The talk flowed around him. It was all talk of home.

They had exhausted their congratulation of Mahmood Shabro.

Home talk, all of it. The economy in chaos, unemployment rising, the Mullahs and Ayatollahs at each other's throats, the war weariness growing. They would have gagged if they had known that Charlie Eshraq had been home last month, and killed two men. Their contact with home was long range, a drink in a hotel bar with the captain of an Iran Air Jumbo who was overnighting in London and who was prepared to gossip out of earshot of his minders. A talk on the direct dial phone with a relative who had stayed inside, petty talk because if politics were debated then the line would be cut. A meeting with a businessman who had travelled out with foreign currency bankers' orders to purchase items of importance to the war effort. Charlie thought they knew nothing.

He reckoned Mahmood Shabro's new secretary looked good. Charlie and the girl were younger by 25 years than anyone else at the party. He thought she looked bored out of her mind.

"I rang you a few weeks back – good party, isn't it? I rang you twice but you weren't there." Mahmood Shabro at his shoulder.

He had been watching the girl's backside, when her skirt was tight as she had bent down to pick up a vol-au-vent that had been dropped on the carpet and that was steadily being stamped in. The carpet, he supposed, was worth fifteen thousand.

"I was away."

"You travelling much, Charlie?"

"Yes, I'm travelling."

"Still the…?"

"Travel courier," Charlie said easily. He looked across at the secretary. "That's a pretty girl. Can she type?"

"Who knows what talent is concealed?"

Charlie saw the watchful eyes of Mrs Shabro across the room.

"You alright, Charlie?"

"Never better."

"Anything you want?"

"If there's anything I can't get by myself, I'll come to you."