“You’re meeting her in an hour at the Grand Hotel Kempinski. She happens to be an old friend of yours.”
Hawke stepped off the tram and emerged into a cold, overcast Geneva afternoon. An easterly breeze was blowing off the lake and cutting through the city like razors. Most people were obscured behind scarves or umbrellas.
He unfolded the piece of paper Eden had given him. Its message was simple: “Hotel Grand Kempinski. Midday. Cairo.” He knew only too well what the last word meant, and it wasn’t the Egyptian city. That one word had brought deep memories about his past flooding back.
The Hotel Grand Kempinski was less than two hundred yards from the tram stop, and he could see the traffic backed up along the Rue Philippe-Plantamour as he walked through to the Quai du Mont Blanc entrance. The aroma of fresh coffee and chocolate drifted over to him as he passed a small café.
He slowed to a casual walk as he cut through a line of taxis and briskly stepped up the polished steps of the east entrance of the hotel, flanked on either side by expensively manicured bay trees in art deco pots.
Inside he took the elevator to the famous rooftop restaurant bar, where he immediately saw Scarlet Sloane sitting on her own along the far edge. The Geneva skyline sprawled behind her, and he could see the mountains rise up into the bitter winter sky above the city to the west.
“Bonjour, Joe,” she said, sliding a glass flute across the table. “It's their signature drink — white rum, Champagne, fresh grapes, cinnamon and vanilla. They call it the Marjad.”
“It’s a little early in the day for cocktails, don’t you think?”
“That rather depends on what timezone your body’s in,” she said, smiling.
Hawke sat down and looked at her. She had aged a little, but on reflection not as much as he had. Her hair used to be red, and looked better that way — and it was longer once, but now it was short and blonde and had a vague military quality he wasn’t sure he liked, which was ironic. He watched in silence as she pulled a menthol cigarette out of a silver case and lit it up, blowing a cloud of blue smoke into the cold air.
“What’s this all about, Joe?” she asked.
“I’ve been sent here by Sir Richard Eden. I believe you know him, Cairo?”
“Cairo! I haven’t heard that one in a long time.”
“That’s because we haven’t spoken in a long time.”
“No. Richard told me you were on the market looking for trouble and asked me to meet you here. Being seen with you in public could put quite a dent in my image.”
“Are you armed?” he asked.
“Naturellement.”
Hawke drummed his fingers on the edge of the table for a moment, but stopped when he realized it was sending the wrong signal to her — nerves. He wasn’t sure how to handle her. That was the sorry truth.
“So you work for Five now?” he asked.
She nodded.
“What happened to the SAS? Was it too boring for you?”
Just another smile. Only the mouth, not the eyes. “Humor never was your strong suit.”
“How do you know Sir Richard Eden?” Hawke asked.
“Richard and I go back a long way, and the rest is none of your business.”
“Why am I here, Cairo?” he asked. “Eden’s keeping something from me, isn’t he?”
He felt her shoe sliding up the inside of his lower leg, and he moved it away before it got too comfortable there.
“Don’t you like it?” she asked.
“It took me the whole journey to remember who you were,” he lied.
The woman frowned. “I’d hoped I’d left a greater impression on you than that.”
“It’s been a long time since Helmand.”
“So you do remember. Tell me, did you ever marry, Joe?”
“Yes.”
“And how is the little darling? At home knitting tiny booties for your three perfect children?”
“She’s dead.”
“Oh… I'm sorry to hear that. Truly. How?”
“That’s not important right now, Cairo.”
“There’s that silly nickname again.” She breathed a cloud of cigarette smoke into the air between them.
“Will you help me or not? Eden says you will.”
“Eden doesn’t tell me what to do. No one does.” She got up to go.
“Please, Cairo — all he said was you’re available for work.”
Scarlet Sloane sat back down, graceful as a cat. He could hardly believe she was the same person he had almost fallen in love with all those years ago. Back then she was another woman. Now she seemed somehow different — embittered, angry, emotionless — working for the highest bidder, who this time happened to be Sir Richard Eden.
“What happened to you, Cairo?” He wasn't looking at her now, but staring at the floor. He was thinking about the damage the past does to the present.
“If I told you that it would keep you up at night, Joe. It’s better you get your beauty sleep — you need it.”
He raised his eyes to see her staring absent-mindedly across the Geneva skyline. The sky darkened with the threat of rain. A waiter dropped a plate and some cutlery and knocked her from her daydream. She focused on the man’s behind as he picked up the knives and forks, and she grinned like a Cheshire cat.
Hawke smirked. “Same old, same old.”
Scarlet simply shrugged her shoulders, closed her eyes for a moment and made a long, satisfied sigh.
She got up from the table and gently stubbed her cigarette out in the little ashtray. She turned and glanced over the rooftops. It was beginning to rain a little.
“I’ll let you work with me on this,” she said.
“I think you mean I will let you work with me on this.”
“You wouldn’t want to work against me, Joe.”
“Why’s that?”
“You’re at such a disadvantage, darling.”
“How so?”
“You’re just a man.”
She leaned forward and kissed him gently on the temple, rubbing her hand slowly up the back of his head as she did it. Blood-red fingernail polish, expensive perfume.
“So you’re on board?” he asked, undeterred.
“I am, yes. But the question is — are you up for this?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, aren’t you a little over the hill? Perhaps you’d prefer to go home and relax. Get some of that aggression out on Call of Duty or something.”
“I’ll take that as a challenge,” he said, as she walked slowly away from their table. “You’re working for me,” he shouted after her. “Not the other way around, Cairo.”
She didn’t turn back, but simply called over her shoulder: “No one calls me that anymore, Joe.”
“I do.”
“Are you coming or not?” she said.
Hawke smiled and got up from the table.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
“Call me old-fashioned,” Hawke said. “But my idea of a good night out is not sitting in a stationary Citroën, freezing my knackers off while waiting for a drug-dealing scrote to come home.”
He was sitting outside Martin’s apartment in the maze of winding streets that was Geneva’s Old Town. They were parked outside an expensive café lit up bright orange in the wintry darkness, and a light snow was falling but not laying.
The apartment, just across a medieval square, was now and for the last few hours under the constant surveillance of Eden’s makeshift team. Hawke yawned and grabbed a handful of peanuts. In the front, beside him, was Lea, while Ryan was in the back with Scarlet Sloane.
“As I recall,” Scarlet said. “Your idea of a good night out used to be farting five pound notes into beer glasses in the sergeant’s mess.”