“What about?” Zenia will say. At that point she will simply walk faster, and Tony will either have to trot ridiculously or give up.

This is the nightmare scenario, just thinking about it makes Tony blush with the sense of her own future humiliation. There’s another scenario, one in which Tony is persuasive and dexterous and Zenia is taken in, one that acts out some of Tony’s more violent although hypothetical fantasies and includes a neat red hole placed competently in the exact centre of Zenia’s forehead. But at the moment Tony doesn’t have a lot of faith in it.

She isn’t having much luck concentrating on her lecture notes, so she switches back to the Globe business section and forces herself to read. Tsol Sboj Erom. Gnisolc Tnalp. This has a satisfying Slavic ring to it. That, or Finnish, or some wild-haired tribe from Planet Pluto. As Tony is savouring it she feels a hand on her shoulder.

“Tony! There you are, finally!” Tony looks up, then stifles a small rodent-like shriek: Zenia is bending over her, smiling warmly. “Why didn’t you call before? And why are you just sitting here in the lobby? I gave West the room number!”

“Well,” says Tony. Her mind scrabbles, trying to fit all this together. “He jotted it down and then lost it. You know what he’s like.” Awkwardly she disentangles herself from the leather chair, which appears to have grown suction cups.

“I told him to make you call me right away,” says Zenia. “It was just after I saw you in the Toxique. I guess you didn’t recognize me! But I called up and told him it was very important:” She’s no longer smiling: she’s beginning to assume an expression Tony recalls well, something between a frown and a wince, urgent and at the same time beset. What it means is that Zenia wants something.

Tony is alert now, on her inner toes. Her darkest suspicions are being confirmed: this is obviously a fallback story, a story Zenia and West have concocted together just in case Tony should sniff the wind, or should run across Zenia in some unlikely place such as Tony’s own bedroom. The story is that the message was for Tony, not for West. It’s a cunning story, it has Zenia’s paw-prints all over it, but West must be colluding. Things are worse than Tony thought. The rot has gone deeper.

“Come on,” says Zenia. “We’ll go up to my room; I’ll order coffee:” She takes Tony’s arm. At the same time she glances around the lobby. It’s a look of anxiety, of fear even, a look Tony is not intended to see. Or is she?

She cranes her neck, peering up at Zenia’s still-amazing face. Mentally she adds something to it: a small red X, marking the spot.

Zenia’s hotel room is unremarkable except for its largeness and its neatness. The neatness is unlike Zenia. There are no clothes in evidence, no suitcases strewn around, no cosmetic bags on the bathroom counter, as far as Tony can see in one sideways glance. It’s as if no one is living here.

Zenia sheds her black leather coat and phones for coffee, and then sits down on the flowered pastel green sofa, crossing her endless black-stockinged legs, lighting a cigarette. The dress she wears is a clinging jersey wrap, the purple of stewed blueberries. Her dark eyes are enormous, and, Tony sees now, shadowed by fatigue, but her plum-coloured smile still quirks up ironically. She seems more at ease here than in the lobby. She raises an eyebrow at Tony. “Long time no see,” she says.

Tony is at a loss. How should she play this? It would be a mistake to display her anger: that would tip Zenia off, put her on her guard. Tony shuffles her inner deck and discovers that in fact she’s not angry, not at the moment. Instead she’s intrigued, and curious. The historian in her is taking over. “Why did you pretend to die?” she says. “What was all that stuff, with the ashes and the fake lawyer?”

“The lawyer was real,” says Zenia, blowing out smoke. “He believed it too. Lawyers are so gullible.”

“And?” says Tony.

“And. I needed to disappear. Trust me, I had my reasons. It wasn’t just the money! And I had disappeared, I’d set up about six dead ends for anyone trying to track me down. But that dolt Mitch was following me around, he just wouldn’t stop. He was really messing up my life. He was so goddamn persistent! He had the money too, he hired people; not amateurs either. He would’ve found me, he was right on the verge.

“People knew that; the other people, the ones I didn’t really want to see. I was a bad girl, I did a shell game involving some armaments that turned out not to be where I’d said they’d be. I don’t recommend it—armaments types get sniffy, especially the Irish ones. They tend to be vengeful. They figured out that all they had to do was keep an eye on Mitch and sooner or later he’d dig me up. He was the one I needed to convince, so he’d quit. So he’d lay off”

“Why Beirut?” says Tony.

“If you were going to get yourself accidentally blown up back then, what better spot to pick?” says Zenia. “The place was festooned with body parts; there were hundreds they never identified.”

“You know Mitch killed himself,” says Tony. “Because of „

you.           ,

Zenia sighs. “Tony, grow up,” she says. “It wasn’t because of me. I was just the excuse. You think he hadn’t been waiting for one?-All his life, I’d say.”

“Well, Roz thinks it was because of you,” says Tony lamely. “Mitch told me that sleeping with Roz was like getting into bed with a cement mixer,” says Zenia.

“That’s cruel,” says Tony.

“Just reporting,” Zenia says coolly. “Mitch was a creep. Roz is better off without him.”

This is a little too close to what Tony thinks herself. She finds herself smiling; smiling, and sliding back down, back in, into that state she remembers so well. Partnership. Pal-ship. The team. “Why us, at your funeral?” says Tony.

“Window dressing,” says Zenia. “There had to be somebody there from the personal side. You know, old friends. I figured you’d all enjoy it. And anything Roz knew, Mitch would know too. She’d make sure of that! He was the one I wanted. He ducked it though. Prostrate with grief, I guess:”

“The place was crawling with men in overcoats,” says Tony. “One of them was mine,” says Zenia. “Checking up for me, to see who was there. A couple of them were from the opposition. Did you cry?”

“I’m not a cryer,” says Tony. “Charis sniffled a bit:” She’s ashamed, now, of what the three of them had said, and of how jubilant and also how mean-minded they had been.

Zenia laughs. “Charis always did have mush for brains,” she says.

There’s a knock at the door. “It’s the coffee,” says Zenia. “Would you mind going?”

It occurs to Tony that Zenia may have a few reasons for not wanting to open doors. A prickle of apprehension runs up her spine.

But it really is the coffee, delivered by a short brown-faced man. The man smiles and Tony takes the tray and scrawls a tip on the bill, and closes the door softly, and puts on the safety lock. Zenia must he protected from the forces that threaten her. Protected by Tony. Right now, in this room, with Zenia finally incarnate before her, Tony can hardly remember what she’s been doing for the past week—the way she’s been sneaking around in a state of cold fury with a gun in her purse, selfishly planning to bump off Zenia. Why would she want to do that? Why would anyone? Zenia sweeps through life like a prow, like a galleon. She’s magnificent, she’s unique. She’s the sharp edge:

“You said you needed to talk to me,” Tony says, creating an opening.

“Want some rum in your coffee? No?” says Zenia. She unscrews a small bottle from the minibar, pours herself a dollop. Then she frowns a little and lowers her voice confidentially. “Yes. I wanted to ask a favour: You’re the only one I could go to, really.”

Tony waits. She’s alarmed again. Watch it, she tells herself. She should get out of here, right now! But what harm can it do to listen? And she’s avid to find out what Zenia wants. Money, probably. Tony can always say no.