Lönnrot stands and extends both hands as if for cuffs, but then closes the distance between them with an unearthly speed. She reaches for the taser, but a stinging palm lands on her shoulder and compresses the nerve, and then the other slaps down on her head, fingers actually curving around her skull. An instant later she is flying at a wall. She recognises a print from the Dogs Playing Poker series by Coolidge, supposedly ubiquitous, but she realises this is the first time she has actually ever seen one, and then she hits. Hunter’s house is of distressingly solid construction. In a more modern dwelling she might cave in a plasterboard wall, but not here. She slides down the wall and lands badly, and a huge shape, comically thuggish, blocks her view of the room. A fist clips her mouth, and when she slumps and curls into a ball she feels boots, measured and powerful, striking her legs and torso.