siren and then the doors were opened again and Frieda just saw the blue sky briefly, then strip lights. The stretcher became a trolley. To one side she saw a police uniform, the officer struggling to keep up. There was still all that to deal with. The trolley stopped in a corridor. There was a murmured conference, that endless search in every hospital for space, for a room or a bed. She heard a man shouting and swearing. Something was thrown. Men in uniform ran past her, down the corridor. The shouts continued, then became muffled. Finally her trolley was pushed into a cubicle and she was lifted onto a bed.

A doctor leaned over her. She was young, the age of one of Frieda’s own students. Frieda slowly gave her name and age and address. Her mind was clearing and she felt a dull ache of tiredness.

‘So where does it hurt?’ asked the doctor.

‘It doesn’t hurt anywhere.’

The doctor looked down at Frieda with an expression of dismay. Frieda followed her gaze.

‘This blood isn’t mine,’ she said. ‘I just need to get home and wash it off.’

‘I don’t …’ The doctor started to speak, then stopped. ‘I need to see someone.’

There was a blue curtain at the end of the cubicle. The doctor pulled it aside and disappeared. Within a couple of minutes she was back.