The door of Suite twenty-nine on the second floor was heavy to swing and two inches thick with a deadbolt at shoulder-level; the suite itself was spacious and ornate, with glass-fronted cabinets of Sevres objets de vertu and gilt Louis XIV chairs, a four-poster bed with a red silk fagoted canopy and solid marble furnishings in the bathroom with gold-plated taps. I felt uneasy here, was more used to a back-street safe-house with peeling walls and a rusted fire-escape at the rear and a scrambler on the phone and total security.

I'd been dead wrong about Croder: he had indeed booked me into this hotel personally as Dmitri Berinov because the five suits laid out on the bed were my size and London-tailored by the firm that works for the Bureau when we need sartorial camouflage more appropriate than something off the peg, our presence requested at an embassy party or a host-country bash. The shoes lined up in a row on the burgundy pile carpet were hand-made by Simpson and Webb and the snow boots were tooled Russian calf. Again I felt uneasy, preferring jeans and a windbreaker and shoes with quiet, flexible rubber soles, the uppers softened with beeswax.

Croder may, yes, have asked Fern and Teaseman if they had the stomach for Balalaika before he'd called me in from Paris, but only as reserves in case I came unstuck. He'd put me in the sights as his main target the minute the prime minister had told him what he needed done.

I heard the echo of Croder's voice in the freezing chapel: There isn't anyone else capable. A compliment, if you like, or a sentence of death; you choose.

Thai silk shirts and a quilted dressing-gown and a box of linen handkerchiefs initialled DVB; a dozen French silk ties – three conservative, the others on the flashy side, the kind a mafiya capo would sport; gold cuff-links and a pleated scarlet cummerbund; a matching set of Givenchy shampoo, aftershave and cologne, but only for show in the bathroom because that stuff can kill you if you leave traces when the hunt is up, and they'd known that when they'd packed it.