‘I’ll ask the questions, Dobby. So you followed me because I look like I know what I’m talking about. And that’s why you were there in the first place, right? Looking for someone like me.’ The unlit cigarette between his fingers seemed a deadly weapon. Reece wondered if he’d made a mistake, but it was done now. Besides, the fat bastard walked the walk. He’d tailed Reece half a mile across London, unseen. He doubted Chester Smith could have done that.
‘Andy used to go there,’ he said. ‘Old Miles has gatherings, or did have. “Conferences,” he called them. Once a month or so. Andy used to go. Some of the old guys there, he used them as sources.’
‘For what?’
‘He was writing a book.’
‘About what?’
‘Putin. He was a journalist, Andy was. He had a lot of material, he’d done a lot of research, especially about Putin’s early days. He knew exactly the kind of man Putin is, what he’s capable of. And Chester Smith was right, he’ll be after payback if one of those assassins he sent here was killed. But Smith was wrong that it’s something he’s planning. It’s already happening. It’s already started.’
‘What are you talking about, little man?’
‘Putin had Andy murdered,’ said Reece Nesmith III. ‘He had him killed.’ And then – he couldn’t help it – he started to cry.
The taxi taking her home, which she was sharing with Peter Judd – though not as far as he probably hoped – became snarled in a Yellow Vest gathering. Men holding banners had overflowed the pavement, whether by accident or design was hard to say, though if the former, it added a layer of irony to the slogans about taking back control. When the driver sounded his horn, the backlash was immediate: fists were raised and obscenities unleashed. Someone thumped the bonnet, and the driver revved the engine, and the way was cleared, though the muttering from the front seat continued for some while. It might have become more than muttering if Judd hadn’t barked ‘Ladies present!’
‘Preserving me from a fit of the vapours?’ she asked. ‘What a gent.’
‘One of the many tragedies of feminism is that women can no longer suffer gallantry.’
‘I’d be grateful if you’d spare me the others. I’m due in the office at seven.’
Judd nodded in appreciation, then gestured towards the back windscreen. ‘Do you have people among them?’
‘People?’
‘People. Among our assembled brethren back there.’
‘I’m not sure they’re brethren of mine,’ Diana said. ‘Or of each other, come to that. A coalition of the furious is how I’d describe it.’
‘Which sidesteps my question, which is an answer in itself, isn’t it?’ His brow furrowed, a familiar harbinger of weighty opinion. ‘Are we sure that falls under your remit?’
‘You’re asking whether riotous assemblies are a threat to national security? Let me think about that. Yes.’
‘Because you’re falling into the common misapprehension that these folk are enemies of democracy. Whereas in fact they’re champions of the new democracy, that’s all. One that will ultimately see power being handed over to a wider spectrum of stakeholders.’
‘You’ve changed your tune,’ she said. ‘A few years ago, you’d have described them as a rabble. But of course, that was when your own ambition ran along more traditional lines.’
‘Things change,’ he said smoothly. ‘Conditions change. The old way of doing things no longer applies. There are new realities of power evolving in front of our eyes, and they’re part of it. Yellow, you might say, is the new black.’
‘A delicious irony if you happen to be black, I’m sure,’ said Diana. ‘Come to think of it, maybe irony is the new black. There’s no shortage.’ She glanced his way. ‘It used to be you had the hard right on one side, the hard left on the other. Nowadays, they meet round the back. I suppose racists and anti-Semites are always going to find common ground, but I wish they wouldn’t march up and down on it chanting.’
‘They’re disgruntled citizens.’
‘Who vent their disgruntlement in the traditional way, by finding weaker citizens to bully. Please don’t tell me you’re planning on figureheading their movement, Peter. That would leave us seriously at odds.’
‘Which would never do, would it?’ The absence of light in his eyes belied the tone of voice he’d adopted. ‘So let’s not fight. Though there is another possibly contentious topic I’m going to have to raise now.’
‘Damien Cantor.’
‘You never cease to amaze me. Yes, Damien Cantor.’
‘Who didn’t exactly endear himself to me. Or did you not notice that?’
