The reflection took Silin’s mind to Berlin. No cause to doubt his people there. Proper family: blood relatives. And all very important to him, vital to him, in defeating Sobelov. He’d have to arrange a quiet recall, when most of the other things were finalized. It might be interesting, in passing, to find out what the lake business had been about: whether his people knew the would-be purchaser who’d demonstrated his anger so obviously.

Silin straightened in his chair, a thin, fastidiously dressed man. Wanting the censure, as well as a warning to the uncommitted, to be understood, he said, ‘Does anyone else want a drink…?’ And after the various head-shaking refusals finished, ‘So let’s begin, shall we?’

‘Why don’t we do just that?’ said Sobelov, at once. The voice fitted the man’s size, loud and deep.

‘You’ve got a point to make?’

‘The same that I’ve made at two previous meetings,’ said Sobelov. ‘The Chechen are encroaching on our territory. We should hit them.’

‘You want a war?’ invited Silin. It was important to draw the man as much as possible, for the others in the Commission to judge between them.

‘I’m not afraid of one,’ rumbled Sobelov, predictably.

‘None of us are afraid of one,’ said Silin, hoping the others would appreciate how much Sobelov remained part of a past where everything was settled by a gun or a grenade. ‘Do we need the distraction of one?’

‘It’s my particular territory they’re coming into: they’ve taken over six of my vodka outlets in the last month.’ Bobin was a small man so fat he seemed almost round and the protest squeaked out, like a toy squeaks when it is pressed.