Chapters (58)
- Cover
- Also by Oliver Harris
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- THIRTY-FOUR
- THIRTY-FIVE
- THIRTY-SIX
- THIRTY-SEVEN
- THIRTY-EIGHT
- THIRTY-NINE
- FORTY
- FORTY-ONE
- FORTY-TWO
- FORTY-THREE
- FORTY-FOUR
- FORTY-FIVE
- FORTY-SIX
- FORTY-SEVEN
- FORTY-EIGHT
- FORTY-NINE
- FIFTY
- FIFTY-ONE
- FIFTY-TWO
- FIFTY-THREE
- FIFTY-FOUR
- FIFTY-FIVE
- ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
They said they didn’t.
FOUR
We concluded the session at 7 p.m. I was told to proceed to the Mandarin Oriental. Next meeting would be in thirty-six hours at the Mayfair art dealership that provided me with cover.
‘Get some rest,’ Undercroft said. ‘But don’t leave the country.’ He smiled.
I was driven to the hotel beside Kensington Palace Gardens, Bohren’s favourite when staying in London. The place was a cliff-face of red-brick Edwardian ornament facing the darkness of the park. Usual doorman, crinkly smile as I was ushered into luxury. The receptionist smiled too.
‘Mr Bohren, so nice to see you again. We’ve given you the Master Suite.’
‘That’s very kind.’
‘Not at all. No luggage?’
‘It’s on its way.’
I could feel my physicality adjust as I accompanied a bellboy to the lifts. Bohren was gregarious and slick. Not a man I personally liked, but others seemed charmed. They took to him more easily than I remembered anyone taking to me. The bellboy bowed gratefully as he received his tenner tip. I closed the door and stood among the suite’s art deco-inspired features: a chandelier like a starfish stuck to the ceiling, a brass panther on a mantelpiece above the digital fireplace. I turned the virtual fire off, put the diamond in the safe. My phone scanned for electronic surveillance devices. No detectable signals but it was best to assume you were being watched. I drew the blinds against the view of Knightsbridge. I hated west London, which always made being here somehow comforting; it told me I wasn’t in my own life.
I lay down for two minutes and felt the icy creep of depression. Hotel rooms were good for suicides and blackmail, not much more in my experience. Keep moving. Outrun the anxiety. I went back downstairs, walked to PC World and bought a cheap Toshiba laptop, then sat at the back of Starbucks, out of range of the cameras, and used their wi-fi to download privacy software.
Beyond the daylight realms of the internet were the places where people gathered anonymously, and which you could only enter by becoming encrypted yourself. The right technology routed you through a maze of servers, losing your identity in the process. Websites weren’t able to track the geolocation and IP of their users, and users couldn’t get any of this information about the host. You could talk and meet and share in pitch darkness.
I went to the file-sharing site I had used with my agent, Idrisov, entered the password, scrolled down the board looking for a file named Dalia, the name we had agreed.
November 1st, an audio-visual file had been uploaded with the title Dalia dances. The thumbnail preview showed a girl in a leotard. It was only if you looked at the file size that you’d notice it was several megabytes larger than it should have been.