Revelation

'Armenian.'

'Romella! Oh, please come in. I'm Stefi Stefanova. I do Bulgarian and Turkish. She's having a bath. Are you sure you don't need some Bulgarian?'

Through a hallway with a bicycle, propped up against a table with a pile of mail. Findhorn glimpsed a final demand letter in red. Doors to left and right led to bedrooms. A pile of soft dolls was spread over a bed. A kitchen to the right was a clutter of unwashed dishes and an overflowing pedal bin. Stefi led Findhorn ahead to a small room draped with psychedelic curtains and furnished with a low table, candles and cushions, but no chairs. A football team poster was surrounded by postcards pinned on the wall along with pictures of quaint Irish cottages and dizzying snow-covered peaks. A calendar on the wall showed a hunk of half-naked masculinity flexing his pectorals for the camera.

'Did I hear you say Armenian?'

She was running a comb through shoulder-length brown hair, still damp. She was slim, although with well-rounded breasts, and quite small. She had a small round face and big brown eyes behind John Lennon spectacles. She had delicate facial bone structure and smooth skin. Silver earrings in the shape of two long cylinders hung down from delicate ears. She was wearing a plain pink T-shirt and black leather trousers, and a pair of worn Nike trainers.

'I'm Romella. Romella Grigoryan if you can pronounce it.' The accent was Scottish, melodious, with a tinge of American.

'Fred Findhorn.' They shook hands. Findhorn opened the briefcase and pulled out the photocopies. 'This is just a selection. There will be about two thousand pages in all. What do you think?'

She flicked through a few pages at random. 'The handwriting's clear enough. Some of this is pretty technical, I'd probably have difficulty even in English. But yes, I think it's okay.'

'I'm meeting some people and I'd like to leave this with you for a couple of hours. Now, there might be a couple of problems.'

She raised her eyebrows.

'I need the translation urgently. Can you take it on right away?'

She frowned doubtfully and glanced at the wall calendar. It was a good performance.

'If it's too much you could point me to another translator.' He sensed Stefi tensing at the door.

Romella smiled slightly. 'No, I can squeeze it in.'

'A verbal translation would be quickest. We'd have to go through the diaries together.'

'Okay.'

'And as I say it's urgent. It will mean working long hours.'

'Business is business.'

'There's another problem. The material is confidential.'

Romella bristled. 'Naturally, confidentiality is assured.'

'I mean, highly confidential.' Findhorn glanced at Stefi. She nodded and smiled, taking in every word with open fascination. 'We'll need a separate workplace.'

This time, the frown was genuine. 'I'll have to think about that.'

Findhorn pulled a card out of his wallet. 'You're right to be careful. Actually I'm Jack the Ripper.' She laughed, displaying a row of perfect white teeth, and read the card. 'My secretary Anne's on holiday but I can give you her home number now if you like. My father is Lord Findhorn, a Court of Session judge. He's at home too, in Ayrshire, and if you like we can phone him to confirm that I really am —'

'I wasn't implying —'

'I have to go now. We can discuss terms when I get back. That is if you want the job.'

'Unsociable hours —'

'No problem. You fix a rate.'

Taking the stairs two at a time, Findhorn wondered about another problem: how to tap the old man for a few quid.

Findhorn risked the streets again. It was a straight mile and he heard the sharp crack of the one o'clock gun just as he was turning into Fat Sam's.

A few business types were scattered around, and there was a birthday lunch in progress. Al Capone, king-sized cigar in mouth, was resting a sub-machine gun on his arm. Bogart, Dietrich and other icons of the bootleg era also looked down on the proceedings from posters scattered around the walls. In a corner, a piano was thumping out rhythmic jazz by itself, and a fat fish near the cash register kept bumping its head against the tank. A notice said it was a pirhana.

Two men at a corner table, waiting. One was tall, elderly and stooped, formally dressed in suit and tie. Findhorn could make out a large Roman nose, a blotchy skin over a skull-like face, and a slightly vacant expression which didn't fool him for a moment. The other was about forty, gaunt, with metal-rimmed spectacles, dressed in a formal suit that made him look like a Jehovah's witness. Findhorn saw them in outline: sun was streaming through a roof window, obscuring their faces.

'This place used to be a slaughterhouse,' the skull said, indicating a chair. The accent was English ruling class, Winchester, Eton or the like: a species in decline but still with plenty of bite. 'Hence the roof windows. We can move if you wish.' Findhorn shook his head. The man ordered spaghetti alle vongole and Findhorn took the calzone. The Jehovah's witness ordered nothing. They all settled for aqua minerale: clear heads were the order of the day.

The skull waited until the waiter was out of earshot. 'My name is Mister Pitman, as in shorthand.'

'Of course it is.' Findhorn looked at the Jehovah's witness. 'And I expect you're Mister Speedhand.'

The Jehovah's witness nodded. 'It'll do.' The accent was American.

Pitman said, 'I won't insult your intelligence by pretence of any sort, Doctor Findhorn. You hold certain documents. We represent people who are willing to pay for them.'

'Documents?'

'And please don't insult mine.'

A little bread basket arrived. 'You have a consultancy business in Aberdeen, I believe. You sell weather. You call yourself Polar Explorers to create the illusion that there is more than one of you.'

'There is more than one of me,' Findhorn complained. 'I have a secretary.'

Pitman nodded absently, trying to spread icy butter on soft bread. 'Ah yes, Anne of a thousand hairstyles. And how is your business doing?'

'I'm sure you're about to tell me,' Findhorn said warily.

'As an entrepreneur you are best described as a bad joke. You sell a few sparse grid points for commercial and military climate programmes, which make only miniscule improvements to their forecasting ability. Your turnover pays Anne's wages, and the office rent, and perhaps the coffee money. It leaves you with less profit than a street busker.'

'I could use a few more ice stations.'

The waiters had clustered round the birthday table. A candle-lit cake was presented and they burst into 'Happy Birthday to You' with the help of the piano and electrically powered black mannikins with banjos on a stage. The man waited for the cacophony and the applause to subside. 'Would a hundred thousand pounds help?'

A second-generation Sicilian waiter served up the main course with a flourish. Pitman started to poke at the little clams on his pasta. Findhorn had started on his third glass of water but still his mouth was dry. 'Enormously. But the documents, as you call them — actually they're diaries — aren't for sale.'

Mister Shorthand was concentrating on a clam, dissecting it like a zoologist. Mister Speedhand said, 'One million, then?' The American accent was turning out to be east coast, probably Boston.

Findhorn felt himself going light-headed. He looked at Al Capone, spoke thoughtfully to the gangster. 'If you offered to put a million pounds into my bank account, in exchange for the diaries, I guess I'd have to say no.'

Findhorn, dazzled by the sunlight, hoped he had imagined the look in Mister Speedhand's eyes. Pitman examined a little clam on the end of his fork. 'Someone has been talking to you.'

'No.'

Mister Speedhand said, 'Doctor Findhorn, before you find yourself in an irretrievable situation, just hand over these diaries and walk away. It's in your own interests.'