9

There were no formalities between Hector and Matlock, friendly or otherwise, and perhaps there never had been: just a nod and a silent handshake of two veteran belligerents shaping up for another bout. Matlock arrived on foot, having been dropped round the corner by his driver.

'Very nice Wilton carpeting, Hector,' he said, while he took a slow look round that seemed to confirm his worst suspicions. 'You can't beat Wilton, not when it comes to cost versus quality. Good day to you, Luke. It's just the two of you, is it?' – passing Hector his coat.

'Staff are away at the races,' Hector said, hanging it up.

Matlock was a broad-shouldered bull of a man, as his nickname implied, broad-headed, and at first glance avuncular, with a crouch that reminded Luke of an ageing rugby forward. His Midlands accent, according to the ground-floor gossips, had become more noticeable under New Labour, but was receding with the prospect of electoral defeat.

'We're in the basement, if you're comfortable with that, Billy,' said Hector.

'I've no alternative but to be comfortable with it, thank you, Hector,' said Matlock, neither pleasantly nor rudely, leading the way down the stone steps. 'What are we paying for this place, by the by?'

'You're not. This far it's on me.'

'You're on our payroll, Hector. The Service is not on yours.'

'As soon as you greenlight the operation, I'll be putting in my bill.'

'And I'll be querying it,' said Matlock. 'Taken to drink, have you?'

'It used to be the wine cellar.'

They took their places. Matlock assumed the head of the table. Hector, normally the stubborn technophobe, sat himself on Matlock's left in order to be in front of a tape recorder and a computer console. And to Hector's left sat Luke, thereby providing the three of them with a clear view of the plasma screen that the absent Ollie had erected overnight.

'Did you have time to wade through all the material we bunged at you, Billy?' Hector inquired sympathetically. 'Sorry to interfere with your golf.'

'If all is what you sent me, yes, Hector, I did, thank you,' Matlock replied. 'Though in your case, as I have come to learn, the word all is somewhat of a relative term. I don't play golf, as a matter of fact, and I'm not enamoured of summaries, if I can avoid them. Specially not yours. I could have done with a bit more raw material and a bit less arm-twisting.'

'Then why don't we offer you some of that raw material now, and make up?' Hector suggested, just as sweetly. 'I take it we're still Russian speakers, Billy?'

'Unless yours has gone rusty while you were out making yourself a fortune, yes, I think we are.'

They're an old married couple, thought Luke, as Hector pressed 'play' on the tape recorder. Every quarrel they have is a rerun of one they've had before.

*

For Luke, the very sound of Dima's voice acted like the start of a full-colour film. Every time he listened to the cassette that Perry the innocent had smuggled in his shaving bag he came away with the same image of Dima crouched in the forests around Three Chimneys, clutching a pocket recorder in his improbably delicate hand, far enough from the house to escape Tamara's real or imagined microphones, but near enough to scurry back if she yelled at him to come and take another phone call.

He could hear the three winds battling round Dima's glistening bald head. He could see the treetops above him shaking. He could hear the crashing of leaves and a gurgle of water, and he knew it was the same tropical rain that had drenched him in the forests of Colombia. Had Dima made his recording in a single session or in several? Did he have to brace himself with shots of vodka between sessions in order to overcome his vory inhibitions? Now his Russian bark drops into English, perhaps to remind himself who his confessors are. Now he is appealing to Perry. Now to a bunch of Perrys: 'You English gentlemen! Please! You are fair play, you have land of law! You are pure! I trust you. You will trust Dima also!'

Then back to his native Russian, but so careful of its grammatical niceties, so prinked and articulated, that in Luke's imaginings he is trying to rid it of its Kolyma stain in preparation for rubbing shoulders with the gentlemen of Ascot and their ladies: 'The man they are calling Dima, number one for money-laundering for the Seven Brothers, financial mastermind to the retrograde usurper who calls himself the Prince, presents his compliments to the famous English Secret Service and wishes to make the following offer of valuable information in exchange for trustworthy guarantees by the British government. Example.'

Then only the winds speak as Luke imagines Dima mopping away his sweat and tears with a large silk handkerchief – Luke's own gloss, but Perry had repeatedly mentioned a handkerchief – before taking another slug from the bottle and proceeding to the full, irrecoverable act of betrayal. ' Example. Operations of the Prince's criminal organization now known as the Seven Brothers include:

' One: importations and rebranding of embargoed oil from Mid East. I know these transactions. Many corrupt Italians and many British lawyers are involved.

' Two: injection of black money into multi-billion-dollar oil purchases and revenues. For this my friend Mikhail, called Misha, was specialist for all seven vory Brotherhoods. For this purpose he also lived in Rome.'

Another break in the voice, and perhaps a silent toast to the late Misha, followed by an exuberant return to fractured English: 'Example three: black logging, Africa. First we are converting black timber into white timber. Then we are converting black money into white money! Is normal. Is simple. Many, many Russian criminals in tropical Africa. Also black diamonds very interesting new trade for Brotherhoods.'

Still in English: ' Example four: facsimile medicines, made in India. Very lousy, do not cure, make you bring up, maybe kill. Official State of Russia has very interesting relations with official State of India. Also very interesting relations between Indian and Russian Brotherhoods. The one they call Dima knows many interesting names, also English, regarding these vertical connections and certain private financial arrangements, Swiss-based.'

Luke the worrier is undergoing an impresario's crisis of confidence on Hector's behalf:

'Volume all right for you there, Billy?' Hector asks, pausing the tape.

'The volume is very fine, thank you,' Matlock says, with just enough emphasis on volume to suggest that the content may be a different matter.

'On we go then,' said Hector, a little too meekly for Luke's taste, as Dima gratefully reverts to his native Russian: ' Example: in Turkey, Crete, Cyprus, in Madeira, in many coastal resorts: black hotels, no guests, twenty million black dollars weekly. This money also is laundered by the one they call Dima. Certain criminal British so-called property companies are complicit. ' Example: personal corrupt involvement of European Union officials with criminal meat contractors. These meat contractors must certify high quality, very expensive Italian meat for export to Russian Republic. For this arrangement my friend Misha was also personally responsible.'

Hector again pauses the recorder. Matlock has raised his hand.

'How can I help you, Billy?'

'He's reading.'

'What's wrong with him reading?'

'Nothing. As long as we know what he's reading from.'

'Our understanding is that his wife Tamara wrote some of his lines for him.'

'She told him what to say, did she?' said Matlock. 'I don't think I like the sound of that. Who told her what to say?'

'Want me to fast forward? It's only stuff about our colleagues in the European Union poisoning people. If it's outside your remit, say the word.'

'Kindly continue as you are proceeding, Hector. I shall henceforth reserve my comments till later in the performance. I'm not sure we have a requirement for Intelligence on meat sales to Russia, in point of fact, but you may rely on me to make it my business to find out.'

*

To Luke, the story Dima was about to tell was truly shocking. Nothing he had endured in life had dulled his senses. But what Matlock made of it was anybody's guess. Dima's weapon of choice is once more Tamara's English: 'Corrupt system is as follows. First: Prince arranges through corrupt officials in Moscow that certain meat is called charity meat. To be for charity, meat must be for needy elements of Russian society only. Therefore on meat that is corruptly classified for charity, no Russian tax payable. Second: my friend Misha who is dead buys many carcasses of meat from Bulgaria. This meat is dangerous to eat, very lousy, very cheap. Third: my friend Misha who is dead arranges with very corrupt officials in Brussels Union that all Bulgarian meat carcasses will be stamped individually with European Union stamp of certification identifying meat as very top quality excellent best European Standard Italian meat. For this criminal service, I, Dima, personally pay one hundred euro per carcass to Swiss account of very corrupt Brussels official, twenty euro per carcass to Swiss account of very corrupt Moscow official. Net profit to Prince, after deduction of all overheads: one thousand two hundred euro per carcass. Maybe fifty Russian people, also kids, got sick and die from this very bad Bulgarian meat. This is only estimate. This information is officially denied. The names of these very corrupt officials are known to me, also Swiss bank accounts by number.'

And a stiff postscript, sonorously delivered: 'It is personal opinion of my wife Tamara L'vovna that immoral distribution of bad Bulgarian meat by criminally corrupted European and Russian officials must be of concern to all Christian person of good heart worldwide everywhere. It is God's will.'

The unlikely intervention of God in the proceedings had created a small hiatus.

'Would somebody mind telling me what a black hotel is?' Matlock demanded of the air in front of him. 'I happen to take my holidays in Madeira. There never seemed anything very black about my hotel.'

Fired by a need to protect the subdued Hector, Luke appointed himself the somebody who would tell Matlock what a black hotel was:

'You buy a bit of prime land, usually on the sea, Billy. You pay cash for it, you build a five-star luxury-hotel resort. Maybe several. For cash. And throw in fifty or so holiday bungalows if you've got the space. You bring in the best furniture, cutlery, china, linen. From then on your hotels and bungalows are full up. Except that nobody ever stays in them, you see. If a travel agent calls: sorry, we're fully booked. Every month a security van rolls up at the bank and unloads all the cash that's been taken in room rentals, bungalow rentals, the restaurants, the casinos, the nightclubs and the bars. After a couple of years, your resorts are in perfect shape to be sold with a brilliant trading record.'

No response beyond a raising of Matlock's avuncular smile to maximum strength.

'It's not only resorts either, actually. It can be one of those strangely empty white holiday villages – you must have seen them, trickling down Turkish valleys to the sea – it can be, well, scores of villas, obviously, it can be pretty well anything that's lettable. Car hire too, provided you can fudge the paperwork.'

'How are you today, Luke?'

'Fine, thanks, Billy.'

'We're thinking of putting you up for a medal, courage beyond the call, did you know that?'

'No, I didn't.'

'Well, we are. A secret one, mind, nothing public. Nothing you can flash on your chest on Remembrance Day, mind. That wouldn't be secure. Plus it would fly in the face of precedent.'

'Of course,' said Luke, totally confused, now thinking a medal might be the one thing that would get Eloise over her depression, now that it was yet another of Matlock's wiles. Nevertheless, he was about to say something appropriate in reply – express his surprise, gratitude, pleasure – only to find that Matlock had lost interest in him:

'What I'm hearing so far, Hector, if I cut away the guff, which I like to, is in my humble view straight international crookery. All right, granted, the Service has a statutory interest in international crookery and money-laundering. We fought for a piece of it when times were hard, and now we're landed with it. I refer to that unfortunate fallow period between the Berlin Wall coming down and Osama bin Laden doing us the favour of 9/11. We fought for a piece of the money-laundering market the same as we fought for a larger slice of Northern Ireland, and whatever other modest pickings were available to justify our existence. But that was then, Hector. And this is now, and as of today, which is where we are living, like it or not, your Service and mine has better things to do with its time and resources than get its knickers caught in the highly complex wheels of City of London finance, thank you.'

Matlock broke off, expecting Luke knew not what, unless it was applause, but Hector, to judge by his stony expression, was a long way from providing it, so Matlock drew breath and resumed.

'As of today, furthermore, we also have, in this country, a very large, fully incorporated, somewhat over-financed sister agency that devotes its efforts, such as they are, to matters of serious and organized crime, which I take it is what you are purporting to be unveiling here. Not to mention Interpol, and any number of competing American agencies falling over each other's very large feet to do the same job while careful not to prejudice the prosperity of that great nation. My point is, Hector – wait till I'm finished, please – my point is, I'm not seeing what I was brought here for at extremely short notice. We all know that what you've got is urgent, though to whom I'm less sure. Maybe it's even true. But is it ours, Hector? Is it ours?'

The question was evidently rhetorical, for he rolled on.

'Or could it be, Hector, that you are trespassing, at your peril, on the highly sensitive preserves of a sister organization with which, over painful months, I and my Secretariat have thrashed out very hard-won lines of demarcation? Because were that to be the case, my advice to you would be this: package up that material you have just played to me, and any other material of the same ilk that is in your possession and, with immediate effect, pass that material to our sister organization with a grovelling letter of apology for trespassing on its sanctified areas of competence. And when you have done that, I suggest you award yourself, and Luke here, and whoever else you've got tucked away in your cupboard, two weeks of well-deserved sick leave.' Had Hector's fabled nerve finally run out? Luke wondered anxiously. Had the strain of bringing Gail and Perry to the water taken too much of a toll? Or was he so driven by the high purpose of his mission that he had lost his grasp on tactic?

Lethargically reaching out a finger, Hector shook his head and sighed, and fast-forwarded the tape.

*

Dima calm. Dima reading, whether Billy Boy likes it or not. Dima powerful and dignified, orating from script in his best ceremonial Russian:

' Example. Details of very secret pact in Sochi 2000 between seven bonding vory Brotherhoods, signed by the Seven Brothers and called The Understanding. Under this pact, personally brokered by usurper bitch Prince with arm's-length connivance of Kremlin, all seven signatories agree:

' One: to avail themselves and make communal all proven and successful money routes designed by the one they call Dima, henceforth number-one money-launderer for all seven Brotherhoods.

' Two: all communal bank accounts will be conducted under vory code of honour, any deviation will be punished by death of guilty party, accompanied by permanent exclusion of responsible vory Brotherhood.

' Three: corporate respectability will be created in following six financial capitals: Toronto, Paris, Rome, Berne, Nicosia, London. End destination of all laundered monies: London. Best centre of respectability: London. Best outlook for long-term banking entity: London. Best prospect to save and conserve: London. This is also agreed.

' Four: the task of obscuring origins of black money and directing its passage into safe havens will continue to remain the primary and sole responsibility of the one they call Dima.

' Five: for all major movements of money, this Dima will have first-signature rights. Each signatory to The Understanding will appoint one clean envoy. This clean envoy will have second-signature signing rights only.

' Six: to effect substantive alteration to above system, all seven clean envoys will be simultaneously required to be present under vory law.

' Seven: the pre-eminence of the one they call Dima as master architect of all money-laundering structures agreed under The Understanding of Sochi 2000 is hereby acknowledged.'

'And amen, as we might say,' Hector murmurs, and once more switches off the recorder and glances at Matlock for a reaction. Luke does too, to be greeted, of all things, by Matlock's indulgent smile.

'D'you know, Hector, I think I could have made that up myself,' he says, shaking his head in what must pass for admiration. 'Beautiful is all I can say. Fluent, imaginative, and puts him right at the top of the heap. How can anyone possibly question the veracity of such a magnificent global statement? I'd give him an Oscar for a start. What does he mean by clean envoy?'

'Clean like cleanskin, Billy. No previous convictions, criminal or ethical. Accountants, lawyers, moonlighting policemen and Intelligence officers, any made brother who can travel, sign his name, owes his allegiance to his Brotherhood and knows he'll wake up with his balls in his mouth if he robs the till.'

*

Appearing to Luke more like a careworn family solicitor than his irrepressible self, Hector consults a bit of battered card on which he had apparently scribbled himself a march route for the meeting, and again fast-forwards the tape.

'Map,' Dima barks in Russian.

'Bugger it. Too late,' Hector mutters, and runs back a stretch. 'Also conditional upon reliable British guarantees, will be very secret, very important map.'

Dima resumes, reading rapidly, as before, from script in Russian: 'In this map will be recorded international routes of all black monies under control of the one they are calling Dima who is speaking to you.'

At Matlock's bidding, Hector yet again pauses the tape.

'What he's talking about here isn't a map, it's a link chart,' Matlock complains, in the tone of a man correcting Dima's inadequate vocabulary. 'And I'll just say this regarding link charts, if you'll bear with me. I've seen a few link charts in my time. They tend to resemble multicoloured rolls of barbed wire leading in no direction known to man, in my experience. Useless, in other words, in my judgement,' he adds with satisfaction. 'I put them in much the same category as pronouncements regarding mythical criminal conferences on the Black Sea in the year 2000.'

You should see Yvonne's link chart, it's absolutely wild, Luke wants to tell him in a fit of miserable hilarity.

Matlock on a winning streak does not lightly let go. He is shaking his head and smiling ruefully:

'You know something, Hector? If I had a five-pound note for every piece of pedlar material from untried sources that our Service has fallen for over the years – not all in my time, I'm glad to say – I'd be a rich man. Link charts, Bilderberg plots, world conspiracies, and that old green shed in Siberia that's full of rusty hydrogen bombs, they're all one to me. Not rich by the standards of their ingenious fabricators, maybe, or your standards either. But for the likes of me, very comfortably off indeed, thank you.'

Why the hell doesn't Hector cut Bully Boy down to size? But Hector appears to have no stomach left for retaliation. Worse still, to Luke's despair, he doesn't bother to play the last section of Dima's historic offer. He switches off the tape recorder, as if to say 'tried that one, didn't work', and with a chagrined smile and a rueful 'Well, maybe you'll be better off with some pictures to look at, Billy', takes up the remote control for the plasma screen and switches off the light.

*

In the gloom, an amateur video camera shakily roams the battlements of a medieval fort, then descends to the sea wall of an ancient harbour crowded with expensive sailing boats. It is dusk, the camera is of poor quality, unequal to the failing light. A ninety-foot luxury yacht in blue and gold lies at anchor outside the harbour walls. It is dressed overall with fairy lights, its portholes are lit. Distant dance music reaches us from across the water. Perhaps someone is celebrating a birthday or a wedding? From its stern hang the flags of Switzerland, Britain and Russia. At its masthead, a golden wolf bestrides a crimson field.

The camera closes on the bow. The ship's name, inscribed in fancy Roman and Cyrillic gold lettering, is Princess Tatiana.

Hector is providing a flat, dispassionate commentary:

'Property of a newly formed company called First Arena Credit Bank of Toronto, registered in Cyprus, owned by a foundation in Liechtenstein which is owned by a company registered in Cyprus,' he announces drily. 'So a circular ownership. Give it to a company, then get it back from the company. Until recently she was called the Princess Anastasia, which happens to be the name of the Prince's previous squeeze. His new squeeze is called Tatiana, so we may draw our conclusions. The Prince being presently confined to Russia for his health, the SS Princess Tatiana is out on charter to an international consortium called, funnily enough, First Arena Credit International, a different entity entirely, registered, you'll be surprised to hear, in Cyprus.'

'What's wrong with him then?' Matlock asks aggressively.

'Who?'

'The Prince. I don't think I'm being stupid, am I? Why's he confined to Russia?'

'He's waiting for the Americans to drop some thoroughly unreasonable money-laundering charges they levelled against him a few years back. The good news is, he won't have to wait long. Thanks to a spot of lobbying in Washington's halls of greatness, it will shortly be agreed that he has no case to answer. Always helpful when you know where influential Americans keep their illegal offshore bank accounts.'

The camera leaps to the stern. Russian-style crew in striped shirts and matelot hats. A helicopter about to land. Camera returns aft, descends uncertainly to sea level as the picture darkens. A speed-launch pulls alongside, passengers aboard. Busy crew in attendance as passengers in their finery cautiously ascend ship's ladder.

Go back to stern. The helicopter has landed but its blades still slowly rotate. Fine lady in billowing skirt descends red-carpeted steps, clutching hat. Followed by second fine lady, then a bevy of fine men in blazers and white ducks, six in all. Fuzzy exchange of hugs. Faint shrieks of greeting over dance music.

Cut back to second speed-launch pulling alongside, delivering pretty girls. Skin-tight jeans, fluttery skirts, many bare legs and shoulders as they ascend ladder. A brace of fuzzy trumpeters in Cossack uniform sound halloos of welcome as pretty girls come aboard.

Pan awkwardly on guests assembled on main deck. There are so far eighteen. Luke and Yvonne have counted them.

Film freezes and becomes a series of clumsily advancing close-ups, much enhanced by Ollie. Caption reads SMALL ADRIATIC PORT NEAR DUBROVNIK June 21 2008. It is the first of many captions and subtitles that Yvonne, Luke and Ollie in committee have superimposed as an accompaniment to Hector's spoken commentary.

The silence in the basement is palpable. It's as if everyone in the room including Hector has drawn in his breath at the same time. Perhaps they have. Even Matlock is leaning forward in his chair, staring fixedly at the plasma screen before him.

*

Two well-preserved, expensively tailored men of affairs are in conversation. Behind them, the bare neck and shoulders of a middle-aged woman with lacquered white bouffant. She has her back turned to us and wears a four-row diamond collar and matching pendant earrings, the cost anyone's guess. At left of screen, an embroidered cuff and white-gloved hand of a Cossack waiter is offering a silver tray laden with glasses of champagne.

Close on the two men of affairs. One wears a white dinner jacket. He is black-haired, heavy-jawed and of Latin appearance. The other wears a very English double-breasted navy blue blazer with brass buttons or, as the British upper echelons prefer to have it – Luke should know, they're where he comes from himself – a boating jacket. By comparison with his partner, this second man is young. He is also handsome in the way that young men of the eighteenth century were handsome in the portraits they donated to Luke's old school when they left it: broad brow, receding hairline, the haughty sub-Byronic gaze of sensual entitlement, a pretty pout, and a posture that manages to look down on you however tall you are.

Hector has still not spoken. The committee's decision was to let the subtitles say what anyone would know from half a glance: that the double-breasted boating jacket with brass buttons belongs to a leading member of Her Majesty's Opposition, a Shadow Minister tipped for stratospheric office at the next election.

It is Hector, to Luke's relief, who ends the awkward silence.

'His remit, according to the Party handout, will be to put British trade into point position in the international financial marketplace, if anyone can tell me what that means,' he remarks caustically, with a slight resurgence of his old energy. 'Plus of course putting an end to banking excesses. But they're all going to do that, aren't they? One day.'

Matlock has found his tongue:

'You can't have business without making friendships, Hector,' he protests. 'That's not how the world works, as you of all people should know, having dirtied your hands out there. You can't condemn a man just for being on someone's boat!'

But neither Hector's tone nor Matlock's implausible indignation can ease the tension. And it is no consolation at all that, according to Yvonne's subtitle, the white dinner jacket belongs to a tainted French marquis and corporate raider with strong ties to Russia.

*

'Anyway. Where did you get this lot from?' Matlock suddenly demanded, after a spell of silent brooding.

'What lot?'

'The film. Amateur video. Whatever it is. Where d'you get it?'

'Found it under a stone, Billy. Where else?'

'Who did?'

'A friend of mine. Or two.'

'What stone?'

'Scotland Yard.'

'What are you talking about? The Metropolitan Police? You've been tampering with police evidence, have you? Is that what you've been doing?'

'I would like to think I have, Billy. But I very much doubt it. Would you care to hear the story?'

'If it's true.'

'A young couple from the London suburbs saved up for their honeymoon and took a package holiday on the Adriatic Coast. Walking the cliffs, they happened on a luxury yacht at anchor in the bay and, seeing that there was a spectacular party in progress, filmed it. Examining the footage in the privacy of their home in let us say Surbiton, they were amazed and thrilled to identify certain well-known British public figures from the worlds of finance and politics. Thinking to recoup the cost of their holiday, they sent their prize hotfoot to Sky Television News. The next thing they knew, they were sharing their bedroom with a squad of uniformed gun-toting policemen in full-body armour at four o'clock in the morning, and being threatened with prosecution under the Terrorism Act if they didn't hand over all copies of their film immediately and forthwith to the police, so very wisely they did as they were told. And that's the truth, Billy.'

*

Luke is beginning to realize that he has been underrating Hector's performance. Hector may appear bumbly. He may have only a bit of scruffy old card in his hand. But there is nothing scruffy about the march route he's put together in his head. He's got two more gentlemen to introduce to Matlock and, as the frame widens to include them, it becomes evident that they have all along been party to the conversation. The one is tall, elegant, mid-fifties, and of a vaguely ambassadorial demeanour. He dominates our Minister-of-State-in-Waiting by nearly a head. His mouth is open in jest. His name, Yvonne's caption tells us, is Captain Giles de Salis, RN, retired.

This time, Hector has reserved the job description for himself:

'Leading-edge Westminster lobbyist, influence-broker, clients include some of the world's major shits.'

'Friend of yours, Hector?' Matlock asks.

'Friend of anybody willing to brass up ten grand for a tete-a-tete with one of our incorruptible rulers, Billy,' Hector retorts.

The fourth and last member of the piece, even in fuzzy enlargement, is high society's quintessence of vitality. Fine black piping defines the lapels of his perfect white dinner jacket. His mane of silver-fox hair is dramatically swept back. Is he perhaps a great conductor? Or a great head waiter? His ringed forefinger, raised in humorous admonition, is like a dancer's. His graceful spare hand rests lightly and inoffensively on the upper arm of the Minister-in-Waiting. His pleated shirt-front sports a Maltese Cross.

A what? A Maltese Cross? Can he then be a Knight of Malta? Or is it a gallantry medal? Or a foreign order? Or did he buy it as a present to himself? In the small hours of morning, Luke and Yvonne have thought long and hard about it. No, they agreed. He stole it.

Signor Emilio dell Oro, Italian Swiss national, resident in Lugano, reads the subtitle, drafted this time by Luke under strict instructions from Hector to keep the description carbon neutral. International socialite, horseman, Kremlin power-broker.

Once again, Hector has awarded himself the best lines:

'Real name, far as we can get it, Stanislav Auros. Polish-Armenian, Turkish antecedents, self-educated, self-invented, brilliant. Currently the Prince's major-domo, enabler, factotum, social advisor and frontman.' And with no pause or alteration in his voice: 'Billy, why don't you take him over from here? You know more about him than I do.'

Is Matlock ever to be outmanoeuvred? Apparently not, for he is back without so much as a second's thought:

'I fear I'm losing you, Hector. Be so kind as to remind me, if you will.'

Hector will. He has revived remarkably:

'Our recent childhood, Billy. Before we become grown-ups. A midsummer's day, as I recall it. I was Head of Station in Prague, you were Head of Operations in London. You authorized me to drop fifty thousand US dollars in small notes into the boot of Stanislav's parked white Mercedes at dead of night, no questions asked. Except that in those days he wasn't Stanislav, he was Monsieur Fabian Lazaar. He never once turned his pretty head to say thank you. I don't know what he earned his money for, but no doubt you do. He was making his way up in those days. Stolen artefacts, mostly from Iraq. Chaperoning rich ladies of Geneva out of their husbands' cash. Hawking diplomatic pillow talk to the highest bidder. Maybe that's what we were buying. Was it?'

'I did not run Stanislav or Fabian, thank you, Hector. Or Mr dell Oro, or whatever he calls himself. He was not my joe. At the time you made that payment to him, I was merely standing in.'

'Who for?'

'My predecessor. Do you mind not interrogating me, Hector? The boot's on the other foot, if you've not noticed. Aubrey Longrigg was my predecessor, Hector, as you well know, and come to think of it will remain so for as long as I'm in this job. Don't tell me you've forgotten Aubrey Longrigg, or I'll think Dr Alzheimer has paid you an unwelcome visit. Sharpest needle in the box, Aubrey was, right up to his somewhat premature departure. Even if he did overstep the mark occasionally, same as you.'

In defence, Luke recalled, Matlock knew only attack.

'And believe you me, Hector,' he rode on, gathering reinforcements as he went, 'if my predecessor Aubrey Longrigg needed fifty grand paying out to his joe just as Aubrey was leaving the Service to go on to higher things, and if Aubrey requested me to undertake that task on his behalf in full and final settlement of a certain private understanding, which he did, I was not about to turn around and say to Aubrey: "Hang on a minute, Aubrey, while I obtain special clearance and check your story out." Well, was I? Not with Aubrey! Not the way Aubrey and the Chief were in those days, hand in glove, hugger-mugger, I'd be off my head, wouldn't I?'

The old steel had at last re-entered Hector's voice:

'Well, why don't we take a look at Aubrey as he is today:

Parliamentary Under-Secretary, Member of Parliament for one of his Party's most deprived constituencies, staunch defender of the rights of women, valued consultant to the Ministry of Defence on arms procurement and' – softly snapping his fingers and frowning as if he really has forgotten – 'what else is he, Luke? – something, I know.'

And bang on cue, Luke hears himself trilling out the answer:

'Chairman designate of the new parliamentary subcommittee on banking ethics.'

'And not completely out of touch with our Service either, I suppose?' Hector suggested.

'I suppose not,' Luke agrees, though why on earth Hector should have regarded him as an authority at that moment was hard to tell.

*

Perhaps it's only right that we spies, even our retired ones, do not take naturally to being photographed, Luke reflected. Perhaps we nurture a secret fear that the Great Wall between our outer and inner selves will be pierced by the camera's lens.

Certainly Aubrey Longrigg MP gave that impression. Even caught unawares in poor light by an inferior video camera hand-held fifty metres away across the water, Longrigg seemed to be hugging whatever shadow the fairy-lit deck of the Princess Tatiana afforded.

Not, it must be said, that the poor chap was naturally photogenic, Luke conceded, once more thanking his lucky stars that their paths had never crossed. Aubrey Longrigg was balding, mean and beaky, as became a man famous for his intolerance of lesser minds than his own. Under the Adriatic sun, his unappetizing features have turned a flaming pink, and the rimless spectacles do little to alter the impression of a fifty-year-old bank clerk – unless, like Luke, you have heard tales of the restless ambition that drives him, the unforgiving intellect that had made the fourth floor a swirling hothouse of innovative ideas and feuding barons, and of his improbable attraction to a certain kind of woman – the kind presumably that gets a kick out of being intellectually belittled – of whom the latest example was standing beside him in the person of: The Lady Janice (Jay) Longrigg, society hostess and fundraiser, followed by Yvonne's shortlist of the many charities that had reason to be thankful to Lady Longrigg.

She wears a stylish, off-the-shoulder evening dress. Her groomed raven hair is held in place by a diamante grip. She has a gracious smile and the royal, forward-leaning totter that only Englishwomen of a certain birth and class acquire. And she looks, to Luke's unsparing eye, ineffably stupid. At her side hover her two pre-pubescent daughters in party frocks.

'She's his new one, right?' Matlock the unabashed Labour supporter suddenly sang out, with improbable vigour, as the screen went blank at Hector's touch, and the overhead light came on. 'The one he married when he decided to fast-lane himself into politics without doing any of the dirty work. Some Labourite Aubrey Longrigg is, I will say! Old or new!'

*

Why was Matlock so jovial again? – and this time for real? The last thing Luke had expected of him was outright laughter, which in Matlock was at the best of times a rare commodity. Yet his big, tweedy torso was heaving with silent mirth. Was it because Longrigg and Matlock had for years been famously at daggers drawn? That to enjoy the favour of the one had been to attract the hostility of the other? That Longrigg had come to be known as the Chief's brain, and Matlock, unkindly, as his brawn? That with Longrigg's departure, office wits had likened their feud to a decade-long bullfight in which the bull had put in la puntilla?

'Yes, well, always a high-flyer, Aubrey was,' he was remarking, like a man remembering the dead. 'Quite the financial wizard too, as I recall. Not in your league, Hector, I'm pleased to say, but getting up there. Operational funds were never a problem, that's for sure, not while Aubrey was at the helm. I mean, how did he ever come to be on that boat to begin with?' – asked the same Matlock who only minutes ago had asserted that a man couldn't be condemned for being on someone's boat. 'Plus consorting with a former secret source after departing the Service, which the rule book has some very firm things to say about, particularly if said source is a slippery customer like – whatever he calls himself these days.'

'Emilio dell Oro,' Hector put in helpfully. 'One to remember, actually, Billy.'

'You'd think he'd know better, Aubrey would, after what we taught him, consorting with Emilio dell Oro, then. You'd think a man of Aubrey's somewhat serpentine skills would be more circumspect in his choice of friend. How come he happened to be there? Perhaps he had a good reason. We shouldn't prejudge him.'

'One of those happy strokes of luck, Billy,' Hector explained. 'Aubrey and his newest wife and her daughters were enjoying a camping holiday up in the hills above the Adriatic Coast. A London banking chum of Aubrey's called him up, name unknown, told him the Tatiana was anchored near by and there was a party going on, so hurry on down and join the fun.'

'Under canvas? Aubrey? Tell me another.'

'Roughing it in a campsite. The populist life of New Labour Aubrey, man of the people.'

'Do you go on camping holidays, Luke?'

'Yes, but Eloise hates British campsites. She's French,' he replied, sounding idiotic to himself.

'And when you go on your camping holidays, Luke – taking care, as you do, to avoid British campsites – do you as a rule take your dinner jacket with you?'

'No.'

'And Eloise, does she take her diamonds with her?'

'She hasn't got any, actually.'

Matlock thought about this. 'I suppose you bumped into Aubrey quite a lot, did you, Hector, while you were cutting your lucrative swathe in the City, and others of us went on doing our duty? Had the odd jar together now and then, did you, you and Aubrey? The way City folk do?'

Hector gave a dismissive shrug. 'Bumped into each other now and then. Haven't got a lot of time for naked ambition, to be honest. Bores me.'

At which Luke, to whom dissembling these days did not come quite as easily as it used to, had to restrain himself from grasping the arms of his chair.

*

Bumped into each other? Dear Heaven, they had fought each other to a standstill – and then gone on fighting. Of all the vulture capitalists, asset-strippers, dawn-raiders and carpet-buggers that ever stepped – according to Hector – Aubrey Longrigg was the most two-faced, devious, backsliding, dishonest and well-connected.

It was Aubrey Longrigg lurking in the wings who had led the assault on Hector's family grain firm. It was Longrigg who, through a dubious but cleverly assembled network of cut-outs, had cajoled Her Majesty's Revenue amp; Customs into storming Hector's warehouses at dead of night, slashing open hundreds of sacks, smashing down doors and terrifying the night shift.

It was Longrigg's insidious network of Whitehall contacts that had unleashed Health amp; Safety, the Inland Revenue, the Fire Department and the Immigration Service to harass and intimidate the family employees, ransack their desks, seize their account books and challenge their tax returns.

But Aubrey Longrigg was not mere enemy in Hector's eyes – that would have been too easy altogether – he was an archetype; a classic symptom of the canker that was devouring not just the City, but our most precious institutions of government.

Hector was at war not with Longrigg personally. Probably he was speaking the truth when he told Matlock that Longrigg bored him, for it was an essential pillar of his thesis that the men and women he was pursuing were by definition bores: mediocre, banal, insensitive, lacklustre, to be distinguished from other bores only by their covert support for one another, and their insatiable greed.

*

Hector's commentary has become perfunctory. Like a magician who doesn't want you to look too closely at any one card, he is shuffling swiftly through the pack of international rogues that Yvonne has put together for him.

Glimpse a tubby, imperious, very small man loading up his plate from the buffet:

'Known in German circles as Karl der Kleine,' Hector says dismissively. 'Half a Wittelsbach – which half eludes me. Bavarian, pitch-black Catholic as they say down there; close ties with the Vatican. Closer still with the Kremlin. Indirectly elected member of the Bundestag – and non-executive director of a clutch of Russian oil companies, big chum of Emilio dell Oro's. Skied with him last year in St Moritz, took his Spanish boyfriend along. The Saudis love him. Next lovely.'

Cut too quickly to a bearded beautiful boy in a glittering magenta cape making lavish conversation with two bejewelled matrons:

'Karl der Kleine's latest pet,' Hector announces. 'Sentenced to three years' hard labour by a Madrid court last year for aggravated assault, got off on a technicality, thanks to Karl. Recently appointed non-executive director of the Arena group of companies, same lot that own the Prince's yacht – ah, now here's one to watch' – flick of the console – 'Doctor Evelyn Popham of Mount Street, Mayfair; Bunny to his friends. Studied law in Neuchatel and Manchester. Licensed to practise in Switzerland, courtier and pimp to the Surrey oligarchs, sole partner of his own flourishing West End law firm. Internationalist, bon viveur, bloody good lawyer. Bent as a hairpin. Where's his website? Hold on. Find it in a moment. Leave me alone, Luke. There you are. Got it.'

On the plasma screen, while Hector fumbles and mutters, Dr (Bunny-to-his-friends) Popham continues to beam patiently down on his audience. He is a rotund, jolly gentleman with chubby cheeks and side-whiskers, drawn straight from the pages of Beatrix Potter. Improbably he sports tennis whites and is clutching, in addition to his racquet, a comely female tennis partner.

The home page of The Dr Popham amp; No Partners website, when it finally appears, is mastered by the same cheerful face, smiling over the top of a quasi-royal coat of arms featuring the scales of justice. Beneath him runs his Mission Statement:

My expert team's professional experience includes: – successfully protecting the rights of leading individuals in the international entrepreneurial banking sphere against Serious Fraud Office investigations – successfully representing key international clients in matters regarding offshore jurisdiction, and their right to silence at international and UK tribunals of inquiry – successfully responding to importunate regulatory inquiries and tax investigations and charges of improper or illegal payments to influence-makers.

'And the buggers can't stop playing tennis,' Hector complains as his rogues' gallery recovers at its former spanking pace.

*

In short order, we're in the sporting clubs of Monte Carlo, Cannes, Madeira and the Algarve. We're in Biarritz and Bologna. We're trying to keep up with Yvonne's captions, and her album of fun photographs plundered from society magazines, but it's hard, unless like Luke you know what to expect and why.

But however swiftly faces and places change under Hector's volatile management, however many beautiful people in state-of-the-art tennis gear whisk by, five players repeatedly assert themselves: – jocular Bunny Popham, your lawyer of choice for responding to importunate regulatory inquiries and charges of illegal payments to influence-makers – ambitious, intolerant Aubrey Longrigg, retired spy, Member of Parliament and family camper, with his latest aristocratic and charitable wife – Her Majesty's Minister-of-State-in-Waiting, and specialist-to-be in banking ethics – the self-taught, self-invented, vivacious and charming socialite and polyglot Emilio dell Oro, Swiss national and globe-trotting financier, addicted – we are told by a scanned press cutting that you have to be quick as lightning to read – to 'adrenalin sports from bareback riding in the Ural Mountains, heli-skiing in Canada, tennis in the fast lane, and playing the Moscow Stock Exchange', who gets longer than his due, owing to a technical hitch, and finally: – patrician, urbane public-relations maestro Captain Giles de Salis, Royal Navy, retd., influence-pedlar, specialist in bent peers – presented to the background music of: 'one of the slimiest buggers in Westminster' from Hector.

Light on. Change memory stick. House rules dictate: one subject, one stick. Hector likes to keep his flavours separate. Time to go to Moscow.