The two Japanese did not return immediately to New York after dropping Louis at Charles de Gaulle. They took a room at Le Bristol, and dined that evening at Dersou on rue Saint-Nicolas, because Paris was always pleasant for a few days. Admittedly, they had not been required to dispose of anyone in a new and interesting way, but into every life a little rain must fall, and they remained hopeful that Louis might need them again before his work was done.

They were, in their way, optimists.

Chapter XXXVIII

Pia Lackner, the estranged daughter of the lawyer Anton Frend, operated from an old brownstone near Blackfriars Bridge, within easy reach of the Inns of Court. Her firm shared the premises with three others, although Lackner’s was the only one specializing in environmental law and human rights. Angel felt more virtuous just by standing in its general vicinity.

He had decided against tackling Lackner on her home ground, opting instead for more neutral territory. He had selected the Black Friar, a nineteenth-century pub that occupied a wedge-shaped building on Queen Victoria Street. A phone call to Lackner’s office informing her that he might have information of interest was enough to draw her out, any concerns that she might have had about meeting a stranger being allayed by the choice of venue and an envelope that Angel had placed in the company mailbox earlier that morning.

The envelope contained a series of documents – provided by the enigmatic Harris – relating to the mining practices of multinational conglomerates in four African countries. A recent judgment by the Supreme Court in London had ruled that a mining company based in the United Kingdom could be held to account for the actions of one of its subsidiaries in Zambia, enabling the case to be held in England, where the claimants believed they had a better chance of achieving a measure of justice. The ruling opened the way for similar suits to proceed against a series of corporations. Lackner’s firm was representing litigants in West Africa who were taking an action against a big oil company for the pollution of their farmland. The firm’s resources were more limited than those of its larger rivals, so any help was likely to be gratefully received.

Angel was already seated at a corner table when Lackner arrived, a cup of coffee and a copy of the Guardian in front of him. Lackner was a small, heavyset woman with very bright blue eyes, and an expression set somewhere between bemused and skeptical, although Angel accepted that he might be the cause of both in this instance, with bemusement appearing to be winning out. Lackner had probably been anticipating an encounter with someone wearing a suit, or at the very least an individual who didn’t look as though he was more familiar with being the client of lawyers rather than their abetter.

‘Mr Angel?’ said Lackner.

He stood to shake her hand.

‘Just Angel.’