The 38th floor was packed. Suits and gowns, pyramids of champagne coupes, everything – everyone’s consciousness – inconspicuously centred on the President, who stood at the back of the room talking to the Chinese Foreign Secretary. Banners declared that Saracen Oil and Gas Exploration wished Galina Nazarbayev a happy birthday. There was a Kazakh flag and, beneath it, the Saracen logo. I squeezed among diplomats and spies, looking for my Triumph companion, equally alert for Cherenkov, and for representatives of the British embassy. I found Lucy Piper looking wired. She needed help with Carter’s speech.

‘Something Kazakh, a quote or something.’

‘Abai’s their national poet. He’s quotable.’ I pointed her towards some lines. She scribbled the name and walked off, already Googling. I took a drink as it floated past.

The optimism on display was impressive, as if a deal could be willed into existence through sheer decadence. The banners, the waterfall of champagne down the stacked coupe glasses, the moelleux au chocolat birthday cake. How much love can go unrequited? Saracen were putting a determined face on things. Every situation changes.

All the intelligence services had gathered, checking the President for IV drip scars, tremoring, slurs in his speech; noting who he spoke to, who he avoided, checking the demeanour of CEOs, engineers, financiers and go-betweens, men and women whose lives had become devoted to the carbon molecules of buried plankton, the energy from three-hundred-million-year-old sunlight.

It was all going smoothly, I thought. Galina sang two songs by Céline Dion with a world-class pianist who had apparently insisted on ten grand for every hour spent on Kazakh soil; Piper introduced me to journalists and I told them Kazakhstan was a peaceful country at heart – ‘We have homegrown terrorists in the UK, you know, and nowhere’s going to become a liberal democracy overnight.’ I met rich people and heard myself saying: ‘It’s a family-run Swiss school but it follows the British National Curriculum so it’s probably your most British international school.’ Guests swayed with bonhomie. A lot of the newcomers had been drinking hard since the flight over. Fireworks exploded outside, unannounced. A Tajik warlord flinched. So did the Deputy Defence Minister and a security officer from the British embassy. Then everyone loosened their ties and began to do shots.

I met Anastasia two drinks into the evening. She came by way of Bryant, who lunged out of the crowd, tie loose.

‘Toby!’

He had two women with him this time.

‘Toby, can I introduce you to Olga and … ’ He looked to the other woman for help. She wore a dress of gold sequins.

‘Anastasia.’

I noticed her Moscow accent, and her eyes. There you are, they seemed to say, which was how you seduced someone. Her blonde hair was cut into a bob that framed clear features. She had the assured good looks of escorts and honeytraps. I don’t know where Bryant went. Anastasia and I ended up on a sofa.