Laurent is back in the flat when she returns, packing with military efficiency, folding his clothes so neatly the creases could draw blood, assembling his possessions so they inhabit the minimum possible volume in his pack.

"Where have you been?" she asks.

"A long walk down the Embankment. You?"

"The other side. South Bank."

"We probably passed each other."

"Are you going to take me to visit Montreal after we get settled in New York?"

He shrugs. "If you like."

"Visit your family?"

"Montreal's nice in summer. But the winters are brutal."

"It's Sylvain, isn't it?"

He drops a shirt, and in that moment she knows it's all true.

"What's Sylvain?" he asks.

"Your old name. Your real old name."

"It says Patrice on the birth certificate."

"But it says Sylvain on your birth certificate, doesn't it?"

"Where have you been?" he demands. "Who have you been talking to?"

"Why do they call you Voice? Is that your other name?"

He looks at her, this time genuinely puzzled. "What? Who?"

"You don't know, do you? Justice International. That's what they call you in the reports they send back about you. Voice. I guess it's a code name. I don't know why they bother. They didn't give me a code name."

"I don't understand what you are saying," Laurent says, he says, approaching her, his expression gentle and concerned.

"But why did you make the bomb? So it went off, I mean. They didn't want you to. Did you hate Angus and Estelle that much? Or did they change their mind?"

He puts his hands on her shoulders and shakes her gently. "Start making sense. Please."

"I don't understand how you could do it," she says. "I'm impressed, I mean, to live a lie like that, for such a long time, to betray all the people who trusted you, who," she starts to cry, "who loved you, that can't be easy. I guess you're real tough, huh? I guess you're so tough it doesn't mean anything to you."

"I don't know what you're talking about," he says. Convincingly. But not near convincingly enough.

"I know what you did." She has to fight to get the words out of her sob-clogged throat. "I know what you're doing. Drug tests at Kishkinda. Scaring us out of India. Setting us up. Tracking down the foundation. The bomb, you killed, you murdered Angus and Estelle. Cold blood murder. How could you? How could you?"

"Who have you been talking to?"

"What does it matter?"

"Danielle. Who told you all this? It's not true. Who told you?"

"Don't lie to me. Don't you think you've lied to me enough? You might as well stop now. Start telling the truth just for a little fucking variety, why don't you?"

Laurent grabs her by the arms, turns, making her spin with him, and pushes her back, forcibly sitting Danielle down on the couch. He releases her, pulls a chair up, and sits very close to her, his legs inside hers, their knees touching, and waits for her cries to subside. He looks intensely worried, for her, not himself. She feels an urge to lean forward, throw her arms around him and weep on his shoulder, and the wave of shame and rage she feels at this, realizing that even now some part of her wants this liar, traitor and murderer to console her, helps strengthen her, moves her from despair to cold fury.

"Tell me who told you this," he says quietly.

"I'll tell you the truth when you tell me the truth," she says, biting out each word.

He studies her for some time. Then he nods. "That's fair," he says, his voice low. "The truth is I do owe it to you to be fair."

"That's so fucking big of you."

"You're going to be safe. I made sure of that. I won't let anything happen to you."

She thinks of the debriefing report. Voice has become emotionally involved with his entry point to an extent that has clouded his judgment. He does care for her. At least a little. But not enough to outweigh the awful things he has done, not even close.

"How could you do it?" she asks. "The children in that village. You never wanted to shut down Kishkinda at all, did you? You wanted them to keep going. So they could keep poisoning children for you to test drugs on. For money. Was that it? You did it for money? That was all?"

Laurent relaxes slightly. "It was a deal with the devil. We sacrificed that one place so we could help many more of them, all over the world, with the money we got. JI got millions of dollars a year. Above the costs of the trials. We've saved many more people with that money than Kishkinda ever killed."

"You're talking about children's lives like they're poker chips. How much money did you get? You personally."

Laurent tilts his head uncomfortably. "Eighty thousand a year. US dollars."

"Pretty good for a rapist and murderer." She is angry now, almost blinded by rage. "Who were you working for? What company?"

"It isn't a company."

"Then what is it?"

"I'll show you. In just a moment."

"Show me? Show me what? Stop dancing around and just tell me the truth or I'll –" She doesn't know what she'll do. But she knows it will be awful.

"Who told you all this?" Laurent asks. "Keiran?"

Danielle shakes her head. "I'm not going to tell you."

"Yes, you are. It must be Keiran. Who else knows? The foundation?"

"We've got proof. We'll go to the newspapers. We can shut you down."

"But you won't," Laurent says.

"Why not?"

"Who else knows?"

"Fuck you."

"Danielle," Laurent says, his voice raw, "you have to tell me who else knows. Please. It's important. I don't want to have to hurt you."

Danielle's mouth slowly opens but no words escape.

"Please don't make it necessary. Please tell me. Don't lie. I'll know if you're lying."

"Hurt me? What do you mean, hurt me?" It had never even crossed her mind that Laurent might threaten her, that the repercussions of confronting him might include danger. They are lovers. They have lived together, struggled together, enjoyed countless hours of whispered intimacy in one another's arms.

"I have to know who else knows. And exactly what they know."

"Or what? You'll break my nose? Tie me up and stick my face in a bowl of water?"

Laurent does not speak.

"My God," Danielle says. "You would, wouldn't you?"

"We can't be together," he says rapidly, his Quebecois accent more pronounced than usual. "Maybe I wish we could but we can't. Not in this world. Maybe in some parallel dimension we're perfect for one another. In this world we're impossible. That's the reality. We both have to live with it. Understand? I have to live in the real world. Not fantasyland. And you do too. So answer the fucking question. Who else knows?"

Danielle looks at him wide-eyed. Then she says, "Keiran. I think just him."

"Yes. Good," Laurent says. "Do you know where Keiran lives?"

"No."

"Well. P2 better fucking find out fast. Stay where you are." Laurent stands and walks into their bedroom. For a moment she thinks of running for it, fleeing the room, down the hall and down the stairs, he will pursue but on the streets, in public, surely she will be safe, and they are only a few minutes' run from Euston Station, she can lose herself in those crowds. The idea feels crazy. But she is suddenly certain that it is the only way to save her life, that if she doesn't run, and now, she is a dead woman. She stands – and Laurent re-enters the room, wearing his jacket, holding a cell phone she has never seen before.

"I said stay where you are," he says sharply.

Numbly, she sits again. Laurent selects a number on this phone and speaks to the recipient at some length in French. Then he sits again on the chair across from the couch, watching her carefully. She wonders if she might ambush him, a quick kick to the groin – but no, that's insane, he's a soldier and a black belt in three martial arts, she doesn't have a ghost of a chance. A scream for help would last all of half a second before he silenced her. Her fate, one way or another, is sealed.

"What's going on?" she dares to ask.

"I can't answer that. I can only show you."

"Show me how?"

"Wait," he says.

"But –"

"Wait quietly."

It is an order, a calm one, but phrased in a military voice she has never heard from him before. She swallows tries to remain perfectly still, as if this will keep him from deciding to do her harm. She understands now that she knows too much. Melodramatic as it sounds.

Eventually a knock comes on the door: two short, three long, two short. Laurent stands.

"Downstairs," he says.

He escorts her outside with a firm hand on the small of her back. There is a limousine waiting outside, its windows tinted. The light inside is dim and it takes her a moment after sitting on the plush leather seats to recognize the figure splayed on the seat opposite her, beneath the opaque partition that separates the passenger compartment from the driver. Keiran, swaying in his seat, looks straight through her; no spark of recognition seems to fire. His pupils are so dilated that they occupy most of his eyes.

Laurent sits next to her and closes the door.

She looks at him. "Where are we going?" she whispers.

"Far."