‘Another drink?’ I said, and lit a cigarette to cover the smell of burnt powder. ‘On me.’

‘War’ ended before Christmas and the three girls ambled off the stage, to be replaced by a couple whose act relied heavily on whips. They were pretty obviously brother and sister and couldn’t have had less than a hundred years between them. The man’s whip was only three feet long because of the low ceiling, but he wielded it as if it was thirty, lashing his sister to the tune of ‘We Are The Champions’. O’Neal sipped chastely at a new gin and tonic.

‘Now then,’ I said, adjusting the position of the jacket on the table, ‘I need one thing from you and one thing only.’

‘Go to hell.’

‘I certainly will, and I’ll make sure your room is ready. But I need to know what you’ve done with Sarah Woolf.’

He stopped his glass amid sips, and turned to me, genuinely puzzled.

‘What I’ve done with her? What on earth makes you think I’ve done anything with her?’

‘She’s disappeared,’ I said.

‘Disappeared. Yes. That’s a melodramatic way of saying you can’t find her, I assume?’

‘Her father is dead,’ I said. ‘Did you know that?’

He looked at me for a long time.

‘Yes, I did,’ he said. ‘What interests me is how you knew it.’

‘You first.’

But O’Neal was starting to get bold, and when I moved the jacket closer to him he didn’t flinch.

‘You killed him,’ he said, part angry, part pleased. ‘That’s it, isn’t it? Thomas Lang, brave soldier of fortune, actually went through with it and shot a man. Well, my dear friend, you are going to have one hell of a job getting out of this one, I hope you realise that.’

‘What are Graduate Studies?’

The anger, and the pleasure, gradually slipped out of his face. He didn’t look as if he was going to answer, so I decided to press on.

‘I’ll tell you what I think Graduate Studies are,’ I said, ‘and you can give me points out of ten for accuracy.’

O’Neal sat, motionless.

‘First of all, Graduate Studies means different things to different people. To one group, it means the development and marketing of a new type of military aircraft. Very secret, obviously. Very unpleasant, likewise. Very illegal, probably not. To another group, and this is where it all starts to get really interesting, Graduate Studies refers to the mounting of a terrorist operation that will allow the makers of this aircraft to show off their toy to advantage. By killing people. And make a genuinely huge sack of money from the resulting flow of enthusiastic buyers. Very secret, very unpleasant, and very, very, very to the power of ten, illegal. Alexander Woolf got wind of this second group, decided he couldn’t let them get away with it, and started to make a nuisance of himself. So the second group., some of whom perhaps have legitimate positions in the intelligence community, start mentioning Woolf at drinks parties as a drugs trafficker, to blacken his name and undermine any little campaign he might want to get going. And when that didn’t work, they threatened to kill him. And whenthatdidn’t work, they did kill him. And maybe they’ve killed his daughter as well.’

O’Neal still hadn’t moved.

‘But the people I really feel sorry for in all of this,’ I said, ‘besides the Woofs, obviously, is anyone whothinksthat they belong to the first group, not illegal, but all the time have been aiding, abetting and otherwise lending succour to the second group, very illegal, without even knowing it. Anyone in that position, I would say, has definitely got the skunk by the tail.’

He was looking over my shoulder now. For the first time since I’d met him, I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. ‘Well, that’s it,’ I said. ‘Personally, I thought it was a wonderful routine, but now over to Judith and the opinion of the judges.’

But he still didn’t answer. So I turned and followed his gaze towards the entrance to the club, where one of the doormen stood, pointing at our table. I saw him nod and step back, and the lean, powerful figure of Barnes, Russell P, strode into the room and headed towards us.

I shot them both dead there and then, and caught the next plane toCanada, where I married a woman called Mary-Beth and started up a successful pottery business.

At least, that’s what I should have done.

Twelve

He hath no pleasure in the strength of an horse: neither delighteth he in any man’s legs.

BOOK OF PRAYER 1662

‘My, you are a slippery bastard, Mr Lang. A real piece of work, if that expression means anything to you.’

Barnes and I were sitting in another Lincoln Diplomat - or maybe it was the same one, in which case someone had cleaned the ashtrays since I was last in it - parked underneathWaterlooBridge. A large illuminated sign displayed the offerings at the National Theatre close by, a stage version ofIt Ain’t Half Hot, Mum directed by Sir Peter Hall. Something like that.

O’Neal sat in the passenger seat this time, and Mike Lucas was once more at the wheel. I was surprised he wasn’t in a canvas bag on a plane back toWashington, but Barnes had obviously decided to give him another chance after theCork Street gallery debacle. Not that it had been his fault, but fault has got very little to do with blame in these sorts of circles.

Another Diplomat was parked behind us, with whatever the collective noun for Carls is inside it. A neck of Carls, maybe. I’d given them the Walther, because they seemed to want it such an awful lot.

‘I think I know what you’re trying to say, Mr Barnes,’ I said, ‘and I take it as a compliment.’

‘I don’t give a rat’s ass how you take it, Mr Lang. Not a rat’s ass.’ He gazed out through the side window. ‘Jesus, do we have a mess of problems here.’

O’Neal cleared his throat and twisted round in the seat. ‘What Mr Barnes is saying, Lang, is that you have stumbled upon an operation of considerable complexity here. There are ramifications about which you know absolutely nothing, yet you have, by your actions, made things extremely difficult for us.’ O’Neal was chancing his arm a bit with that ‘us’, but Barnes let him get away with it. ‘I think I can honestly say…’ he continued.

‘Oh, do fuck off,’ I said. O’Neal went a little pink. ‘I have only one concern, and that is the safety of Sarah Woolf. Anything else, as far as I am concerned, is a lot of garnish.’ Barnes looked out of the window again. ‘Go home, Dick,’ he said.

There was a pause, and O’Neal looked hurt. He was being sent to bed without any supper, and yet he hadn’t done anything wrong.