Knox wasn’t so sure. He’d wondered about that exact point while Laing was being treated, but it now felt like there were too many unknowns and variables in play to make a solid bet on anything, including how Holland would react when he found out what had happened at Dungeness.

‘We’ll see,’ he replied.

Chapter 39

Chapter 39

If Anna ever forgot where in the world one of her jobs had taken her, she’d be able to work it out just from where she was staying the night. No matter how high- or low-end, every hotel had certain subtle qualities that betrayed their nationality. And Durrants on George Street in Marylebone was quintessentially British.

The hotel’s ground floor was all wood-panelled walls and over-waxed chesterfields. But it was also pleasingly quiet, and the staff were discreet and fastidious. The surname on the passport Anna had used to travel from Geneva was Lopez, and if the hotel manager, a short man in a three-piece suit who Anna guessed was in his mid-fifties, had any suspicions about her not sounding entirely Spanish he hid them well. Durrants was a long-standing favourite of the continent’s globe-trotting elite, who often travelled with names that didn’t match their accents and who preferred to retain their privacy and avoid London’s larger, flashier hotels like the Dorchester or Claridge’s.

The manager, keen to make a good impression, also showed Anna up the split imperial staircase to her suite, which was considerably brighter than the foyer. The walls were papered in a light, floral pattern, and Liberty print fabrics covered the bed and framed the two tall windows that looked across George Street towards the back of Hertford House, the imposing mansion on Manchester Square that had once been both the Spanish and French embassies.

‘Your luggage arrived this afternoon,’ the manager said, pointing at the suitcase on the mahogany stand next to the suite’s large wardrobe. ‘With instructions not to unpack it,’ he added, anticipating any criticism his new guest might have had at the level of service she was receiving.

‘It’s perfect,’ Anna replied, reassuring him that he’d done the right thing. ‘Thank you.’

Once he was gone, Anna stretched out the slight stiffness she felt after the flight from Geneva and the long rush-hour taxi journey from London Airport to Marylebone. Then she picked up her new luggage—a brown leather monogrammed Louis Vuitton suitcase—carried it over to the bed, and opened it. Inside was a small toiletry bag and a change of clothes, along with an exceptionally ugly gown, a large envelope filled with sterling notes, and a card with an address near Shepherd’s Bush in west London on it.