‘Tell him you’re staying with me,’ said the man. ‘Tell him, or I will blow your cover.’

‘You wouldn’t.’

A whisper in her ear. ‘I would.’

Kuznetsov had stepped towards her then. ‘We go now.’

‘I see you’ve met my little friend, Andrey.’ The man stood up from his bar stool, limbs unfolding, all nonchalance. ‘I’m sorry to do this, old boy, really I am. But I very much need this girl’s company, just for a few minutes.’

‘Maurice.’ Kuznetsov’s face moved into an approximation of a smile.

The two men shared the briefest of hugs, but Casey sensed the tension flaring between them. She almost stepped towards Kuznetsov, but the grip on her arm tightened again.

Then the Russian shrugged, stepped back. ‘If you insist, Delacroix.’

Kuznetsov turned on his heel, ignoring Casey. He strode out of the door of the club, clicking his fingers at one of the girls sitting at a table outside. The girl stood up sharply, and shimmied after him, heels clacking on the pavement.

‘You just blew weeks of work,’ Casey stared after the Russian. ‘I only needed one fact. You . . .’

‘I saved your life,’ Delacroix shrugged. ‘That man likes girls to scream as he fucks them. And his bodyguards are chosen to be deaf.’

‘Well, what about her?’ Casey gestured at the girl tottering towards the tender, precarious in her heels.

‘You can’t,’ Delacroix said thoughtfully, ‘save everyone.’

The Brazilian reappeared beside them. ‘He wasn’t up for the Kazakhstan deal, Maurice.’

‘No,’ Delacroix murmured after the man had moved on. ‘He wouldn’t be. But thank you for asking anyway. Drink, my dear?’

Delacroix was a fixer, Casey learned later. One of the small group of men around the world who put together deals worth billions, taking a slice every time. By the time Casey met him in Monaco, he had his own vast fortune, taking cut after cut after cut.

He was charming, amoral. Made her laugh that evening, and every evening after.

‘You owe me,’ he said, hours later that night, as he kissed her hand goodbye. And he was a man who called in his promises, she thought. Honour among thieves, or something close to it.

They met, now and again. His tentacles reached everywhere.

‘Never write about me,’ he had ordered that night. ‘That’s the deal, for saving your life.’

‘I don’t know that you did.’

‘I did, my girl. I did.’

She had kept her promise, half-believing him. Now and again, he rang her – from strange time zones, never the same number – with a clue or a tip. They always offered up gold.

Like many of the very richest, he liked having a journalist to call. Not quite a pet, but tame. More or less.

She didn’t know how he had peered through her veil that night, but he was the only one who ever had.

‘Delacroix.’

‘Miss Benedict.’

‘Are you well?’

‘Very.’