They'd been gone three minutes. I was sitting with my legs crossed and my left hand on my right thigh with the fingers spread out so that I could look down at my watch and check the time without moving. Three minutes was too long. One minute was too long, because we had two deadlines running: at any time at all, Captain Rusakov's patience could break and he could come storming into the building, or his sister could talk under interrogation and give the lie to everything I'd been telling these people, and in either case my fragile thread would finally snap, finito.

Four minutes, and the sweat came springing, itching on the scalp.

'You do much quilting, Sarge?'

'Keep your mouth shut.'

'Yes, Sarge.'

Five. Five minutes.

There was only one real chance of pulling this thing off and I started running it through my mind, over and over, to keep the nerves under control: they were crying out for action and in the quiet confines of this bloody cell there was the itch in me to provoke this sergeant and melt him down and that was dangerous.

The only chance of pulling this thing off lay in the fact that I'd given Colonel Belyak and Chief Investigator Gromov an offer they'd find difficult to refuse. They'd nothing to lose.

Six minutes. I could smell the sergeant. Feet, most of it, filthy socks, typical of the breed, they're not the ultra-sensitive among us, these paid professional body-busters, I've known some, I tell you I've known some and I've left stains on their kitchen chairs and all I'm looking for is any excuse to plug this bastard's nervous system into some really high-voltage centre-knuckle techniques and — For Christ's sake watch it or you 'll blow the whole thing.

Perfectly right.

Seven minutes.

They'd nothing to lose. They could let Tanya Rusakova walk out of this building and through those rusting iron gates and across the square and they could get her back in five minutes, deploy patrols and cover the environment: they'd be quite sure of that, wrong but sure, unworried. And they could escort me to the place where I would direct them and surround it with half a regiment of armed militia before they let me in there, nothing to lose, they could pull me out again and slam me back into the patrol car or shoot me down if I resisted, whatever they chose to do, nothing to lose.

If they agreed to the deal at all, that would be their reason.

Eight minutes, and the sweat reached my chin and I brushed it off and the sergeant caught the movement and I saw him tense, the scarred leather-skinned hands lifting a fraction and the fingers forming claws ready to grab me and send me spinning backwards on the chair, you try that, you stinking bastard and I 'll — steady, for the sake of God, you'll blow Meridian.

I want her out of here, that's all. She's had enough.

Nine. Nine minutes.

Are you in love with this woman?

No.

She's remarkably attractive.

Yes indeed, that is indeed so, you look into those green and shimmering eyes and watch the soft and subtle play of that perfect 1 % mouth as she speaks and you're moved, you can't help it, moved as a man, as a male of her species, this is the way it is with Tanya Rusakova.

But that isn't why I came, why I want her out of this bloody place.

She's innocent, you said, and she's had enough.

Well yes, but the main thing is that if they keep her locked up here long enough that gallant brother of hers is going to bare his breast for the bullet and I'll lose the only key I've got left for Meridian.

So you'd have come here, then, for anyone? A man? You'd have risked all this for anyone?

Keep your bloody questions to yourself.

Touchy, aren't we?

Shuddup.

Ten. Ten minutes.

Voices outside the cell. No louder, no nearer, just voices.

I could hear the sergeant's breathing, smell his breath, the taint of tobacco on his breath. He was standing with his arms hanging like an ape's and his feet astride, something on his boot, on his left boot, something he'd spilled, he'd been slopping soup around or this was perhaps vomit, another man's, a man in a stained kitchen chair, or it was something else, you couldn't hope to tell what sordid business had soiled this uniformed whoreson's boot.

You stink, you know that, you stink like a pig -

Steady, lad, steady.

Yes I know. I know.

'That's a nice cologne you use, Sarge, is it violets or — '

'Shut your fucking mouth.'

'Sorry, Sarge.'

Then the voices outside stopped and the door opened and they came in, Colonel Belyak and Chief Investigator Gromov, and looked down at me.

Chapter 16: DOG-PACK

We were set out like men on a chessboard in front of Militia Headquarters, our shadows slanting across the wet concrete from the big wrought-iron lamps over the gates, Gromov and two aides standing beside one of the patrol jeeps, Belyak positioned near a prisoner transport van drawn up at the front of the building. Its engine had been running but now it had been switched off, and it was quiet here in the forecourt, with only the drumming of a snow-plough in the far distance. It was very cold.

An icicle dropped from the eaves, flashing in the light and then hitting the ground with the music of breaking glass. A voice sounded over the radio of one of the patrol cars standing outside the railings, and a militiaman answered, and the night was quiet again. But there was the sweet-and-sour smell of carbon monoxide on the air: there was an engine running somewhere, perhaps on the other side of the building. That was to be expected.

Chief Investigator Gromov rolled his shoulders inside his greatcoat again, as I'd seen him do before. I suppose the coat was a bad fit, or he was just trying to keep warm. He would have been awake for most of last night, supervising the city wide manhunt for Viktor Shokin, and would be tired now.

The three-quarter moon clung to the heights of the southern sky, bone-white and mottled, its light casting prismatic colours across the snow-covered roofs. A horned owl was calling from the bare trees of the park, with the note of a bamboo flute.

She came out of the building, Tanya Rusakova, walking alone, not looking around her yet, taking care with the steps, her boots grating on the sand that had been thrown down over the hard-packed snow. Then she reached the bottom and walked a little way into the courtyard, looking around her now, confused, her face drawn and her eyes wary; then she saw me and came on again, and I took a few steps to meet her. This was what I had asked for, that she should have no escort out of the building and that I should be the only one to speak to her.

Her eyes had surprise in them now; the last time she'd seen me was in the safe-house, and she couldn't understand why I was still apparently a free man, surrounded by uniforms but at a distance.

'Why are they letting me go?' Her breath clouded on the lamplit air.

I asked her quietly, 'What did you tell them?'

She tensed, remembering the past hours, I suppose. 'Nothing about you, or my brother.'

She's very obstinate, her brother had said. Perhaps it was that.

'Walk through those gates,' I told her,' and into the park. A man will meet you there and look after you. He'll tell you his name is Georgi. Do everything he says. The militia will try to bring you back, so be careful this time.'

I stood drowning for a moment in the shimmering green as she went on watching me, still confused. 'You are not coming too?'

'No. Remember what I said, Tanya, and be careful.' I turned and walked a little way towards the building and then turned again and watched her going through the big iron gates. She looked back once, her face pale in the wash of the two big lamps, then walked on again across the churned snow of the roadway and into the trees of the park.