Our kind of traitor

But Emilio dell Oro must have had special powers of persuasion, because he took the official gentleman confidingly by the arm and led him under a beech tree, and by the end of the conversation the official was scurrying back to the clubhouse like a chastened schoolboy.

And amid these scattered observations and rememberings there was the ever-present lawyer in her, at it again, fretting about the membrane of plausibility that seemed from the outset to be on the point of breaking, which didn't necessarily signify the end of the free world as we know it, just as long as she was able to get to Natasha and the girls.

And then, while she's having these random thoughts, lo and behold, Dima and Perry are shaking hands across the net and calling it a day: a handshake not of reconciled opponents, to her eye, but of accomplices in a deception so blatant that the last few loyal survivors huddled on the stands should be booing rather than applauding.

And somewhere in the middle of the mix – since there are no limits to the day's incongruities – up pops the podgy Russian man who's been following her around, and tells her he would like to fuck her. In those very words: 'I would like to fuck you,' then waits to hear yes or no: an over-earnest thirty-something city boy with bad skin and an empty vodka glass in his hand and bloodshot eyes. She thought she misheard him first time round. There was hubbub inside her head as well as outside. She actually asked him to repeat himself, God help her. But by then he'd lost his nerve, and confined himself to trailing after her at five yards' distance, which was why she had been content to place herself under the wing of Bunny Popham, the least bad option available to her.

And that in turn was how she came to confess to him that she too was a lawyer, a moment she always dreaded, since it resulted in awkward mutual comparisons. But for Bunny Popham it was just an excuse to be shocking:

'Oh, my dear' – lifting his eyes to Heaven – 'I am overcome! Well, all I can say is, you can have my briefs any time.'

He asked which Chambers, so she told him, which was only natural. What else was she supposed to do?

She had thought a lot about packing. That too, she remembered. Stuff like whether she would use Perry's new tennis bag for their dirty clothes, and equally weighty matters associated with getting out of Paris and on the road to Natasha. Perry had kept on their room for tonight so that they could pack last thing this evening before catching the train back to London, which in the world they had entered was how normal people travelled to Berne when they are potentially under surveillance and not supposed to be going there.

*

The massage room supplied bathrobes. Perry and Dima were wearing them. They were sitting three at the table again, where they had been sitting for the last twelve minutes by Perry's watch. Ollie in his white coat was bowed over his laptop in the corner with his massage bag at his feet, and occasionally he scribbled a note and passed it to Hector, who added it to the pile in front of him. The claustrophobic atmosphere was reminiscent of the Bloomsbury basement without the smell of wine, and there was something similarly reassuring about the noise of real lives near by: the grumble of pipes, voices from the locker room, the flushing of a lavatory, the putter of a faulty air conditioner.

'How much does Longrigg get?' Hector asks, after glancing at one of Ollie's notes.

'One half one per cent,' Dima replies tonelessly. 'On the day Arena get its banking licence, Longrigg get first money. After one year, second money. Year later, finish.'

'Paid to where?'

'Switzerland.'

'Know the account number?'

'Till Berne I don't know this number. Sometimes I get only name. Sometimes only number.'

'Giles de Salis?'

'Special commission. I hear this only, no confirmation. Emilio say to me: de Salis get this special commission. But maybe Emilio keep it for himself. After Berne I know for sure.'

'A special commission of how much?'

'Five million cold. Maybe not true. Emilio is fox. Steal everything.'

'US dollars?'

'Sure.'

'Payable when?'

'Same as Longrigg but cash down, not conditional, two year not three. One half on official foundation Arena Bank, one half after one year trading. Tom.'

'What?'

'Hear me, OK?' The voice suddenly alive again. 'After Berne I get everything. For signing, I gotta be willing party, hear me? I don't sign nothing I'm not willing party to, I gotta right. You get my family to England, OK? I go Berne, I sign, you get my family out, I give you my heart, my life!' He swung round on Perry. 'You seen my children, Professor! Jesus God, who the fuck they think I am any more? They fucking blind or something? My Natasha she go crazy, don't eat nothing.' He returns to Hector. 'You get my kids to England now, Tom. Then we make deal. Soon as my family's in England, I know everything. I don't givva shit!'

But if Perry is moved by this appeal, Hector's aquiline features are set in rigid rejection.

'No bloody way,' he retorts. And riding roughshod over Dima's protests: 'Your wife and family stay where they are until after the signing on Wednesday. If they disappear from your house before the Berne signing, they put themselves at risk, you at risk, and the deal at risk. Do you have a bodyguard at your house, or has the Prince taken him away?'

'Igor. One day we make him vor. I love this guy. Tamara love him. Kids too.'

We make him vor? Perry repeats to himself. When Dima is sitting in his suburban palace in outer Surrey, with Natasha at Roedean and his boys at Eton, we will make Igor a vor?

'Two men are guarding you at present. Niki and a new man.'

'For Prince. They gonna kill me.'

'What time is your signing in Berne on Wednesday?'

'Ten o'clock. Morning. Bundesplatz.'

'Did Niki and his friend attend the signing this morning?'

'No way. Wait outside. These guys are stupid.'

'And in Berne, they won't be attending the signing either?'

'No way. Maybe sit in waiting room. Jesus, Tom -'

'And after the signing the bank will hold a reception in honour of the occasion. Bellevue Palace Hotel, no less.'

'Eleven-thirty. Big reception. Everybody celebrate.'

'Got that, Harry?' Hector calls to Ollie in his corner, and Ollie raises his arm in acknowledgement. 'Will Niki and his friend attend the reception?'

If Dima's composure is deserting him, Hector's has acquired a driven intensity.

'My fucking guards?' Dima protests incredulously. 'They wanna come to the reception? You crazy? Prince not gonna whack me in the fucking Bellevue Hotel. He gonna wait a week. Maybe two. Maybe first he whack Tamara, whack my children. What the fuck I know?'

Hector's furious stare remains unchanged.

'So to confirm,' he insists. 'You're confident that the two guards – Niki and his friend – will not attend the Bellevue reception.'

With a sag of his huge shoulders, Dima lapses into a kind of physical despair. 'Confident? I'm not confident of nothing. Maybe they come to reception. Jesus, Tom.'

'Assume they do. Just for argument's sake. They're not going to follow you when you take a piss.'

No answer, but Hector isn't waiting for one. Stalking to the corner of the room, he places himself behind Ollie's shoulder and peers at the computer screen.

'So tell me how this plays for you. Whether or not Niki and his friend accompany you to the Bellevue Palace, halfway through the reception – let's say twelve o'clock midday, as near as you can make it – you take a piss. Give me the ground floor' – to Ollie – 'the Bellevue has two sets of lavatories for ground-floor guests. One set is to the right as you enter the lobby, on the other side of the reception desk. Am I right, Harry?'

'Bang on target, Tom.'

'You know the lavatories I mean?'

'Sure I know them.'