‘Maybe.’ I had no idea, but if Russian intelligence thought I had an armed guard I wasn’t going to disabuse them of that notion.

‘We’re not the threat, Elliot. For fuck’s sake.’

‘What are you looking for in my room?’

‘The question is what the CIA is looking for in your room, and why they have contingency plans to assassinate you.’

This struck me as over-dramatic but not implausible.

‘Have you found Joanna?’ I asked. ‘Really, Elliot. I’m serious. One of my best men just got attacked, when we’re trying to help you. I suggested that you keep in touch with me or get out of Kazakhstan. Can you see the problems you’re causing?’

‘I’m not sure I introduced the problems here.’

‘Can we sit down?’

We took a booth. It was dark, and Cherenkov sprawled on the leather seat opposite me. ‘I haven’t found her,’ he said. ‘No one’s found her. People found the body of Ruslan Batur, of course. Tomorrow the story’s going to come out. He was working for a gang: organised crime. That’s what they’ll say. Shot by a Makarov pistol, like the one you’re carrying.’

It was possible, and would raise some interesting questions regarding GL5. More possible was the idea that Cherenkov was trying to disorientate me, force me into a position of desperation.

‘Your prints are there, Elliot. Either you killed him or Joanna Lake killed him.’

‘Or someone else with a Makarov.’

‘I haven’t found Joanna, but I found this.’ Cherenkov took his phone out, swiped down videos and played one. It was a couple having sex. They were in what looked like a hotel room, bed sheets tangled. None of the flamboyance of porn, just two bodies, naked and entwined. The shot was static, low-quality, from a camera that must have been high on the wall. It looked like surveillance. Cherenkov gave me the phone. It could have been my back. The hair was right. I had to wait another minute before my face was visible. Joanna’s was clear enough.

‘Is it real?’ he said. ‘No.’

‘I don’t want to see this,’ Cherenkov said. ‘Why do I have this?’

‘You tell me.’ I gave the phone back, disguising my mounting desire for violence.

‘I have it because some guy in the GRU got it from a friend in the CIA who got it from Six. One way or another they wanted it to land in Moscow. Why is that? You and Joanna Lake, apparently at a hotel in Pakistan last month. But I know where you were last month, and it wasn’t there.’ He sipped his beer, put his phone away. ‘Can I ask: how does it feel, seeing that?’

‘It looks like a rushed job. Are you working with Vladislav Vishinsky?’