‘Who’s that?’ I called out.

The shape stopped, and now I saw it was a man. He ran up the incline onto the far edge of the brown. He was tall with stooped shoulders and, I could just make out, a widow’s peak.

Slavin.

I exhaled deeply. I had left London this morning with the aim of reaching this man before anyone else, and I’d succeeded.

‘You are not Mister Manning,’ he said, and I fancied he backed away a step.

I held up my hands. ‘I work with Mister Manning at the High Commission,’ I said in Russian. ‘He told me to arrange a meeting with you.’

‘Why? I thought it was clear that the interview was tomorrow.’

‘It is,’ I assured him. ‘And I’m sorry we broke our promise not to contact you before then. But we had to. Some questions have come up in London.’

He took a couple of steps closer, and the moonlight struck his face. Anxiety was etched across it.

‘Questions?’ he asked. ‘What questions?’

‘Irina Grigorieva,’ I said. ‘We need to know more about her.’ He took another few steps, and now we were standing face to face, within touching distance.

‘Irina?’ he said, confused. ‘But she has nothing to—’

He stopped, and I wondered if he had changed his mind about whatever it was he’d been about to tell me. But then I saw the dark red patch on his throat and my mind caught up with the sound, half-drowned in the wind.

Shot.

VII

VII

Slavin fell into my arms. I dropped him and ran in the direction of the noise. As I clambered down the bank, I saw a figure on the fairway: a white man, running. I followed him.

Was he heading for Slavin’s house? Had he been one of his guards? He looked to be heading for the road, certainly. On the drive here, I hadn’t seen anybody on the streets - curfew descended at midnight, and expats were unlikely to wander around anyway. They had gins to drink, boats to sail, women to throw in the sea.

He still had the pistol in his right hand, and he turned to fire at me. It missed, and I wondered if it had been deliberate - he’d had no trouble with Slavin.

He was heading through a band of bushes to cut across to another hole, which sloped down to the gardens on Slavin’s street. When he reached the crest of the hill, he stopped, staggering a little, standing back and bellowing at me. I couldn’t understand it - the echo was too confusing. But it was a jeer. He raised his hand to fire again, and I dropped to the ground. He disappeared over the brow of the hill.