“Mr. Pashkin gets here week after next?” Louisa asked.
“He’s flying in,” Piotr agreed. “He’s in Moscow right now.”
Kyril, it seemed, didn’t talk much.
“Well, maybe we should run through some ground rules before he gets here. Just so we all know where we stand.”
Piotr gave her a serious look. “We’re professionals,” he said. “Your turf, sure. There’s no problem. You tell us the rules. We keep to them as best we can.”
After a brief moment in which he wondered whether he’d ever speak another language well enough to say fuck you quite so politely in it, Min said, “Yeah, well, any rules you’re not sure about, let us know. I’ll have someone translate.”
Louisa flashed him the eyebrow equivalent of a kick in the shins, and said, “It’s pretty basic stuff. Like you say, our turf. And we really can’t have you walking round with guns. I’m sure you understand that.”
Piotr was politeness itself. “Guns?”
“Like those you’re carrying now.”
Piotr said something to Kyril in, Min assumed, Russian. Kyril said something back. Then Piotr said, “No, really. Why would we be carrying guns?”
“It’s you I’m worried about. London’s more savvy than it used to be. You’re one phone call away from an armed response.”
“Ah, an armed response. Yes. London has a reputation for that.”
Oh, here we go, thought Min. You shoot one plumber.
“But I assure you,” Piotr continued, “nobody’s going to mistake us for terrorists.”
“Well, if they do,” Louisa said, “it’s Mr. Harper and I who’ll have to clear up the mess. It’s all right for you. You’ll be dead. But we’ll really be in the shit.”
The look Piotr gave her was intense and blue-eyed and utterly humourless. And then the clouds cleared, and he showed big white teeth more American than Russian. “We wouldn’t want that, would we?” he boomed. He turned to Kyril and rabbited on for a bit. Min counted three thick sentences. Kyril laughed too, making a noise like a bag of marbles. When he’d finished, he produced an unbranded packet of cigarettes: stubby, filterless, lethal. A health warning would have been like subtitles on a porn film. Utterly beside the point.
Min shook his head and swallowed his last mouthful of coffee. It wasn’t a warm day but was bright and clear, and had felt fresh enough when he’d cycled into work. Cycling was a new thing for Min; something to cancel out the smoking. Accepting one of Kyril’s cigarettes in front of Louisa would have been tantamount to confessing he had no plans for a long-term future.
Louisa said, “So we’re agreed.”
Piotr gave an expansive shrug, taking in not only Louisa’s question but the general surroundings, the sky above, the whole of goddamn London. “No guns,” he said.
“We can get down to business, then?”
He gave a gracious nod.
Nobody took notes. They talked dates and places: when Pashkin was due, what transport he’d be using (“Car,” said Kyril at this point. That was the one word of English he came up with. “Car.”). And they talked about the Needle, where the meeting would be taking place.
“You’ve seen it, obviously,” Louisa said.
“Of course.”
It was over her shoulder, in fact. Its tip could be seen from where they sat.
“It’s … cool.”
“It is.”
His eyes crinkled as he smiled.
Jesus, thought Min. He’s coming on to her.
“Where are you staying?” Min asked.
Piotr turned to him politely. “I beg your pardon?”
“Where are you staying?”
“The Ambassador. On Hyde Park.”
“Already?”
Piotr looked puzzled.
“I mean,” Min said, “I can see your boss might want to stay there. But I’m surprised he’s checked you two in a fortnight before he arrives.”
Kyril was watching him with a mildly interested expression. He understands every word I’m saying, thought Min.
Louisa said, “Good boss to have. Can’t see ours doing that.”
“He’s okay,” Piotr said. “But no, we’re not actually there yet.”
He nodded at Min. “I misunderstood. I thought you meant where we’ll be later. Once Mr. Pashkin arrives.”
Course you did, thought Min. “So you’re … where?”
“Near Piccadilly. Off Shaftesbury Avenue. What’s its name again?”
He rattled off some more chunky vocabulary at Kyril, who grunted back. “The Excelsior,” he said. “Excalibur? Something like that. Forgive me, I’m stupid with names.” His contrition was aimed exclusively at Louisa. “Maybe I should call you later. Confirm the name.”
“Good idea,” she said. “We’d hate you to get lost.” Fishing a card from her bag, she handed it to him.
And it seemed they were done, because the Russians were standing, offering their hands. Piotr held onto Louisa’s while saying, “This could be a good thing. An oil deal between our nations. Good for us, good for you.”
“And wonderful for the environment,” Min added.
Piotr laughed, without letting go of Louisa’s hand. “You,” he said. “I like you. You’re funny.”
Louisa freed herself. “You’ll let us know your hotel.”
“Of course. We can get a taxi from here?”
“That way.”
Kyril nodded at Min very seriously, and the pair rolled off. People heading their way, Min noted, swerved round them. Louisa said something, but he didn’t catch what. “Take this.” Slipping his jacket off, he hurled it at her.
“Min?”
“Later,” he called, but it wasn’t likely she heard him; he was already twenty yards away.
It cost her a second tenner, but by 7:15 that morning Shirley Dander had had numbers for all the station’s pick-up drivers, by 7:30 had deeply annoyed three of them, and by 7:40 was talking to a fourth, who’d been working the previous Tuesday evening, the night the westbound trains were late. And yes, he’d picked up a bald guy, and no he wasn’t a regular. And what was this, some kind of wind-up?
It’s an opportunity, Shirley told him. She’d buy him breakfast.
She was still jazzed from last night’s raid on DataLok, where the train company’s onboard-CCTV footage was stored. Subduing the infant on security hadn’t proved taxing, and chances were the morning shift would have unwrapped him by now: the kid had thought she was going to kill him. Finding the right files had taken longer, but the system wasn’t a closed book, not after four years at Regent’s Park Comms, and she’d uploaded everything and more to a website she’d created yesterday and had since taken down. Then she’d gone home, woken her lover, and committed a borderline act of rape. Lover had justifiably collapsed afterwards, but Shirley had taken a twist of coke then gone piledriving through the data, decoding the filing system in minutes: date, time, train number, destination, carriage. Recording was on, she estimated, a seven-second stutter, though that might have been the coke talking. The thought inspired a second hit: if this was going to take all night, she’d need all the help she could get.
It had taken a shade over two hours.
Two hours’ clock-time, anyway. Shirley was flying to her own schedule by this point. Coke, yes, but also an adrenalin high from the raid. Each seven-second onscreen jump echoed the beat of her heart. She registered plenty of bald men, baldness being as much fashion statement as male tragedy these days, but she had no doubt when she found the one and only Mr. B—there he sat, oblivious of the camera at the end of the carriage, and yet so square on to its field of coverage he might as well be mouthing cheese … He sat alone, staring ahead unsmilingly. Not even blinking. Except he probably was, amended coked-up Shirley Dander, was probably blinking in the six seconds spare he had out of every seven. But it was odd, nevertheless, that all around him was a funhouse of jerky movement, as his fellow-travellers conjured instant shapes from newspapers, or produced handkerchiefs out of nowhere, as if this were a magicians’ convention—and Mr. B alone remained stock stilclass="underline" a cardboard cut-out who didn’t even roll with the train’s movement. Or that’s how he’d stayed until reaching Moreton-in-Marsh, in the Cotswolds. Which boasted, among other attractions, a nice little café, open early.