“They tried to torture and kill me,” the Scorpion said quietly. Braithwaite shook his head and looked down at his feet. His head hung awkwardly from his neck like a broken fixture.

“I’m sorry,” Braithwaite said.

“Sorry doesn’t cut it, Ralph,” the Scorpion growled. “This is Company business. They don’t play by Queensberry rules. According to the book, I’m supposed to bring you around the corner,” using the intelligence slang phrase for killing.

“I don’t give a d-d-damn about your bloody Company rules, Nicky. I don’t give a damn about the bloody Yanks, or the bloody FO and their rotten little pension. I don’t give a bloody hoot for the UK and Watney’s Ale and thatched villages and shepherd’s bloody pie. Here is where I belong, Nicky.” Braithwaite looked up, his eyes gleaming. He pulled a snapshot out of his pocket and gazed at it longingly, then showed it to the Scorpion. A smooth-faced Arab with brown puppy-dog eyes stared soulfully out of the photo.

“Amair?” the Scorpion asked.

Braithwaite nodded. He glanced again at the photo, put it in his pocket and straightened a little.

“You d-d-do what you have to, Nicky,” Braithwaite said.

“God, Ralph,” the Scorpion breathed, leaning forward.

The two men stared at each other, then Braithwaite closed his eyes and swallowed, his Adam’s apple bobbing like a fishing float. The Scorpion drew closer, the edge of his right hand tingling. A single slice to the temple and he’d have covered his ass. Braithwaite’s lips moved silently. Perhaps he was praying.

“Aw, fuck it,” the Scorpion muttered. He slumped back on the divan and sipped his drink. Braithwaite opened his eyes and squeezed the Scorpion’s arm with bony fingers which trembled like a high-tension wire. Through the whisky, the Scorpion saw the room as amber shadows.

“Did Nuruddin sell the girl to Abdul Sa’ad?” the Scorpion asked.

“I don’t know. But there have been stories about Nuruddin d-d-dealing in white females … and everyone knows about Abdul Sa’ad’s … appetites,” Braithwaite shrugged.

“Yes, tell me about Abdul Sa’ad’s appetites,” the Scorpion murmured, almost to himself.

Braithwaite opened a tin of Dunhill’s and stuffed the tobacco into his pipe. A strand of tobacco fell on the floor. He picked it up and placed it carefully back in the tin. He lit up and puffed until he was wreathed with smoke.

“When Abdul Sa’ad was a baby it was rumored that he was born with t-t-teeth, so that it was almost impossible to find a wet-nurse who could bear the p-p-pain. What made it even w-w-worse was that he was such a greedy little eater that a s-s-single wet-nurse wasn’t enough for him,” Braithwaite said.

“What are you trying to tell me?”

“Who was at the m-m-meeting?” Braithwaite asked. As he puffed, his sunken cheeks made his face look almost skeletal.