‘Fourth or fifth,’ said de Payns, actually relaxing. ‘But the first time I’ve drunk a beer outside my hotel.’

Peter chuckled. ‘The owner is Narek’s dad. The police leave him alone if he’s only selling to Westerners.’

‘American Karaoke?’ added de Payns. ‘That’s a bit harsh. I thought it was the French who were labelled as drunks?’

‘He wanted to call this place The Speakeasy, but he thought he’d better not invite the cops to his door. So, the Yanks get tarred as drinkers. We’ve been called worse.’

‘You sell telecoms gear?’ asked de Payns, assuming it wasn’t true.

‘Yep. Boring as bat shit, and you?’

‘I’m a consultant in the pharma and chemicals industries, currently working on translations,’ said de Payns, sure that Peter didn’t believe him.

‘Translations for their brochures?’

‘For everything,’ said de Payns. ‘If you’re a French or American chemicals maker and you want to be selling in the Stans, you want your websites and your marketing materials to be in Farsi or Urdu or Pashto, or whatever your customers are fluent in.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Peter, raising two fingers at the barman. ‘How’s business?’

‘Busy.’

‘I get exhausted,’ said the American, looking at the pile of money in front of him.

‘They overworking you?’

The American shrugged. ‘It’s the constant travelling, always meeting people but never really knowing them.’

‘It gets tiring,’ said de Payns, now convinced they were talking about the same thing. ‘Getting close to someone, but always for an ulterior motive.’

The beers landed and the barman took a note from Peter’s pile of cash, obviously used to American bar etiquette. De Payns remembered the first time he’d sat at an American bar, in New York, and the barmaid’s hand reached out to his friend’s pile of money and his first reaction was to stop her.

‘Lonely too,’ said Peter. ‘You might have loved ones back home, but you’re putting all this energy into people you don’t know.’

‘And it’s false energy,’ said de Payns, sipping. ‘But your loved ones back home aren’t getting any of your attention.’

They looked at one another. Were they going to discuss family? Tell each other lies about their loved ones?

Peter’s face closed. ‘Hear that?’ he asked, raising a finger, as ‘Hungry Like the Wolf’ started playing. ‘That’s Duran Duran. Genuine eighties.’

CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

CHAPTER

FORTY-NINE

The walk to Raven’s flat was deliberately slow. He stopped at a shop and bought a bunch of blue flowers, and saw a selection of Turkish delight in a deli service area. He bought a cardboard tray of the white-dusted sweet, paler in colour than the European version, then continued on to the flat along streets lively with cafes and restaurants.

The building was a three-storey apartment block with two units on each level. Raven was on the first floor.