Newcomen dug his frozen fingers into his jacket and held up a standard data card, its golden electrical contacts glittering in the low winter sun.

“What did he say was on it?”

“Everything I’d need.” Newcomen turned it around to show its ordinariness, then slipped it back inside.

“That’s magnificently ambiguous. Anything else?”

“No. Just that. And that he was really very sorry.” Newcomen shivered violently. “There’s only so much you can say in that short a time.”

“I’m sure I could have thought of something.” Petrovitch noticed that Newcomen’s nose had turned white. “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry too. Though I haven’t changed my mind about our arrangement. That’s the problem with being a bastard: you get used to it.”

“Would it make any difference if I just jumped into the bay?”

“Yeah. I don’t float so well. Fishing you out again might be a problem.”

Newcomen looked genuinely surprised. “You can kill me in a eyeblink. Why would it bother you?”

“Because I’m the patron saint of lost causes. I have the stigmata to prove it. And I reckon you’re getting interested, despite yourself. Part of you is still absolutely terrified about the prospect of going north with me, trailing around while I ask my stupid, useless questions, and wondering if today’s the day I snap and blow your heart out through your chest. Part of you is angry, because you know what I ought to do is wait for spring and see if Lucy’s body turns up, and all this running around is a monumental waste of time. But part of you is intrigued. Part of you wants to know. Part of you, the detective part, the bit that loves justice and honour: you want to find her, or at least find out what happened to her.”

Newcomen neither agreed nor disagreed. “It doesn’t make any difference.”

“It does to me.”

The ferry puttered on, and the dock in West Seattle was visible across the tops of the waves.

“So what do you say?” said Petrovitch. “We’ll be back ashore soon enough. There’ll be fresh tails waiting for us. We’ll get to the airport, and they’ll board the plane with us. We’ll be watched every single step of the way to Fairbanks and beyond. I’d like some time alone, not just to plot and plan, but to be invisible for a while. Fed up of living in this yebani goldfish bowl.”

“What is it you want to do? And how illegal is it?”

“How many laws do you think they’ve broken? Do you imagine they even care? They think laws and statutes are for little people, Newcomen. That bad smell under your nose is a laminated copy of your constitution being burnt to ashes. What I have in mind is barely worth bothering about.”

Newcomen shifted uncomfortably. Every time he moved, he exposed a new piece of skin to the cold, wet wind. “I promised to uphold the law. Just because someone else won’t doesn’t mean I was wrong.”

Petrovitch sat down beside him. “Do you realise just how much trouble you’re in?”

“I’ve a reasonably good idea.”

“You’ve no idea at all. You’ve been betrayed and abandoned by the people you swore your oath to. You’ll be effectively stateless: even if you survive whatever it is they have waiting for us, you’ll never be able to go back. You’ll be off the grid, a feral, living between the cracks of your society.”

“Respect for my badge and what it represents is about all I have left, Petrovitch.”

“You’re a sheep, Newcomen. A yebani sheep. I can’t stop you from being devoured by the wolves, and I was stupid to ever try.” He got up and rested his hands on the freezing railings. “Yeah, go on then. Throw yourself in the sea. Temperature it is, you’ll be in shock in seconds. Quick. Relatively painless too, unless you count the fleeting moment of regret at being a mudak. Leave the data card behind on your seat. I’ll need to take a look at that.”

The engine beneath them revved harder, making the deck shudder.

“You know I’m not going overboard,” said Newcomen. “I’m too scared.”

“Yeah, I know. This is just the last gasp of your ego before it collapses completely.” Petrovitch seized the handles of his battered carpet bag. The boat bumped up against the quay. “What will you do when I say jump?”

“I’ll ask how high.”

“You know, we might actually be able to pull this off. Be ready.”

There was a rattle of chains from the far side of the deck as the gantry was lowered. The few passengers emerging from below made their way to the exit, and trooped up the metal ramp.

Petrovitch and Newcomen were last off. Two men – different to the ones they’d shaken off downtown – were waiting for them in the terminal building. They watched them pass, then fell into step a few metres behind.

Outside, there was a taxi rank, a car park, a bus stop. Petrovitch ignored them all, concentrating really hard on the pavement in front of him.

“What are you doing?”

“Just keep walking. This is temporarily difficult.”

They had the bay on their left, the rise of West Seattle on their right with its trees and houses. The tsunami damage was only partly repaired here, and there were still vacant lots scattered through the white new-build apartments.

The two spooks were almost on their heels. Maybe they figured something was up, but didn’t know what. Their targets were due at SeaTac airport in an hour, and here they were, miles away, just strolling along, Newcomen without his luggage, Petrovitch seemingly without a care in the world.

“Ooh, seafood,” said Petrovitch. They were coming up to the first of several restaurants.

“You had breakfast two hours ago.” Newcomen shivered again, bending over against the wind. “Though I could do with a coffee.”

“Come on then. I’ll buy.” Petrovitch turned and walked backwards for a moment. “How about you guys? Coffee?”

They looked at each other and then back at Petrovitch. They said nothing.

“Suit yourselves.” He took a left and headed for the entrance, holding the door for Newcomen and letting it swing shut behind him.

The restaurant was just opening. A woman with a mop was busy swabbing the floor, and a couple of men joked in Spanish at the counter.

“Any table you want is fine,” said the woman as Petrovitch wandered in. She made a figure of eight with the mophead on the chequered lino floor, right next to the “please wait here to be seated” sign.

“I’m really sorry about this,” said Petrovitch. “None of this is your fault and you’re in no way to blame.”

He took the mop from her unresisting fingers and deftly threaded it through the handles of the double doors. The men outside suddenly realised what he was doing: their hands made the draw sign and the guns flipped out of their wrist holsters.

“Run,” said Petrovitch. He took a moment to kick the wheeled bucket over, sending soapy water spilling across the floor in a wave, before heading to the back of the restaurant as fast as he could.

Newcomen was just ahead of him, shouldering the kitchen swing door aside. The glass in the front doors shattered, taken out with gunfire. It’d take the spooks another few moments to wrestle the mop handle free.

“There’s nowhere to go,” said Newcomen.

“Fire exit.” Petrovitch darted in front, rushing past the stainless-steel counters and the big fridges. He planted the sole of his boot on the push bar: the door banged back against the outside wall, letting the cold north air spill in.

The view of Seattle was obscured by the flank of a gull-grey sports plane, the smooth curves of its aerodynamic outriggers hovering barely a metre above the waves and its high engine cowlings humming with potential.

“How did that…”

“Past’ zebej.”

The fuselage door was open, and a narrow target to hit at speed. The wooden quay hammered like a hollow drum as they kept on running. Petrovitch launched himself off the end of the pier, over the lapping waves, and crashed against the far bulkhead inside the plane. He rolled out of the way just before Newcomen landed like a sack of Iowa potatoes in the same spot.