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emotions. So why was this memory still haunting her?
    Even that question itself angered her, since she regarded reflection and introspection as pointless wastes of time. Far better, Novak decided, to work off some of the rage and frustration that was gnawing at her guts. She rode her hired BMW F650GS motorbike out of the heart of Paris to the eastern suburb of Clichy-sous-Bois. The vast majority of its population were North African Muslims, who were now locked in a more or less permanent battle with paramilitary units of the resurgent Front National. The most combative of all the anti-fascists hung out at a mixed martial arts club that stayed open late. Novak turned up there and got in the ring, a head guard her only concession to personal protection. She started taunting the regulars, daring them to fight a white woman. It took a while before her first opponent stepped into the ring. But when the others saw the ferocity with which she fought, and the blows she was willing to take as well as deal out, Novak had no shortage of takers, and she did not leave that ring until the pain and exhaustion were enough to provide some relief, however temporary, from the furies raging inside her.

7
    WEDNESDAY EVENING: ALIX watched the blue flashing light of a police car reflecting off the puddles in the rain-slicked street as it came up Knightsbridge towards her, hurtled past the Hyde Park Palace Hotel, and then raced away towards Piccadilly. It was getting dark now, and the streets were starting to clear of cars and pedestrians alike. Even in an area as smart as this, people only went out at night if they had a very good reason to do so. And no one got in anywhere without first proving their right to do so. All new arrivals at this or any other major hotel, for example, had to pass armed security guards, bag- and body-scanners, and even the occasional body search before they could even check-in. Thereafter their room keys acted as pass-cards to get them through the entrance barriers. Once inside, it was like entering a separate dimension of luxury and indulgence, hermetically sealed off from the ever-increasing chaos and shabbiness of the world outside.
    Alix found the effect to be more disconcerting than reassuring. As much as she had never felt a single second of nostalgia for the grim, depressing greyness of her Soviet childhood, there was still a tiny part of her that clung to some of the socialist idealism that had been drummed into her as a girl. The presence of this island of wealth, and others like it, amidst an increasingly rough sea of poverty and lawlessness disturbed her. It reminded her of Moscow in the years immediately after the fall of Communism, when the rule of the state and the secret police was making way for a culture of gangsters and oligarchs. One of those tough, ruthless men had kept her as his mistress, and she had learned first-hand about the way the world worked when the strong took whatever they wanted and the weak went to hell. She didn’t want to go back to that, either.
    Thinking of the past only served to remind her how far back her memories went. Alix had long since come to terms with the fact that she was no longer the pretty young thing of days gone by. She was more at ease with the face and body she saw reflected in the mirror now than she had ever been in the past. Of course, it didn’t hurt her self-confidence to love and be loved by a man who made it perfectly obvious how much he desired her. She heard him now, coming in behind her, and turned to watch him as he walked across the room.
    ‘Ah, there you are,’ said Carver, smiling as he caught her eye.
    Even now, the sight of him could still make her heart flutter like a teenage girl’s. She loved his strong hands and forearms, the taper from his broad shoulders down to his narrow hips, the high, firm curve of his butt. She loved watching his clear green eyes. Their moods were as changeable as the sea: sometimes bright and sunny, sometimes