‘Do you worry?’
‘I worry he’ll knock one of them up. I told him: if you do, you’re on your own. Don’t come running to me.’ She looks away. ‘That Jack Demerell. They gave him a medal, did he tell you that?’
‘No,’ Eve says thoughtfully. ‘No, he didn’t.’
‘Piece about in the local paper. Carried a wounded man to safety under fire.’
‘His parents must have been proud.’
Philippa shakes her head. ‘Both dead by then, bless ’em. Car accident outside Shaftesbury.’
‘Oh no, that’s awful.’
‘He hasn’t had it easy, I’ll say that.’
17
Oxana is dining at a table for one on the roof of the Hotel Grande Bretagne in Athens. The air is still and the sky a soft violet. Conscious that she will be appearing in a swimsuit in front of two privileged and undoubtedly hyper-critical teenage girls, she has decided to put herself on a diet, although this might be a little late in the day, given that she will be boarding theMedusain fewer than twelve hours.
She takes an exploratory forkful of her sautéed zucchini salad with smoked almonds and lemon-chickpea dressing. As she chews, she gazes over the city at the Acropolis, the rocky outcrop crowned by the Parthenon, the ancient temple of Athene.
I don’t think this salad is going to do it for me. I may have put on a couple of pounds recently, but it’s all muscle. Maxim and his Systema sessions have seen to that. So I’m not going to look like some waify, coked-up model in my swimsuit. I’m going to look awesome, and anyone who disagrees can fucking well turn to stone.
I wish I could enjoy this place as much as I should. I wish I could go a whole hour without thinking of Eve. Even when I’m not thinking of her consciously, she’s there. I want to be rid of her but she’s inside me, like a block of ice.
There’s a bag hanging on the chair at the next table, which Oxana recognises as a Bottega Veneta ‘Sardine’. But it’s not the bag she’s interested in, it’s the phone poking out of it.
It’s the work of a moment to stand, take the phone, and slip it into her own bag. In the ladies’ room she opens up the phone, swaps the SIM card for one of her own, and enters an engineer unlocking code. Walking back out onto the roof terrace she inputs a UK number. The call is picked up after three rings.
‘Can I help you?’ The voice is flat and expressionless.
‘Mr Green, please.’
‘One moment.’ There’s a click, then several seconds of silence.
‘Tell me.’ The voice low, but recognisably that of Johnny Fernandes.
‘I need you to find her. And get word to me when you have.’
‘Understood. Anything else?’
‘No.’
She stands there, staring at the Acropolis and listening to the sound of dead air. Then she returns to the ladies’ room. Two minutes later the phone is back in the Bottega Veneta bag, and Oxana is readdressing her exquisite pale-green salad. Her tongue flickers to the scar on her upper lip, and she sighs. She allows herself ten seconds of intense longing for Eve, whispers her name once, then beckons to a waiter.
‘Yes, madame?’
‘Could you bring me something? It’s kind of a dietary thing?’
‘If I can, madame.’
‘I’d like a large kebab.’
‘Of course, madame. I quite understand.’
PART II
18