LITMIR.BIZ

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handkerchief. He was about the unhealthiest-looking man Knox had ever met, fat to the point of caricature, mere stubs of arms and legs, so that in his dark shirt and suit he looked like some gigantic anthropomorphic beetle, a character from a children’s book brought miraculously to life. ‘My dear Knox!’ he exclaimed. ‘I can’t believe they put you in such a place!’

      ‘Don’t worry about it. And thanks for coming.’

      ‘Of course. Of course.’ He stepped to one side, revealing the woman hidden behind him. She was short, slim, stern and unmistakeably formidable. ‘This is Charissa,’ he said. ‘My dear brother’s wife.’

      ‘Gaille just told me what you’ve been doing,’ said Knox. ‘Thanks so much.’

      She waved his gratitude aside. ‘I spend too much time in conference rooms. Places like this do my heart good.’

      ‘Not mine,’ said Knox. ‘How soon can I get out?’

      ‘At once,’ she told him. ‘It’s a disgrace they brought you here at all.’

      ‘Thank Christ!’

      ‘I’m afraid that concludes the good news, however. The police seem to have it in for your friend Pascal. They intend to charge him the moment he regains consciousness.’

      ‘Those bastards!’ scowled Knox. ‘They started it. One of them groped Claire, I swear he did. They’re just covering their arses.’

      ‘I’m not talking about that,’ said Charissa. ‘I’m talking about Petitier.’

      ‘How do you mean?’ frowned Knox.

      ‘You may not know, but he was pronounced dead on arrival at hospital. And the police are planning to charge your friend with his murder.’

      II

       An apartment, Tbilisi, Georgia

      The thumping started again in the flat above, Rezo and his wretched home improvements. Nadya Petrova glared up at her ceiling. She kept going up to remonstrate with him, but there was something about him in his dungarees, with his dusty, paint-spattered hair and his crinkled, cheerful smile, that made her forget her indignation. Until she came back down again, at least, and he resumed his banging.

      She sighed and finished her article a little more abruptly than she might otherwise have done, read it through and posted it on her blog, then turned off her laptop. That would have to do for the day. She’d been working monstrously hard this past week, had promised herself the night off. She sat there a moment longer, staring out of her high window, contemplating the rundown yet beautiful buildings on the steep hillside beneath her, their twisted brick chimneys and sloping roofs overrun by ivy and those violet flowers that hung there like bunches of grapes: and for a moment she glimpsed a metaphor for her beloved city that she might use in one of her upcoming newspaper articles, but her mind was too tired to hold onto it, and then it was gone.

      She pushed herself to her feet and made her way through to her kitchen. Her limp, the result of riding pillion with an idiot biker trying too hard to impress her, was always more pronounced after a day at her desk. She had soup left over from lunch. She turned on her gas stove to heat it up, then took a bottle of white wine from her refrigerator. She didn’t open it at once, savouring the moment. Remarkably, it still gave her a mild illicit thrill to uncork the first bottle of the night. The promise of happiness, or at least of respite. She looked thoughtfully back up at her ceiling. Maybe Rezo would like a glass. At least it might keep him quiet.

      Her telephone began to ring before she could decide. Her nape instantly stiffened; she hated her phone. She told herself to ignore it, let voicemail do its work. But she was a journalist at heart, and you never knew. ‘Yes?’ she sighed. ‘Who is this?’

      ‘It’s me. Gyorgi.’

      ‘Gyorgi?’

      ‘From Airport Operations, remember?’

      ‘Forgive me,’ she said, reaching for her notepad and pen. ‘It’s been a long day.’

      A mirthless laugh. ‘Tell me about it. I came on at six this bloody morning. And what time is it now?’

      ‘Is he coming home, then? Is that why you called?’

      ‘No. But the Nergadze Gulfstream is about to leave for Athens again. I thought you’d like to know. Four passengers out, no return yet scheduled. You want details?’

      Nadya uncapped her pen with her teeth. ‘Please.’

      ‘Same terms as before, right?’

      ‘Sure,’ she said. She couldn’t remember what she’d paid him last time, but he sold himself cheap, she remembered that much. Gambling problems, so Petr had said. But who was she to criticise?

      ‘Okay, then. Departing Tbilisi International 6.45 p.m. our time. Flight time ninety minutes, arriving Athens Eleftherios Venizelos private jet terminal 7.15 local, thanks to the time difference. Passenger names are Boris Dekanosidze, Edouard Zdanevich, Zaal Markizi, Davit Kipshidze. Mean anything to you?’

      ‘No.’ In fact, Nadya recognised three of the names, but she had no intention of telling that to a man this indiscreet. ‘I don’t suppose I can get to Athens before them, can I?’

      ‘What am I? Your travel agent?’

      ‘I was only wondering.’

      ‘There aren’t any direct flights from Tbilisi to Athens,’ he sighed. ‘You’d have to change in Istanbul or Kiev. And you won’t get there tonight, not setting out this late. Maybe tomorrow morning.’

      ‘Thanks. I’ll see you get your money.’ She put down the phone and sat there a minute, massaging her temples. The wine was beckoning. She was exhausted, and fully entitled to her exhaustion too. She’d earned tonight off. There was no way she could beat the plane to Athens, so what could she hope to accomplish? But then she remembered that salty look in Mikhail Nergadze’s eye at the press conference, and it was like touching the shallow puddle around her kettle and jolting from the shock.

      She sat up straight. Maybe she couldn’t get to Athens before the Nergadze plane, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t have someone waiting when it landed. It was what the Internet had been invented for. With a sigh, she put her white wine back in the freezer, then limped through to her study to switch her laptop back on.

       FIVE

      I

      There was one advantage working for the Nergadzes, reflected Edouard, as he and Boris were chauffeured out from Tbilisi International’s Jet Aviation Terminal to the waiting Gulfstream 550. They knew how to look after themselves. The co-pilot welcomed them aboard and escorted them back to the luxurious main lounge, where two more Nergadze toughs were playing cards. Boris introduced them all briskly. Zaal was a short, lithe man with restless, suspicious eyes, as though he’d lived his whole life on the run. Davit, by contrast, was a smiling giant with cauliflower ears and a Zorro nose. There was something distinctly familiar about him too, though Edouard couldn’t work out why.

      He hesitated after shaking their hands, expecting to be invited to join their game, as Boris was. But no invitation came, so he shrugged and sank into a white-leather seat across the aisle, stretched out his legs, watched the crew go into departure protocol. They were taxiing almost at once, no nonsense about waiting for other aircraft, before launching into the twilight skies above Tbilisi. He watched through his widescreen window the scattered bonfire of the city gradually going out beneath him, doused by a few thin wisps of cloud. Then lamb cutlets were served on silver plates by a disturbingly androgynous flight attendant, along with vintage champagne in black crystal Fabergé glasses.

      His sinuses

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