Twenty-one

I think I bust a button on my trousers.

MICKJAGGER

Francisco gave us ten days’ leave for rest and recreation. Bernhard said he was going to spend it in Hamburg, and he had a look on his face that seemed to indicate some kind of sexual thing might be involved; Cyrus went to Evian Les Bains, because his mother was dying - although it later turned out that she was dying in Lisbon, and Cyrus simply wanted to be as far away from her as possible when she finally went; Benjamin and Hugo flew to Haifa, for a little scuba diving; and Francisco hung around at the Paris house, acting up the loneliness-of-command role.

I said I was going toLondon, and Latifa said she’d come with me.

‘We have a fucking good time inLondon. I’ll show you things.London is a great town.’ She grinned at me, and threw her eyelashes about the place.

‘Fuck you,’ I said. ‘I don’t want you hanging off my fucking elbow.’

These were harsh words, obviously, and I really wished I hadn’t had to put it like that. But the risk of being inLondon with Latifa at my side, and some twerp yelling at me in the street, ‘Thomas, long time no see, who’s the bird?’ was just too awful to contemplate. I needed to be able to move freely, and ditching Latifa was the only way I could manage it.

Of course, I could have made up some story about having to visit my grandparents, or my seven children, or my venereal disease counsellor, but in the end I decided that fuck off was less complicated.

I flew fromParis toAmsterdam on the Balfour passport, and then spent an hour trying to shed any Americans who might have been keen enough to follow me. Not that they had any particular reason to. The shooting in Mьrren had satisfied most of them that I was a solid team player, and anyway, Solomon had recommended a long leash until the next contact.

Even so, I wanted every pair of eyebrows to be straight and level for the next few days, with nobody, on any side, saying ‘hello, what’s this?’ over something I did or somewhere I went. So at Schiphol airport, I bought a ticket toOslo and threw it away, then bought a change of clothes and a new pair of sunglasses, and dithered around in the lavatory for a while, before emerging as Thomas Lang, the well-known non-entity.

I arrived at Heathrow atsix o’clock in the evening and checked into the Post House hotel; which is a handy place, because it’s so close to the airport; and a horrible place, because it’s so close to the airport.

I had a long bath, then flopped on to the bed with a packet of cigarettes and an ashtray, and dialled Ronnie’s number. I had to ask her for a favour, you see - the kind of favour that you need to take a while to get round to - so I was settling in for a big session.

We talked for a long time, which was nice; nice anyway, but particularly nice because Murdah was, in the very long run, going to have to pay for the call. Just like he was going to have to pay for the champagne and steak I ordered from room service, and the lamp I broke when I tripped on the edge of the bed. I knew, of course, that it would probably take him something like a hundredth of a second to earn enough money to cover it all - but then, when you go to war, you have to be ready to live off small triumphs like this.

While you wait for the big one. ‘Mr Collins. Do take a seat.’

The receptionist flicked a switch and spoke into thin air. ‘Mr Collins to see Mr Barraclough.’

Of course it wasn’t thin air. It was, instead, a wire-thin microphone attached to a headset, buried somewhere inside a big hair-do. But it took me a good five minutes to realise this, during which time I wanted to call somebody and tell them that the receptionist was hallucinating quite seriously.

‘Won’t be a minute,’ she said. To me or the microphone, I’m not sure.

She and I were in the offices of Smeets Velde Kerkplein, which, if nothing else, would presumably score you something pretty decent in a game of Scrabble; and I was Arthur Collins, a painter fromTaunton.

I wasn’t sure if Philip would remember Arthur Collins, and it didn’t really matter if he didn’t; but I’d needed some tiny purchase to get me up here to the twelfth floor, and Collins had seemed like the best bet. An improvement, anyway, on Some Bloke Who Once Slept With Your Fiancйe.

I got up and paced slowly around the room, cocking my head to one side in a painterly fashion at the various chunks of corporate art that covered the walls. They were, for the most part, huge daubs of grey and turquoise, with the odd - the very odd - streak of scarlet. They looked as if they’d been designed in a laboratory, and probably had, specifically to maximise feelings of confidence and optimism in the breast of the first-time SVK investor. They didn’t work for me, but then I was here for other reasons.

A yellow oak door swung open down the corridor and Philip stuck his head out. He squinted at me for a moment, then stepped out and held the door wide.

‘Arthur,’ he said, a little hesitantly. ‘How’s it going?’ He was wearing bright yellow braces.

Philip had his back to me, and was half-way through pouring me a cup of coffee.

‘My name isn’t Arthur,’ I said, as I slumped back into a chair.

His head shot round, then shot back again.

‘Shit,’ he said, and started to suck the cuff of his shirt. Then he turned and shouted towards the open door. ‘Jane, darling, get us a cloth, will you?’ He looked down at the mess of coffee, milk, and sodden biscuits, and decided that he couldn’t be bothered.

‘Sorry,’ he said, still licking his shirt, ‘you were saying?’ He sauntered round behind me, making for the sanctuary of his desk. When he got there, he sat down very slowly. Either because he was haemorrhoidal, or because there was a chance that I might do something dangerous. I smiled, to show him that he was haemorrhoidal.

‘My name isn’t Arthur,’ I said again.

There was a pause, and a thousand possible responses clattered through Philip’s brain, spinning across his eyes like a fruit-machine.

‘Oh?’ he said, at last.

Two lemons and a bunch of cherries. Press restart.

‘I’m afraid Ronnie lied to you that day,’ I said, apologetically.

He tipped himself back in his chair, his face fixed into a cool, pleasant, nothing-you-can-say-will-ruffle-me smile. ‘Did she now?’ A pause. ‘That was very naughty of her.’

‘It wasn’t out of guilt. I mean, you must understand, nothing had happened between us.’ I left a pause - about the length of time it would take to say ‘I left a pause’ - and then delivered the punch line. ‘At that stage.’