He didn’t tell them that he’d had a screaming row with Carla when the preliminary results of the Shorn investigation came in. That he’d jumped automatically towards blame and belief in what Mike obviously still believed, that Carla had missed the leak.

It had taken her over an hour to talk him down.

I know what I’m fucking doing, she told him grimly, when the row had burnt itself out. If there was a crack in that panelling, someone fucking put it there, and not that long ago.

‘Carla knows what she’s doing,’ he said, staring into his wine glass.

Nobody answered him. The silence started to creak under its own weight. Chris stared at the table top, trying to think of something to say that wouldn’t sound deranged.

‘You really believe this, don’t you, Chris,’ said Suki. It didn’t come out as supportive as she was obviously trying to be.

Chris shook his head. ‘I don’t know what I believe. Look, Mike, is it possible this is something to do with the NAME contracts? Somebody outside Shorn, I mean. Maybe I was tagged getting in and out of Panama.’

Bryant gestured. ‘You said you were careful.’

‘I was. But something is going down, Mike. I can feel it.’

Sure, something’s going down. You’re about to sell out your colleagues for a public sector sinecure with the bleeding-heart UN leech gang. That’s what’s going down, Chris.

And maybe someone knows that.

The paranoia made icy tracks down his spine.

‘Okay.’ Mike sat down again. He steepled his fingers on the table. ‘Tell you what. We’ll look into it. Unofficially, I mean. I’ll talk to Troy, get him to ask around. He’s got friends in the southside zones. We’ll see what he turns up. Meantime, we’ve got other stuff to worry about. Echevarria—‘

Chris groaned. ‘Don’t remind me.’

‘—flies in Tuesday, Chris. And we’ve got Barranco arriving right behind him. Not even two full days between.’

‘The week from hell.’

Mike grinned. ‘That’s right. So tonight, let’s just forget about the whole fucking thing and get wrecked. What time you reckon Carla’ll be here?’

‘She said before eight.’ Chris glanced at his watch. ‘Maybe she got held up at the checkpoints.’

‘Want to call her?’

‘No, it’s.’ He realised how it looked. ‘Yeah, maybe I should.’

Carla was running an hour late, for no reason she felt like offering. Chris bit back his annoyance.

‘Well, when—‘ he began thinly.

‘Oh, Chris, just start without me. I’m sure you’re already having fun.’

He looked round at Mike and Suki, glad he’d used the mobile and not the videophone. Bryant was leaning against his wife and nuzzling at her ear through the immaculate auburn mane. She laughed, flinched away, then reached round to grab the ends of his loosed tie and pull him close. The little scene radiated groomed marital content, a synthetic blend of sex and wealth and domesticity straight out of a screen ad. He thought suddenly of a kitchen in Highgate, and an unforgiveable wish surged up in him.

‘Well, get here as soon as you can,’ he said, and hung up.

Mike looked up. ‘She okay?’

‘Yeah, be here in about an hour. Some kind of crisis with a lubricant system.’ He smiled weakly. ‘Suppose I should be glad she’s that obsessive.’

‘Shit, yeah. If Suki was my mechanic, I’d never let her out of the fucking garage. Ow!’

‘Bastard.’

He tried to join in with the laughter, but his heart wasn’t in it.

‘Chris, you know the horse joke?’ Bryant poured more wine. ‘Guy goes into a bar and sees a horse standing there. So he goes up to him and says So. Why the long face?’

More laughter, filling up the beautiful kitchen like the smell of cooking he wasn’t invited to share. He wished Liz would hurry up and

Carla!

He wished Carla would hurry up and

And what? Come on, Chris. Finish that thought.

It must have shown on his face. Mike came across and clapped him on the shoulder. ‘Ah, Chris. Come on, man. Honestly. I really don’t think you should be worrying. I mean, in the end, you trashed the little fucker. He’s smoked meat. And let’s face it, with the rep you’ve got, no one smarter than a fuckwit gang sprog is going to want to drive against you.’ He raised his glass. ‘You got nothing to worry about, man.’

Chapter Twenty-Eight

Midweek, Regime Change was quiet. Cheap cocktails and genteel pole dancing brought in a scattering of suits from the local offices and recently-paid zone workers who knew they’d never get in on a Friday or Saturday night. By eight-thirty or nine they were mostly leaving, the zone types headed home with their shallow finances drained, the suits going on to less genteel clubs where you could get your hands on the dancers.

‘I would have suggested somewhere else.’ Chris gestured at the centre of the Iraq Room, where a veiled woman, naked from the neck down, flexed around a newly installed silver pole to the unwinding cadences of Cairo Scene. The spectators sat at pipe tables or stood about in small knots, staring. ‘I didn’t realise.’

Liz Linshaw laughed and sipped at the pipe between them. She plumed whisky scented smoke in the dancer’s direction.

‘You don’t approve?’

‘Uh.’ He spread his hands helplessly. ‘Well, it’s just not what I had in mind when I. You know, called you.’

‘Chris.’ She leaned closer to beat the music, grinning. ‘You really don’t have to work so hard at not looking at her. I already know you’re an honourable man. Way past honourable, in fact.’

The dancer bellied up to the pole, slid it up and down between her breasts. Chris took a deep interest in the low hammered copper table the pipe stood on. Liz Linshaw laughed again.

‘Look.’ She leaned across to place one hand gently against his cheek and pushed his head back towards the performance. He fought down a jagged impulse to grab the hand and twist it away. ‘I mean, look, really look at her. Let’s get this over with. She’s sexy, isn’t she. Young. No, don’t look away. It’s a great body. Worked out. And worked on, obviously, unless someone invented anti-gravity fields recently. Yeah, if I were a man, she’d do it for me. She’d make me, Chris, hey, Chris, you’re blushing.’

‘No, I’m—‘

‘You are. I can feel it. Your face is hot.’ She laughed again, delightedly. ‘Chris, you really are in trouble. You’re a grown man, you’ve got a dozen kills under your belt, and you can’t look at soft porn without flushing like a teenager. I mean, what do you and Carla Nyquist do in the bedroom?’

She must have seen the change in his face. Before he could move, she reached out and touched his arm.

‘Sorry. Chris, I’m sorry. That was bitchy.’

This time he did take hold of her hand. He pushed it back across the table and sat looking at her in silence.

‘Chris, I said I’m sorry.’

They were saved by the pipe waitress. She sauntered across, lifted the cage and cast a practised eye over the glowing embers of tobacco in the pan. She glanced at Chris.

‘Bring you another?’

He hadn’t smoked much of the first, it was just the price of sitting there while he waited for Liz Linshaw. He shrugged.

‘No, I think we’re pretty much done here.’

The waitress left. He met Liz Linshaw’s gaze and held it.

‘Chris—‘

‘Reason I asked you here, Liz. You’ve got friends in Driver Control, right?’

She looked away, then back. ‘Yes. Yes, I have.’

‘Inside sources? People who can get information for you?’

‘Is this really why you called me, Chris?’

‘Yes. You have sources, right?’

A shrug. ‘I’m a journalist.’

‘There’s something I need to know. I need to find out if—‘

‘Whoa, Chris.’ She gave him a hard little smile. ‘Slow down. Now I may have just gone over the line a little with that bitchy crack about your wife. But that doesn’t mean you own a part of me. Why the fuck would I put pressure on one of my hard-won sources for you? What’s in it for me?’