The man raised his head, his face contorted in a grimace of pain. Sophie saw that his clothes were soaked with blood. After a moment of surprise, she recovered her nerve.

“Help me take his shirt off,” she ordered James.

She took a pair of scissors from a drawer and, while James held the patient down, she cut off Cain’s shirt, or what was left of it: it was torn in shreds. Under it, she saw deep cuts, in part cauterized, mixed with burns. By now, Sophie had seen that ...