GRAVE MATTER

SIX

Miranda waited, hovering in the dining room, and stepped forward as I appeared. She wore a blue wool suit with rows of bronze-coloured beads and would have fitted un-remarkably into the London business scene. Her hair was clean and well-shaped, and she had the poise of one accustomed to organizing.

"You can sit here," she said, indicating a stretch of tables beside a long row of windows. "Mrs. Chase will be joining you shortly."

"Thank you."

"Now," she said, "tomorrow…."

"Tomorrow," I said pleasantly, "I thought Mrs. Chase and I would walk around Red Square before we meet with deputy prosecutor general Ozdoyev."

"But we can add you on one of the guided tours," she said persuasively. "There is a special two-hour tour of the Kremlin, with a visit to the armoury."

"We'd rather not," I said, "this is difficult enough for Mrs. Chase as it is."

She looked annoyed, but after another fruitless try, she told me that our lunch was at one-thirty when the Kremlin party returned. "Then, at one-thirty, there is the bus tour of the city."

"We're catching our flight back the day after tomorrow, and I don't think we'll have time."

I sensed the release of tension within her. Visitors who made their way were a problem, and from experiences, I clearly understood why.

The tables began to fill. Amber joined me, looking very glamourous, a middle-aged couple from Suffolk accompanied us. We exchanged the sort of platitudes that tourists throw together by chance to demonstrate non-aggression, and the Suffolk lady commented on the extent of the airport search.

Continuing with our small-talk, without giving anything away, we all shaped up to some greyish meat of indiscernible origin. Of course, the ice cream coming later was better, but one would not, I thought, have made the journey for the gastronomical delights.

Duty done, we set off to the Hotel Metropol in overcoats and our woolly scarfs, with sleet stinging our faces and wetting our hair and a sharp wind invading every crevice. Pavements and the roads glistened but were not yet icy, but the cold was still piercing, and I could feel it, sense it inside my lungs. All it would take to abort would be a conclusive bout of pneumonia. For a minute, I wanted to open my arms to the chill: but anything was better than the isolation of looking at hotel bedroom walls.

The bar of the Hotel Metropol was a matter of shady luxury, like an Edwardian pub gone to seed. Rugs covered the floor, four tables with eight each, and a few separate small tables for three or four. Most of the chairs appeared occupied and a two-deep row in front of the bar, which stretched across one room. The voices around us spoke English, German, French, and many other tongues, but no one enquiring of every couple whether he was Justin Grave or Amber Chase, newly arrived from England.

After an unaccosted few minutes, we turned to the bar, and I bought two whiskies in due course. It was by then nine-fifteen. We drank for a while standing up, and then, when one of the small tables became free, sitting down, but we drank alone. Making small talk like nervous newly-weds. At nine thirty-five, I bought another drink for both of us, and at nine-fifty, I joked with Amber that every mission would be as successful. I wouldn't need pneumonia to have me withdrawn.

At ten o'clock, I looked at my watch and finished my drink. A man separated himself from the row of drinkers at the bar and put two new tumblers on the table.

"Mrs. Chase?" he said, pulling up an empty chair and sitting down. "And you must be Justin Grave. Sorry to keep you two both waiting."

He had been present, the whole time, standing at the bar, exchanging platitudes with a group of men and women, or looking down into his glass in the way of habitual drinkers, as if you find solace at the bottom of a glass.

"Why did you?" Amber asks. "Keep us waiting?"

The only response was a grunt and an expressionless look from a pair of hard grey eyes as he pushed the tumblers our way as if that would be enough to appease us. He was solid and in his thirties and wore his jacket open. He had black hair going a little thin on top and a neck like a strong tree trunk.

"You two want to be careful in Moscow," he said.

"Is that right?" I say. "Do you have a name?"

"Lewis Barfield," he paused, but I'd never heard of him. "I am a London-based private investigator with a direct line to the Russian government."

"How do you do?" Amber said politely but didn't offer a hand and nor did I.

"This is no kid's playground," he said, "I'm telling you for your good."

"What do you want, Mr. Barfield?" I pressed with a hint of impatience.

"I'm here to suggest that Mrs. Chase makes a trade with deputy prosecutor general Ozdoyev."

Amber frowns. "What sort of trade?"

"You will tell prosecutors about your ex-husband's business dealings in Russia and his connection to Igor Akinfeev, and the prosecutors will tell you what they know about your ex-husband's money."

"How come you're their intermediary?" I ask. "And how did you know we were here, and on what errand, and staying at the Majestic? And were you able to telephone me within sixty minutes of my arrival?"

Barfield gave me a flat, stiff, expressionless stare.

"Your reputation precedes you, Mr. Grave." He took a mouthful of his drink. "But you're on my turf now, and I make it my business to know things." So, for example, I know Robbie Chase had to answer questions about his multi-financed Moscow project in court, and files found relating to his deal are on a hard drive seized on the judge's orders. The ruse to funnel Akinfeev's money into the development, with Chase characterizing the secret p*****t as a private loan to help him keep the scheme going. So now I am hoping that Mrs. Chase has brought the hard drive along because, without it, Ozdoyev won't do a deal."

"Thank you for giving us the heads-up," I say. "If we need anything else, how can we contact you?"

He pulled a spiral-bound notebook out of his pocket and wrote down his number, ripping off the page and handing it to me.

"If you need to contact me, use a public telephone, not the ones in your rooms."

Barfield went back to his group at the bar, who had now turned their attention to a woman well over six feet tall, with white-blonde hair, sharp-angled features, and penetrating dark eyes, drinking what looked to be champagne.

We finished our drinks and left, hurrying the two hundred yards back to the Majestic in heavier sleet, turning to snow. We collected our keys and went up in the lift, going our separate ways after a kiss on the cheek once we reached the eighth floor.

I said good evening in English to the skinny woman who sat at a desk to keep an eye on the corridor. Anyone coming from the lifts, or the stairs, had to pass her. She gave me a quick inspection and said what I was supposed to be goodnight in Russian.

My room overlooked Gorky Street. Drawing the curtains, I switched on the bedside light.

Something was indefinably different in the way my personal belongings lay tidily around. I pulled open a drawer and felt my skin contract in fear and ripple down my back and legs. While we had been out, someone had searched my room.