They laid him out on the bed, a dead weight, too heavy by far even for the two of them. Troy managed to get his shoes and trousers off, but they could not turn him, so he lay snoring and twitching, tangled up in his fur coat, with a grubby pair of worn underpants gaping at his loins. Troy pulled an eiderdown over him and left him.
He assumed the woman would vanish as mysteriously as she appeared. They stood a moment in the corridor. She looked both ways like a diligent child practising her kerb drill. He said goodnight and thanked her for her help. She returned his words with a silent, wide-eyed stare. He turned the key in his own door and went in. She followed, put a hand out to his arm.
‘Are you going to tell?’ she asked again.
‘I don’t know. How do you feel about directing traffic in Novaya Zemlya?’
He meant it as a joke. She did not smile. It wasn’t funny.
‘Why don’t you sit down? Take off your coat.’
She did not move. He walked round her and closed the door behind them.
‘OK. Then start with the hat. Work upto the coat.’
She pulled off her cap and sat down, still clutching the cap.
‘I’m Troy,’ he said, almost as though talking to a child.
‘I know. Commander Troy. Royal British Navy.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘I’m not. I’m a policeman.’
‘Commander is a naval rank, is it not?’
‘Except at Scotland Yard, where it’s a police rank. I’m a detective. You are KGB?’
‘No. I’m in the militia,’ she said. ‘Not the KGB. I too am a police officer.’
‘Well, we have something in common after all. Shall we drink to our common cause?’
He turned his back on her while he rooted around for the bottle of ouzo he had bought at Athens airport. It would make a change from vodka, and he’d bet she’d never tasted the stuff in her life. He heard the swish as her coat slid off and the double thumpas her shoes hit the floor. The moan of the springs as she settled back in the chair.
‘What’s your name?’
He turned around. She was sitting curled upwith her toes under her backside, just like his wife used to do, one hand toying with her hair, her head on one side, the small heart-shaped face looking up at him, eyes as big as millwheels in the dimness of the room.
‘Valentina Vassilievna Asimova – but you can call me Vivi.’