*
And Hector, who was he, after three months of him, albeit in sporadic bursts? – Hector of the feverish stare and the scatological tirades against the City crooks who were the source of all our evils? On the Service grapevine it was hinted that in successfully saving the life of his family firm, Hector had resorted to methods honed by half a lifetime in the black arts, and deemed, even by the City's abysmal standards, foul. So was the vendetta against the City's evildoers driven by revenge – or guilt? Ollie, not normally given to gossip, had no doubt: Hector's experience of the City's bad manners – and his own employment of them, said Ollie – had turned him overnight into an avenging angel. 'It's a little vow he's taken,' he confided to them in the kitchen, while they waited for Hector to put in one of his late appearances. 'He's going to save the world before he leaves it if it kills him.'
*
But then Luke had always been a worrier. From infancy he had worried indiscriminately, rather in the way he fell in love.
He could worry as much about whether his watch was ten seconds fast or slow, as about the direction of a marriage that was null and void in every room except the kitchen.
He worried whether there was more to his son Ben's tantrums than just growing pains, and whether Ben was under his mother's orders not to love his father.
He worried about the fact that he was at peace when he was working, and that when he wasn't, even now walking along, he was a mass of unjoined ends.
He worried whether he should have swallowed his pride and accepted the Human Queen's offer of a shrink.
He worried about Gail, and his desire for her, or for some girl like her: a girl with real light in her face instead of the glum cloud that followed Eloise around even when the sun was on her.
He worried about Perry and tried not to be envious of him. He worried about which half of Perry would come out on top in an operational emergency: would it be the intrepid mountaineer or the unworldly university moralist – and anyway, was there a difference?
He worried about the impending duel between Hector and Billy Boy Matlock, and which of them was going to lose his temper first – or pretend to.
*
Leaving the sanctuary of Regent's Park, he entered the throng of Sunday shoppers looking for a bargain. Ease down, he told himself. It'll be all right. Hector's in charge, not you.
He was counting off landmarks. Ever since Bogota, landmarks had been important to him. If they kidnap me, these are the last things I saw before they put the blindfold on me.
The Chinese restaurant.
The Big Archway nightclub.
The Gentle Readers' Bookshop.
This is the ground coffee I smelled while I was wrestling with my attackers.
Those are the snowy pine trees I saw in the window of the art shop before they sandbagged me.
This is number 9, the house where I was reborn, three steps to the front door and act like any normal householder.
9
There were no formalities between Hector and Matlock, friendly or otherwise, and perhaps there never had been: just a nod and a silent handshake of two veteran belligerents shaping up for another bout. Matlock arrived on foot, having been dropped round the corner by his driver.
'Very nice Wilton carpeting, Hector,' he said, while he took a slow look round that seemed to confirm his worst suspicions. 'You can't beat Wilton, not when it comes to cost versus quality. Good day to you, Luke. It's just the two of you, is it?' – passing Hector his coat.
'Staff are away at the races,' Hector said, hanging it up.
Matlock was a broad-shouldered bull of a man, as his nickname implied, broad-headed, and at first glance avuncular, with a crouch that reminded Luke of an ageing rugby forward. His Midlands accent, according to the ground-floor gossips, had become more noticeable under New Labour, but was receding with the prospect of electoral defeat.
'We're in the basement, if you're comfortable with that, Billy,' said Hector.
'I've no alternative but to be comfortable with it, thank you, Hector,' said Matlock, neither pleasantly nor rudely, leading the way down the stone steps. 'What are we paying for this place, by the by?'
'You're not. This far it's on me.'
'You're on our payroll, Hector. The Service is not on yours.'
'As soon as you greenlight the operation, I'll be putting in my bill.'
'And I'll be querying it,' said Matlock. 'Taken to drink, have you?'
'It used to be the wine cellar.'
They took their places. Matlock assumed the head of the table. Hector, normally the stubborn technophobe, sat himself on Matlock's left in order to be in front of a tape recorder and a computer console. And to Hector's left sat Luke, thereby providing the three of them with a clear view of the plasma screen that the absent Ollie had erected overnight.
'Did you have time to wade through all the material we bunged at you, Billy?' Hector inquired sympathetically. 'Sorry to interfere with your golf.'
'If all is what you sent me, yes, Hector, I did, thank you,' Matlock replied. 'Though in your case, as I have come to learn, the word all is somewhat of a relative term. I don't play golf, as a matter of fact, and I'm not enamoured of summaries, if I can avoid them. Specially not yours. I could have done with a bit more raw material and a bit less arm-twisting.'
'Then why don't we offer you some of that raw material now, and make up?' Hector suggested, just as sweetly. 'I take it we're still Russian speakers, Billy?'
'Unless yours has gone rusty while you were out making yourself a fortune, yes, I think we are.'
They're an old married couple, thought Luke, as Hector pressed 'play' on the tape recorder. Every quarrel they have is a rerun of one they've had before.
*
For Luke, the very sound of Dima's voice acted like the start of a full-colour film. Every time he listened to the cassette that Perry the innocent had smuggled in his shaving bag he came away with the same image of Dima crouched in the forests around Three Chimneys, clutching a pocket recorder in his improbably delicate hand, far enough from the house to escape Tamara's real or imagined microphones, but near enough to scurry back if she yelled at him to come and take another phone call.
He could hear the three winds battling round Dima's glistening bald head. He could see the treetops above him shaking. He could hear the crashing of leaves and a gurgle of water, and he knew it was the same tropical rain that had drenched him in the forests of Colombia. Had Dima made his recording in a single session or in several? Did he have to brace himself with shots of vodka between sessions in order to overcome his vory inhibitions? Now his Russian bark drops into English, perhaps to remind himself who his confessors are. Now he is appealing to Perry. Now to a bunch of Perrys: 'You English gentlemen! Please! You are fair play, you have land of law! You are pure! I trust you. You will trust Dima also!'
Then back to his native Russian, but so careful of its grammatical niceties, so prinked and articulated, that in Luke's imaginings he is trying to rid it of its Kolyma stain in preparation for rubbing shoulders with the gentlemen of Ascot and their ladies: 'The man they are calling Dima, number one for money-laundering for the Seven Brothers, financial mastermind to the retrograde usurper who calls himself the Prince, presents his compliments to the famous English Secret Service and wishes to make the following offer of valuable information in exchange for trustworthy guarantees by the British government. Example.'
Then only the winds speak as Luke imagines Dima mopping away his sweat and tears with a large silk handkerchief – Luke's own gloss, but Perry had repeatedly mentioned a handkerchief – before taking another slug from the bottle and proceeding to the full, irrecoverable act of betrayal. ' Example. Operations of the Prince's criminal organization now known as the Seven Brothers include:
' One: importations and rebranding of embargoed oil from Mid East. I know these transactions. Many corrupt Italians and many British lawyers are involved.