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gently inwards. If it were just himself, the knowledge of his impending death might have made him reckless. But responsibility for Kirsty made Enzo careful.
    ‘Where’s the light switch?’
    ‘On the left.’
    He felt for it with his left hand and found it. There was an audible click, but it brought no light to their world. ‘Fuse box?’ He spoke in little more than a whisper, although he was not sure why. If there was someone waiting for them inside, then he would know they were there by now.
    ‘On the wall, on the right.’
    He pushed the door wide and swung the pencil-thin rod of light up and right. He saw the square door of the box set into the wall. Then he flashed the light quickly around the room. It looked shambolic, and he heard Kirsty gasp. But there didn’t seem to be anyone there. He stepped smartly inside, reached up to flip open the box and shone his torch into it. The
disjoncteur
switch was up. It should have been down. He flicked it down and the tiny studio apartment where his daughter lived was flooded with sudden harsh light.
    ‘Oh, my God!’ Kirsty gazed, horrified, around the studio. It was a mess. Furniture overturned, drawers emptied, clothes and papers strewn across the floor. She crossed quickly to her workdesk below the window. The drawers had all been pulled open. She checked the top one and saw that her passport, and a foldout wallet of credit and bank cards, were still there. ‘He doesn’t seem to have taken anything.’
    Enzo swung open the door to the bathroom and turned on the light. There was no one there. But the contents of the wall cabinet had been thrown into the shower, and clean towels lay in untidy piles on the floor. He turned back towards Kirsty and saw that all the blood had drained from an already pale face. She looked shockingly white. He said, ‘Looks like maybe he was just leaving a calling card. A message to say he’d been here.’ He saw her bite her lower lip and crossed the room in three strides to take her in his arms. He rested his face on the top of her head and smelled the distant, familiar smell of her. ‘Come on, pet. Throw some stuff in a bag and let’s get out of here.’
    He stood by the window waiting, watching the snow outside drift through the headlamps of the taxi. There were circular, dark, wet patches in the shadows cast by the trees across the street, and he saw a man emerge from one of them to leave a trail of black footprints as he crossed the road. He pulled up the collar of his long overcoat as he walked, then stooped at the open window where their driver was smoking a cigarette. They talked for half a minute before the man reached under his coat to bring out a wallet. Money changed hands, and he opened the taxi’s rear passenger door and slipped inside.
    ‘Hey!’ Enzo shouted and banged on the window, then searched feverishly for the catch. Kirsty hurried through from the bathroom as he slid it up.
    ‘What is it?’
    ‘Some guy’s taking our taxi.’ He leaned out into the night and bellowed. ‘Hey! Stop!’
    If he heard him, the taxi driver took no notice. He swung the car across the street, then reversed into a three-point turn. Enzo and Kirsty watched helplessly as their taxi began to accelerate away in the opposite direction. And, as it did, they saw the upturned face of the man who had taken it, caught for just a moment in the streetlight.
    Enzo heard his daughter catch her breath, and felt her fingers close around his arm. ‘That’s him!’
    He turned towards her. ‘Who?’
    ‘The man at the press conference. The one I saw again at the station.’
    Enzo turned to watch the taxi disappearing into the night. He felt himself succumbing to fear and confusion. This man was playing some kind of game. First he had tried to murder his daughter, and now he was toying with them. Almost laughing at them. Who in God’s name was he? Why was he doing this? And for the first time, he had a strange sense of foreboding. Of something more