And, just to be completely certain of his privacy, a month ago he’d taken a short-term lease on an empty office at the top of a building just off Dover Street, five minutes away. It was neutral, anonymous ground, and, importantly, it was untraceable—the company Peterson had used on the lease didn’t exist.

Peterson and Valera walked across the hotel’s sparse foyer, past the reception desk, which was a single, amorphous piece of dazzling white Lucite that seemed to grow out of the equally white floor, to its small bank of lifts.

They rode up to the sixth floor in silence, then Peterson led Valera to their suite at the end of a corridor that was lacquered black and lit only by small spotlights above each room’s door.

The suite, in contrast to the hotel’s monochrome entrance and hallways, was a riotous rainbow of colour. The main space was dominated by two bright yellow leather sofas, facing each other across a low, angular onyx coffee table. Beyond them was a large, circular pedestal dining table made of the same white Lucite as the reception desk, surrounded by six intensely red moulded plastic chairs beneath an equally lurid orange pendant lamp hung above the table. Every wall was decorated differently—some in block colours, some in intricate, psychedelic wallpaper.

It was a sensory overload and Valera struggled to process it all. Peterson, already used to it after spending a night in the suite, walked over to the small oak desk next to the dining table, sat in its green leather tulip chair, opened his briefcase, and started reviewing the contents of his folder again.

Valera stood in front of the two sofas, turned a slow circle, and counted the doors in the suite. There were three: the one that led back out to the corridor, one for Peterson’s room, and, she hoped, one for hers.

‘Where can I freshen up?’ she asked.

Peterson gestured behind him without looking up. ‘The room on the left is yours,’ he said. Then he checked his watch. ‘We need to leave in fifty minutes.’

‘I’ll try to be done by then,’ Valera replied, doing nothing to hide the sarcasm in her voice.

Peterson grunted in response, no longer paying attention to her.

Chapter 60

Chapter 60

Knox heard footsteps walking towards his cell. He had no idea how many hours he’d been languishing in the belly of Leconfield House but his stomach told him it was morning and he’d been there through the night. He hoped that whoever was coming to see him, and whatever they had planned to do to him, they were bringing him breakfast.

He swung his legs off the mattress and stood up as the door opened and White stepped into the room.

Before he could say anything, Knox said, ‘It’s Peterson, isn’t it?’

White closed the door behind him and nodded.