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  None answered.

  ‘Edgware Road,’ mouthed Alison. ‘Just up from the cinema.’

  Slater nodded. It was clearly going to be a long day. Passing a newsagent’s he picked up a paper for details of the Karadjic snatch. Soldiers from 22 SAS, he read, had followed the indicted war criminal from Belgrade to a farm near Foca in Eastern Bosnia. There they had kept watch from the minefields on the outskirts of the property until their target, accompanied by twelve associates, had ventured out under cover of darkness, heading for Montenegro. Less than two miles from the open border, the Serbian cars had found their passage blocked by an articulated lorry, which had apparently slewed in the road. Behind them, a truck had raced down a farm-track to block their exit. Karadjic’s guards had immediately opened fire and a fierce gun-battle had ensued in which six Serbians had been killed and two seriously wounded. The remainder had surrendered along with Karadjic, who according to the paper had sustained a flesh-wound ‘in the upper thigh’.

  This news reflected well on the Regiment – none of the other peacekeeping nations had got close to this most elusive of targets. All that was needed now was to nail General Ratko Mladic. What a left and right that would be!

  Ten minutes later he presented himself back at the flat with the fried chicken bucket and the Slush Puppie. He presented these to Mrs Chabbria, who by then had joined Sweetie on the sofa. After the cold air outside the flat seemed stiflingly hot. Electronic bleeps and Chunky’s howls filled the air.

  ‘You know,’ said Sweetie, fast-forwarding through the trailers on a new video. ‘I quite fancy a Slush Puppie too. But the mint one, yaar? The green one?’

  ‘Sure,’ said Slater, injecting as much good humour into his voice as he could muster. ‘Anyone else want anything while I’m out? Last orders ladies and gents . . .’

  When he returned, there were two new arrivals – a boy and girl of around seventeen and sixteen respectively, both dressed in matt black couture-line Versace.

  ‘Watch out,’ whispered Alison, as Slater passed her at the ironing-board.

  ‘Hey, Sweetie!’ said the teenage boy, grabbing at the twelve-year-old’s Slush Puppie. ‘Give it up, yaar.’

  ‘Bugger off, Vinny!’ Sweetie protested. ‘Send the man.’

  ‘You!’ mouthed the boy in Slater’s direction. ‘Get the same again. And pick up some fries, too. Bimla, you want something?’

  Bimla, the teenage girl, shook her head.

  ‘Got that?’ asked Vinny.

  ‘I’ve got it,’ said Slater evenly.

  ‘OK, chalo. Move!’

  In a way, thought Slater, as the lift whirred downwards yet again, the last couple of months had served as quite an education. He’d met some arrogant types in the army – Ruperts, they were universally known as, with their braying voices and their shrieking, Sloaney girlfriends – and he’d met some appalling snobs among Bolingbroke’s parents, but they’d been rank beginners compared to the people he’d met while working for Minerva. People like these Chabbrias, for example, for whom manners and courtesy appeared to count for nothing at all. People who considered that money gave them a licence to behave exactly as they pleased.

  But perhaps it did, Slater mused. Perhaps the fact that people like him and Alison took their employers’ arrogance on the chin sent the message that it was just fine to order people around like that. Perhaps the fact that he didn’t slam that overdressed turd Vinny up against the wall and teach him a lesson in manners meant that the next employee would be treated even worse.

  Tough. He needed the money, so he would put up with it. Sticks and stones, he told himself. Sticks and stones.

  ‘Didn’t you listen?’ said Vinny angrily when Slater returned to the flat carrying the Slush Puppie and the french fries. ‘Bimla, what did you ask for?’

  ‘A smoothie,’ said Bimla, yawning. ‘A strawberry smoothie.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Vinny,’ said Slater. ‘I didn’t hear her.’

  The boy stared at Slater. ‘What did you call me?’

  ‘Vinny,’ said Slater. ‘Why, isn’t that your name?’

  The boy clicked his fingers. ‘Come out here.’

  Slater followed him into the hallway, giving Alison the ghost of a wink en route, and waited while Vinny lit a cigarette with a gold Dunhill lighter.

  ‘How much does your agency pay you?’ the boy began, turning the lighter between his fingers.

  Cool it, Slater told himself. Don’t let this little tosser wind you up.

  ‘Mr Chabbria pays the agency six hundred pounds a day. I get three hundred of that.’

  ‘Three hundred pounds a day. Right. Well my father earns that sum in two minutes. And that’s without getting out of his fucking chair. So you’ll understand, butthead, that you don’t call me by my family name – or even Vinod – until I invite you to, OK?’

  Slater took a deep breath. ‘Fine,’ he said. ‘What do I call you?’

  ‘Mr Chabbria will do.’

  ‘Mr Chabbria it is, then. Shall I go and buy Miss Chabbria her smoothie now, Mr Chabbria?’

  In the end, no one went to the zoo or even left the flat. Slater went backwards and forwards collecting snacks and DVDs, and the Chabbrias lounged about, eating and watching the flickering screens. Slater’s elaborate courtesy seemed to infuriate Vinod Chabbria even more than his easygoing approach had, and the boy had had to smoke several joints to calm himself down. Meanwhile Bimla, altogether a nicer piece of work than her brother although no less spoilt, had been darting thoughtful glances in Slater’s direction.

  Don’t even think about it, he told himself. Don’t even fucking think about it. He was in deep enough already. Why on earth had he told Grace Litvinoff that he loved her – a statement that he’d never made to any other woman? Grace was amazingly stylish, certainly, and by far the most beautiful woman he’d ever slept with, but how could he say that he loved her? He and she occupied different worlds. They could spend a lifetime together and not begin to understand each other.

  On one of his sorties to the Edgware Road he checked his text messages: ‘D KARAN THUR 11AM’.

  She knew that he was free but had told him that she was spending the day with a friend. The arrangement had been that they would see each other on Friday, when he was officially booked to look after her. Still, he would meet her in Donna Karan tomorrow if that’s what she wanted. His heart quickened at the thought of her, was wrenched at the frustration of not being able to see her tonight. She was going to an opera gala at Covent Garden with her husband, and one of the other Minerva bodyguards had been booked to accompany them.

  In the end, before returning to the Chabbrias’ flat for the last time, he rang Tab Holland and arranged to meet him for a drink. The ex-RMP was working in South Kensington and they agreed to meet in a pub near the tube station.

  Holland had spent the day at the French Lycée, guarding the daughter of a French publisher who had received death threats from Algerian terrorists.

  ‘At least you were doing something valuable,’ said Slater, downing the best part of a pint of Guinness in a single, desperate swallow. ‘I tell you, another hour and I would have ended up chinning that fucking Vinod. And the worst of it is, I reckon, that by taking his shit rather than sorting him out I’ve made him worse. I’ve made myself at least partly responsible for the bad time he gives the next guy.’

  ‘You can’t think like that,’ said Holland. ‘You’ve just got to walk away from arseholes like that and forget them. Life’s too short.’

  ‘How long have you been in the bodyguarding game, Tab?’ Slater asked, beckoning to the barmaid to refill their glasses.

  ‘Too bloody long,’ said Holland. ‘Eight years odd.’

  ‘And in all that time, have you ever broken the rules? I mean have you ever . . .’

  ‘Hit a client? No.’

  ‘No, I didn’t mean that as much as . . .’

  ‘Get involved with a client’s wife?’

  ‘Yeah. Have you ever done that?’
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  Holland paused. He was older, Slater saw, than he had originally seemed.

  ‘Let’s just say that it happens, OK? But let me give you a word of advice. If it ever happens to you . . .’ He regarded Slater meaningfully. ‘Don’t tell your colleagues. You’re not in a regiment now, and there’s no mates’ code of honour to protect you. One of the other BGs’ll grass you up to Duckworth and that’ll be the end of it. No work, no mortgage payments, no Star Wars stickers for the kids.’

  ‘Should such a situation ever arise,’ Slater said wryly, ‘I’ll remember what you said.’

  ‘Do that,’ said Holland.

  ‘What would you do if you weren’t BGing?’ Slater asked him.

  ‘The dream’s to start a little gardening consultancy in the Chichester area,’ said Tab. ‘Installing fountains and water-features and that. Statuary.’

  ‘So when’s that going to happen?’

  ‘I told the wife it’d be this year. Trouble is, the money for BGing is just too good. There’s always just one more job you can’t turn down. And then one of your kids asks for the new Man U strip and you have a conversation with the bank manager and that job turns into one more season you can’t turn down . . .’

  He drained his glass and pushed it towards the Guinness tap. ‘What I’d really like, to be honest, is a good war. Nine months or so of total fucking mayhem. If I could just have that, and survive, I’d cheerfully install precast concrete sundials for the rest of my life.’

  Slater laughed. ‘Vive la mort, vive la guerre . . .’

  ‘Vive le sacré mercenaire!’ they roared in unison.

  By the time the pint glasses had each been refilled four times over, Slater was feeling a bit more like a warrior and a bit less like a domestic servant. He and Tab Holland had worked out how, for an investment of less than £100,000, they could kidnap the radical Islamic leader Osama bin Laden from Kabul in Afghanistan and claim the $5 million reward supposedly on offer.

  After a couple of large drams each of Jameson’s Irish whiskey, the barman had somehow been recruited into the scheme. When trying to remember the details later – details which had appeared watertight at the time – Slater would be able to remember only that a scuba kit and a plastic dustbin were involved.

  ‘You’re not driving are you, gents?’ the barman had asked them at the point at which they’d switched to brandy.

  ‘No mate, public transport!’ Slater had replied. For some reason it had seemed the saddest, funniest answer in the world.

  FIVE

  Slater woke to a bad hangover – the worst since New Year’s Day – and the insistent ringing of the Motorola.

  ‘I’m sorry if I woke you, Mr Slater. It’s Lark here, from the Treasury Solicitors’ office.’

  The hangover was immediately overlaid by dread. ‘You didn’t wake me,’ Slater lied. ‘What’s up?’

  ‘Well I won’t beat around the bush. There have been a number of developments in the Bolingbroke’s School case and I’m afraid it looks as if there’s going to be an inquiry, at the very least.’

  Slater’s stomach churned. ‘What exactly does that mean?’ he asked.

  ‘In the first instance it means that you and I should meet. How are you fixed for, say, tomorrow?’

  Tomorrow was Friday. He was booked to look after Grace. ‘Would Monday be too late?’

  ‘No, Monday would be . . . fine. Shall we say ten o’clock here at Northumberland Avenue?’

  Slater pressed the off button and flipped the little mobile on to the bed. This was seriously bad news.

  For ten minutes, mind and body screaming, he stood under a cold shower. Trust in Lark, he told himself. Lark had always come good in the past. But he wasn’t inside the system any more, and something distant in Lark’s tone told Slater that this made a difference.

  Pulling on a track suit and trainers, pocketing his keys, he went out for a run. He felt terrible, but experience told him that exercise and fresh air were the only effective counter to a hangover. Soon he was sweating, lengthening his stride as he pushed himself round the cheerless perimeter of Finsbury Park. His head pounded, but he ignored it.

  A second shower – hot this time – and he was beginning to feel human again. The worry about the inquiry had receded to the point where he could think about it clearly, rather than in a state of sick panic. They had to bale him out, he told himself. They bloody well had to.

  But of course he was being childish. They didn’t have to do anything. If it suited them, and if more serious considerations than his own well-being were at stake, they’d bang him up without hesitation. He made a decision. If he went down for murder, or even for a long manslaughter stretch, he’d top himself. Open a fucking vein. He wasn’t rotting away in a cell for anyone.

  After arriving at this decision, and imagining for a morbid minute or two his blood flowing darkly and secretly into a prison mattress, Slater felt better. Dressing himself in off-duty clothing – jeans, a sweatshirt and his old leather jacket – he left the flat in search of a full English breakfast.

  At eleven o’clock, as requested, he presented himself at Donna Karan in Bond Street. A glance inside the shop showed no sign of Grace Litvinoff, nor was the silver Lexus anywhere in sight.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Has Mrs Litvinoff been in today?’

  The male assistant consulted a pad. ‘Are you Mr Neil Slater?’

  He nodded.

  ‘Mrs Litvinoff isn’t coming in today, but she’s left us certain instructions. We’re to provide you with some clothes.’

  Slater gaped. ‘Provide me?’

  The assistant smiled. ‘Let me get Alexia, who spoke to Mrs Litvinoff.’

  Slater waited, and a minute later a svelte figure in form-fitting grey was shaking his hand.

  ‘You’re Neil, right? Grace gave me a list of what you needed. And she asked me to tell you that there are some other bits and pieces to be collected from . . .’ she consulted her list – ‘Prada. OK?’

  Dazzled by her smile, Slater could only nod his assent.

  ‘Do you have the prices on that list?’ he asked her uncertainly.

  Alexia laughed. ‘Grace said you weren’t to be given any prices. She said you’d only make a fuss.’

  Slater stared about him in disbelief, digesting the airy grandeur of the place. Not long ago he’d have felt acutely uncomfortable even standing somewhere like this, and while he’d begun to learn the laws of the Mayfair jungle, he was still capable of finding himself at a disadvantage.

  ‘Shall we do it?’ asked Alexia, still smiling.

  For ninety minutes, without daring to consider the cost, he tried on a dark and gorgeous array of suits, jackets, shirts, ties, trousers and shoes. Sometimes Alexia nodded her approval, sometimes she stood birdlike and thoughtful, sometimes she made a note or added a pin to a trouser-leg, sometimes she shook her head dismissively.

  For Slater, the hour and a half was an education. His own clothes seemed cheap, shapeless and dowdy in comparison to this finery. Luxury was a ratchet. It only turned one way.

  ‘So what do you think?’ Alexia asked him when the session was finally completed and he stood there surrounded by crisp, neatly aligned bags. His own, for once.

  ‘I’m lost for words,’ he told her. ‘What do you think?’

  She folded her arms. Gave him the full-beam smile. ‘I think Mrs Litvinoff has . . . great taste. I’m glad we’ve been able to help.’

  Half an hour later, with several Prada bags added to his haul, he was sitting on a bench reading a newspaper and wondering about lunch. His hangover was no more than a memory now, and he had decided to put the whole business of the inquiry out of his mind. There was nothing he could do to change anything – it was all up to Lark. On Monday he would start worrying. For now he would think about Grace.

  He checked his text messages.

  ‘LOOKING GOOD? LOVE U.’

  He shook his head admiringly. She was just too much.

  ‘The
y’re very cute those things, aren’t they? Especially for love affairs.’

  Slater turned his head. Behind the bench, vaguely piratical in an old grey leather Luftwaffe flying-jacket, stood a grinning Andreas. At his side was a woman of about thirty in a long black coat. Where Andreas looked somehow actorish, like a terrorist glamorised for TV, the woman looked entirely businesslike. Her eyes were a pale sea-grey, her strong, neatly made features were devoid of any obvious make-up, and the dark blonde hair that fell to her collar was quietly but expensively styled.

  She watched Slater in polite silence. There was no way that they were a couple, you could sense that at a glance. They had to be colleagues. If he had to bet he would have said that she was the senior one of the two, but he couldn’t be sure of it. She radiated the cool assurance that came with a privileged Home Counties upbringing and expensive schooling, but then so did some of the most stupid people Slater had ever met.

  Turning off his phone, he pocketed it. ‘Andreas,’ he said resignedly. ‘Now just what is it that tells me this meeting isn’t completely accidental?’

  Andreas van Rijn turned to the woman in the coat. ‘This guy,’ he told her apologetically, ‘is just the most cynical . . .’ He dropped his voice. ‘Let me present Neil Slater, lately of Her Majesty’s Special Air Service, more recently poodle-walker to ladies of a certain age.’

  ‘Hi,’ she said, turning an amused smile on him. ‘I’m Eve.’

  The accent — suggesting first-floor flats in Kensington and weekends in the country — went with the coat. And the haircut.

  ‘Neil Slater. And you mustn’t believe Andreas. I’ve yet to walk my first poodle.’

  ‘But obviously not doing too badly,’ said Andreas, bending over the Prada bag. ‘What’s this? A wallet? And three belts? And . . .’ he peered into some of the other bags, ‘shoes, and a suit, and a . . . Bloody hell, Neil, there must be thousands of pounds’ worth of stuff here.’

  Slater shrugged. ‘I have to look good. The clients expect it.’

  ‘You don’t have to look this good. At least . . . you fox, Neil, you’ve been snaking one of Duckworth’s clients!’