“Is that a fact?”

“Yes, old son. I’ll pick you up at ten sharp.”

Kurbsky shrugged. “Yes, I suppose you will.”

He got out, and Bounine drove away. Kurbsky watched him go, turned, and went back into the Pierre. The first thing he saw was Monica waiting for an elevator, and he approached, catching her just in time.

“Fancy a nightcap, lady?”

She smiled, pleased that he’d turned up. “Why not?”

He took her arm and they went to the bar.

THERE WEREN’T TOO many people. They sat in the corner, and he had Russian vodka, ice cold, and she contented herself with green tea.

“Very healthy of you,” he told her.

“I wish I could say the same to you, but I’m not sure about that stuff.”

“You have to be born to it.”

“Doesn’t it rot the brain?”

“Not really. Drunk this way, from a glass taken from crushed ice, it freezes the brain, clears it when problems loom.”

“If you believe that, you’ll believe anything.”

“No, it’s true. Now, tell me. I know about your academic accomplishments-the Ministry of Arts in Moscow is very thorough when one is attending affairs like this-but nothing about you. I’m puzzled that such a woman would not be married.”

“I’m a widow, Alex, have been for some years. My husband was a professor at Cambridge, rather older than me and a Knight of the Realm.”

“So no children?”

“No. A brother, if that helps.” Her smile faltered for a moment as she remembered her brother, Harry, recuperating from the terrible knife wounds he had so recently suffered, and, even more, the terrible psychological wounds. To see his wife assassinated after being mistaken for him-the healing process would take a long time…

She brought the smile back. “He’s a Member of Parliament,” she said, making no mention of what he really did for the Prime Minister.