‘Do you know what I think, Sergei?’ I carried on. Lukov stared past me and chewed his lip. ‘I don’t think you know. In fact, I don’t think you have the first fucking clue who you’re really dealing with. So let me help you out. Small guy, nicely turned out. Black wool coat. Black gloves. Expensive aftershave.’ Then he looked at me, unblinking. ‘Nasty cut on his right temple, which I gave him three days ago.’

Lukov rocked back abruptly in his chair, but my right hand caught him round the windpipe. I dragged him back across the table towards me, my thumb and fingers closing around his trachea. He attempted a scream, but I squeezed harder and felt the cartilage in his throat begin to collapse. He nodded and I relaxed my grip and he slumped back in the chair, hands to his throat. Eyes wild, he sat there staring at me, sweat breaking across his brow, teeth gritted against the pain.

‘Keep your hands where I can see them,’ I warned. ‘Did you negotiate using this phone?’

He paused, and then dropped his chin to his chest.

‘Da.’

Careless prick. I picked up his phone and dropped it into his beer.

‘Do they know about the Greek passport?’

‘No. Sergei’s scout did it.’ He glanced over his left shoulder towards the bar. ‘He works here.’

Fuck.

‘OK, Sergei. Time to go. The deal’s off.’

‘No,’ he said, rising to his feet. ‘Please.’

I shook my head and he backed away from the table, staring at me. He was standing by the window where the light was strongest, silhouetted against the winter sky. The sound of lead licking glass filtered above the lunchtime banter. A fragment of the shattered pane twisted like a jagged diamond in the bar-light. Frozen to the spot, black eyes fixed on mine. The bullet entered the back of his head and severed his tongue at the root before exiting out of his jaw. Teeth, bone and brain blew out on to the table. His head jerked forward from the force of the shot, unbalancing him, so that he fell lengthways in front of me.

He was dead before he hit the ground.

13

Pandemonium.

The shot came from high left. I dived right, over the table towards the bar. Lukov’s beer glass, my whisky glass, shattered on the tile floor. The diners turned in their chairs. The barmaid saw Lukov laid out, the thick crimson bloom spreading on to the tiles beneath his head.

Screaming. Someone shouted, ‘Sergei! Non!’