He stepped behind the street door, which he’d opened just enough that I could squeeze past without revealing him to the world outside.

‘Quickly. This way. Barzo!’

I didn’t speak. He ushered me through into his apartment on the left-hand side of a little courtyard area around which other flats were arranged.

The door to the apartment closed behind him. For a brief instant we were sealed in darkness. And then, one flash at a time, a strip light overhead sputtered to life, revealing the room in fluorescent bursts. The apartment was tiny – a fifteen-foot square, freezing cold pied-à-terre in which a round table, a sofa and bar jostled for space with a kitchenette. A mezzanine spread out above a third of the floor space; beneath it a shower and toilet. The cistern rushed with water. There were no windows, and the room smelled of shit. We turned to face each other. His right hand hadn’t left his jacket pocket. Both of mine had remained in the clear.

‘So? You are not here to kill me, because Sergei would already be buried in Père Lachaise. No?’ His accent rang with all the charm of a Russian–Bulgarian car crash colliding somewhere in the Balkans. Abrupt. Sparse. Swerving always between murderous and mischievous. ‘And besides, Sergei would have known that you were coming. Da?’

‘Sergei knows everything.’ I said. ‘That’s why I’m here.’

‘Yes. Good. Maybe. So, if we are not killing each other, Sergei will take his jacket off. OK?’

‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Make yourself at home.’ He snorted and purposefully turned his narrow back on me while he hung the jacket from a brass hook by the front door. I didn’t move. ‘Trust me,’ I said. ‘I’m here to do business. Just business. OK?’ He turned around, a Makarov pistol clutched in his fist. The muzzle pointed at my chest. There were only five feet between us. I moved my hands up, slowly, palms out. ‘But if you’re going to kill me, you’d better do it right, and do it right now.’

Lukov burst instantly into a deep peal of laughter, weirdly resonant given his weasel frame. He flicked the barrel up and held the pistol side-on, unthreatening, grinning widely. He paused, and then jerked his hands as a boxer might if feinting a punch, and then laughed again.

‘OK,’ he said. ‘Just business,’ and tucked the semi-automatic into his jeans, under the hem of a thickly knitted sweater. ‘You are lucky to find Sergei. He has an appointment. A beautiful woman.’ He cupped his hands, and held them up in front of his chest. ‘Like dini. How do you say?’ He scratched his chin. ‘Watermelons!’