ANDREW Yes.
WOMAN But more importantly, look! Me and George, the other one, we’re both here together, are you not going to comment on that, since before we were apparently unaware of each other’s existence?
ANDREW Okay. What? You met in the bar downstairs.
WOMAN No. We knew about each other, all along. We just wanted to test you. Good cop bad cop.
ANDREW Who’s who?
WOMAN Isn’t it obvious?
ANDREW …
WOMAN/MAN I’m bad cop.
WOMAN Wait –
MAN Oh… I thought… sorry.
(To ANDREW.) Slight… error.
ANDREW It doesn’t matter.
MAN (To WOMAN.) I honestly thought you said –
WOMAN Andrew this is so much not how I expected this would go. You don’t even seem to be paying attention. Look, we can tell you all this now that you’ve agreed to join us, we can reveal that actually both him and me were working for the same side.
ANDREW I had some of the whiskey and it wasn’t really whiskey. It was sort of like whiskey but it was cheap.
WOMAN Russia doesn’t really do whiskey.
MAN You should taste the vodka. Jesus Andrew if you were worrying about spending your life in Russia, about spending the rest of your days in a completely foreign country complete with actual Russians (and in parenthesis I would be worried about that) then the vodka is definitely some compensation.
ANDREW I tried the vodka.
MAN And?
ANDREW It was fine.
MAN Fine. Well maybe you don’t know enough about vodka. The vodka is really fucking good –
ANDREW What’s going to happen this morning?
MAN Possibly nothing, possibly a lot, calls have been made to see about that asylum that we’re after, we’ve already got our best contacts speaking to the Russian authorities – they know they need to resolve this and really they want to take you in – I mean that’s good news – they’re just looking for a way they can take you without it seeming too petulant. We’re going to help them with that.
WOMAN And when we do find a way forward when we can get you out of this limbo and get you some kind of passport, we’ll do a press conference but we think for the time being it’s actually best if you keep your head down.
ANDREW Right.
MAN Until we’re all on a more stable footing.
ANDREW Will I get to speak to him? You said –
MAN Andrew he’s stuck in an embassy, in not an entirely different situation to you actually, communication is a constant challenge, especially secure communication – I assume you have some idea why – but yeah we can try to get him on the phone for you. If you’d like?
ANDREW When?
MAN Now.
Or later.
Probably later.
ANDREW Can I see your hand?
WOMAN What?
ANDREW Can I see your hand, from last night? How it’s healing.
The WOMAN looks at the MAN.
WOMAN (To MAN.) Actually shall we try to get him on the phone now?
MAN Now?!
WOMAN Yes.
ANDREW Your hand.
MAN We can’t get him now. You know that. He’s probably asleep.
WOMAN (With an implication…) Well shall we try anyway?
MAN What?
Sorry. Am I… Am I missing something?
ANDREW Just show me.
Pause. The WOMAN rolls her eyes.
WOMAN Well you know what Andrew, it’s actually healed extremely well.
ANDREW What’s happened to it?
WOMAN Nothing. Look. Good as new.
ANDREW But… I saw you…
WOMAN Yeah. About that.
She takes a fake-skin glove out of her bag.
MAN Oh. Sorry. I get what you…
WOMAN Old trick. Just in case. The skin wasn’t real. Neither was the blood.
ANDREW But… our trust. It doesn’t mean anything, the fact that was real, that it would last, that was the whole point –
WOMAN But we’ve made the calls now. We’ve told people.
ANDREW You just happened to have a spare glove waiting?
A sort of special prop just for the occasion.
WOMAN If you remember, it was me that suggested it.
Oldest trick in the book. Well not oldest, but you know, old.
Still got the hat?
Pause.
ANDREW I knocked on the wall. It doesn’t sound like a wall.
WOMAN Where are you going with this? Are you going a bit mad Andrew, should we be calling a psychiatrist or something?
ANDREW Do it. Yourself.
Knock on the wall.
MAN No I’m not going to knock on the –
The WOMAN knocks on the wall.
WOMAN Oh yeah.
He’s right. It doesn’t sound like a wall.
She does it again.
It’s kind of more hollow, and more soft, at the same time.
Long pause.
ANDREW tests the floor. Listens to it.
MAN Should we…?
WOMAN Maybe.
Beat.
MAN Sorry can I just ask while we’ve got a moment, am I good or bad cop then?
WOMAN Bad.
MAN Right. Okay then. Bad… okay…
WOMAN Andrew there is a reason the wall is how you described.
ANDREW I thought so.
I’m not in a hotel, am I?
Beat.
MAN No.
ANDREW None of this is a real hotel.
WOMAN No.
ANDREW Didn’t think so.
ANDREW picks up the chair and throws it at the wall.
It disappears through a previously unseen gap. Which has been there the whole time. An optical illusion.
The MAN lights a cigarette.
MAN He’s not stupid.
WOMAN Well we know that. We do know that but I thought he might last a little bit longer.
ANDREW You don’t work for him.
Do you?
Either of you.
Pause.
WOMAN No.
ANDREW Who do you work for?
WOMAN Well that’s a really difficult question because the thing is that these days –
She presses a button and one wall switches off.
– these different groups whether they’re government agencies or companies or terrorist organisations well they’re all rather connected aren’t they?
She takes one corner of one of the walls and peels it away.
Bearing in mind the way that governments need companies and companies need influence and influence comes through paying people of the kind that you might in an ideal world not want to be paying, and even if you can draw lines between all these different groups those lines don’t hold do they?
She presses another button and the ceiling lifts up.
And the ideologies behind them are so indistinct and ever-changing, in fact I would go as far as to say that the only constant we can refer to is power.
She starts folding up some of the various hotel props and furniture. Some of them she deflates.
I would say I work for power, and I want that power for my own self-preservation and to get the things I want. Oh. Well that’s a much clearer answer than I was expecting to give. There you go Andrew.
ANDREW I thought you might be Russian?
WOMAN Do I sound Russian?
ANDREW It wouldn’t make any difference if you did.
MAN I’m not Russian either.
ANDREW I want to speak to the ambassador.
MAN The ambassador has washed his hands of you Andrew we discussed that right at the very beginning – with the exception of a few journalists who have zero clout, you have no one. Everyone is backing away from you as fast as they can – well anyone who can help you. They’re pleased, some of them, that you did what you did, but that is done and now you’re old news.