‘Mr Novak!’ Ekaterina repeats her question. ‘Will you take my case? Yes or no?’
‘Let me think about it. I’ve thought about it. No.’
‘What?’ She looks staggered. ‘Why not?’
‘I still don’t believe you’re telling me the whole story, and even if you are, there are three problems.’
‘And what are they?’
‘The entire proposition is crazy, crazier and craziest.’
‘You never intended to agree, did you?’
I remain silent.
‘Then why did you have me tell my story?’
‘Well, I fancied a laugh and I was enjoying the champagne.’
For a moment, I see the livid Ekaterina who regarded me with such fury when we met at my house and I told her I thought something was off. But watching her now, I see that anger seep away, slowly replaced by something smoother.
Guile.
‘So you’re just going to leave, Mr Novak?’
I nod. She shrugs.
‘Okey-dokey, Joe.’
I stand and unwrap the quilt from my shoulders. Place it on my chair.
‘By the way,’ she says. ‘At the Diana memorial, what did you say to the Princess?’
‘None of your business.’
‘Because it sounded to me like you were telling her you did your best. Which is another curious English expression. Roughly translated, it means I failed.’
‘Like I said before, I was failed.’
She watches me with smiling eyes as she takes another sip of champagne. ‘Sure, sure.’
I’m hovering when I should be walking, but something about her tells me she’s about to play a card, and despite my better judgement, I want to see if it’s an ace or a joker.
‘You see,’ she continues, ‘from what I heard and read and researched, well, looks like you found the organisations responsible for the murder of Diana. But not the individuals.’
‘It was a long time ago. Most of them are dead.’
‘Only most of them?’
‘Two disappeared. One of them turned up dead in Jakarta three years ago.’
She takes another deliberately slow sip of wine. ‘And then there was one.’
I sit back down. ‘You’re bluffing.’
‘Oh, if you believed that you’d be on your way out of the door.’
‘Tell me what you know.’
She arches an eyebrow.
I take a breath. ‘Please.’
‘No!’ she snaps. ‘We tried that game. Me telling you everything I know. Wasn’t much fun. You seemed very pleased with yourself at the end of it. Well, off you fuck.’
I hold her stare and after a few seconds say, ‘How could you possibly know?’
‘It’s a mystery,’ she replies. ‘But it’s almost as though I’ve moved in circles of people who make it their business to know about such individuals.’
I study her face to see if she’s overplaying her hand. It’s obvious she’s enjoying the situation, but I can’t discern anything more.
I get to my feet again. ‘Goodbye, Miss Romanova. I’m sorry things didn’t work out for us.’
She says nothing. Gives me a wave by waggling the fingers of her right hand.
I fasten the middle button of my suit jacket, turn and walk away. As I reach the doors leading inside the building, she speaks two words.
I stop dead.
The words are a name. And the name is that of the one man implicated in the murder of Diana who remains unaccounted for. He could be anywhere in the world and maybe he died years ago. But the fact that Ekaterina knows him, and implicitly knows something about him, suggests her card was an ace.
I stride back to the table. She says, ‘Here’s the new deal. You find Fenton and I tell you everything I know about the man you seek.’
‘You might know nothing.’
‘I might.’ She nods enthusiastically. Childishly. ‘But those are my terms. Oh . . .’ She pouts sarcastically. ‘Don’t look so cross, Mr Novak. We’re about to have more champagne overlooking the Seine. You could at least pretend to be happy.’
‘I’m delirious,’ I tell her and sit back down. ‘I’m helping a former Russian spy track down loot belonging to the Kremlin so she can get very, very rich. What’s not to love?’
Ekaterina doesn’t smile, but she regards me, thoughtfully, for several seconds. ‘If it would make you feel any better, once the gold and diamonds and the rest of the haul are found, you can keep them.’
‘Are you serious?’
‘If it means that much to you, yes. I’ll finance the foundation some other way.’
‘I thought your whole plan from the outset was for you to get your hands on the Romanov treasure.’
‘I only want one thing that was lost all those years ago. Something of almost no intrinsic value.’
I’m suddenly glad I stayed. ‘What is it? What would you go to so much trouble for? What would you give up an absolute fortune for? What is it you really want?’
‘All I want, Mr Novak . . .’ She pauses, then nods, as if to herself, ‘Is the Romanov Code.’