She was waiting at passport control when it occurred to her: she did not have scars all over her face. They would know it wasn't her. Suddenly alive, she looked left and right for an escape. They were in a corridor.
Surgery. Could she say she had had surgery and got rid of them, a skin graft, a peel? They might send her back and tell her to get another passport then. The fat man in front shuffled off and she was motioned forward. The woman found the photo and looked at her. She looked closer and handed the book back.
'Merci, Madame.'
She waited until she was in the departure lounge to look through her papers. She was called Helena and when she had applied for her passport five years ago, her skin was as soft and perfect as Anya's.
FAVOUR by John Harvey
Kiley hadn't heard from Adrian Costain in some little time, not since one of Costain's A-list clients had ended up in an all-too-public brawl, the pictures syndicated round the world at the touch of a computer key, and Kiley, who had been hired to prevent exactly that kind of thing happening, had been lucky to get half his fee.
'If we were paying by results,' Costain had said, 'you'd be paying me.'
Kiley had had new cards printed. Investigations. Private and Confidential. All kinds of security work undertaken. Ex-Metropolitan Police. Telephone and fax numbers underneath. Cheaper by the hundred, the young woman in Easy Print had said, Kiley trying not to stare at the tattoo that snaked up from beneath the belt of her jeans to encircle her navel, the line of tiny silver rings that tinkled like a miniature carillon whenever she moved her head.
Now the cards were pinned, some of them, outside newsagents' shops all up and down the Holloway Road and around; others he'd left discreetly in pubs and cafes in the vicinity; once, hopefully, beside the cash desk at the Holloway Odeon after an afternoon showing of Insomnia, Kiley not immune to Maura Tierney's charms.
Most days, the phone didn't ring, the fax failed to ratchet into life.
'E-mail, that's what you need, Jack,' the Greek in the corner cafe where he sometimes had breakfast assured him. 'E-mail, the net, the world wide web.'
What Kiley needed was a new pair of shoes, a way to pay next month's rent, a little luck. Getting laid wouldn't be too bad either: it had been a while.
He was on his way back into the flat, juggling the paper, a pint of milk, a loaf of bread, fidgeting for the keys, when the phone started to ring.
Too late, he pressed recall and held his breath.
'Hello?' The voice at the other end was suave as cheap margarine.
' Adrian?'
'You couldn't meet me in town, I suppose? Later this morning. Coffee.'
Kiley thought that he could.
When he turned the corner of Old Compton Street into Frith Street, Costain was already sitting outside Bar Italia, expensively suited legs lazily crossed, Times folded open, cappuccino as yet untouched before him.
Kiley squeezed past a pair of media types earnestly discussing first draft scripts and European funding, and took a seat at Costain's side.
'Jack,' Costain said. 'It's been too long.' However diligently he practised his urbane, upper-class drawl there was always that tell-tale tinge of Ilford, like a hair ball at the back of his throat.
Kiley signalled to the waitress and leaned back against the painted metal framework of the chair. Across the street, Ronnie Scott's was advertising Dianne Adams, foremost amongst its coming attractions.
'I didn't know she was still around,' Kiley said.
'You know her?'
'Not really.'
What Kiley knew were old rumours of walkouts and no-shows, a version of 'Stormy Weather' that had been used a few years back in a television commercial, an album of Gershwin songs he'd once owned but not seen in, oh, a decade or more. Not since Dianne Adams had played London last.
'She's spent a lot of time in Europe since she left the States,' Costain was saying. ' Denmark. Holland. Still plays all the big festivals. Antibes, North Sea.'
Kiley was beginning to think Costain's choice of venue for their meeting was down to more than a love of good coffee. 'You're representing her,' he said.
'In the UK, yes.'
Kiley glanced back across the street. 'How long's she at Ronnie's?'
'Two weeks.'
When Kiley had been a kid and little more, those early cappuccino days, a girl he'd been seeing had questioned the etiquette of eating the chocolate off the top with a spoon. He did it now, two spoonfuls before stirring in the rest, wondering, as he did so, where she might be now, if she still wore her hair in a ponytail, of the hazy green in her eyes.
'You could clear a couple of weeks, Jack, I imagine. Nights, of course, afternoons.' Costain smiled and showed some teeth, not his but sparkling just the same. 'You know the life.'
'Not really.'
'Didn't you have a pal? Played trumpet, I believe?'
'Saxophone.'
'Ah, yes.' As if they were interchangeable, a matter of fashion, an easy either-or.
Derek Becker had played Ronnie's once or twice, in his pomp, not headlining, but taking the support slot with his quartet, Derek on tenor and soprano, occasionally baritone, along with the usual piano, bass and drums. That was before the booze really hit him bad.
'Adams,' Costain said, 'it would just be a matter of baby sitting, making sure she gets to the club on time, the occasional interview. You know the drill.'
'Hardly seems necessary.'
'She's not been in London in a good while. She'll feel more comfortable with a hand to hold, a shoulder to lean on.' Costain smiled his professional smile. 'That's metaphorically, of course.'
They both knew he needed the money; there was little more, really, to discuss.
'She'll be staying at Le Meridien,' Costain said. 'On Piccadilly. From Friday. You can hook up with her there.'
The meeting was over, Costain was already glancing at his watch, checking for messages on his mobile phone.
'All those years in Europe,' Kiley said, getting to his feet, 'no special reason she's not been back till now?'
Costain shook his head. 'Representation, probably. Timings not quite right.' He flapped a hand vaguely at the air. 'Sometimes it's just the way these things are.'
'A little start-up fund would be good,' Kiley said.
Costain reached into his suit jacket for his wallet and slid out two hundred and fifty in freshly minted twenties and tens. 'Are you still seeing Kate these days?' he asked.
Kiley wasn't sure.
Kate Keenan was a freelance journalist with a free-ranging and often fierce column in the Independent. Kiley had met her by chance a little over a year ago and they'd been sparring with one another ever since. She'd been sparring with him. Sometimes, Kiley thought, she took him the way some women took paracetamol.
'Only I was thinking,' Costain said, 'she and Dianne ought to get together. Dianne's a survivor, after all. Beat cancer. Saw off a couple of abusive husbands. Brought up a kid alone. She'd be perfect for one of those pieces Kate does. Profiles. You know the kind of thing.'
'Ask her,' Kiley said.
'I've tried,' Costain said. 'She doesn't seem to be answering my calls.'
There had been an episode, Kiley knew, before he and Kate had met, when she had briefly fallen for Costain's slippery charm. It had been, as she liked to say, like slipping into cow shit on a rainy day.
'Is this part of what you're paying me for?' Kiley asked.