Part 1 (2/2)

'Perry, allow me to present my good friend and patron, Mr Dima Dima from Russia,' said Mark, injecting a ring of ceremony into his unctuous voice. 'Dima thought you played a pretty nifty match out there, am I right, sir? As a fine connoisseur of the game of tennis, he's been watching you highly appreciatively, I think I may say, Dima.' from Russia,' said Mark, injecting a ring of ceremony into his unctuous voice. 'Dima thought you played a pretty nifty match out there, am I right, sir? As a fine connoisseur of the game of tennis, he's been watching you highly appreciatively, I think I may say, Dima.'

'Wanna game?' Dima inquired, without taking his brown, apologetic gaze off Perry, who by now was hovering awkwardly at his full height.

'Hi,' said Perry, a bit breathlessly, and shoved out a sweated hand. Dima's was the hand of an artisan turned to fat, tattooed with a small star or asterisk on the second knuckle of the thumb. 'And this is Gail Perkins, my partner in crime,' he added, feeling a need to slow the pace a bit.

But before Dima could respond, Mark had let out a snort of sycophantic protest. 'Crime, Perry?' he objected. 'Don't you believe this man, Gail! You did a dandy dandy job out there, and that's straight. A couple of those backhand pa.s.sing shots were up there with the G.o.ds, right, Dima? You said so yourself. We were watching from the shop. Closed circuit.' job out there, and that's straight. A couple of those backhand pa.s.sing shots were up there with the G.o.ds, right, Dima? You said so yourself. We were watching from the shop. Closed circuit.'

'Mark says you play Queen's,' Dima said, the dolphin smile still directed at Perry, the voice thick and deep and guttural, and vaguely American.

'Well, that was a few years back now,' said Perry modestly, still buying time.

'Dima recently acquired Three Chimneys, right, Dima?' Mark said, as if this news somehow made the proposition of a game more compelling. 'Finest location this side of the island, right, Dima? Got great plans for it, we hear. And you two are in Captain Cook, I believe, one of the best cabins in the resort, in my opinion.'

They were.

'Well, there you go. You're neighbours, right, Dima? Three Chimneys is perched slap on the tip of the peninsula across the bay from you. The last major undeveloped property on the island but Dima's going to put that right, correct, sir? There's talk of a share issue with preference given to the inhabitants, which strikes me as a pretty decent idea. Meanwhile, you're indulging in a bit of rough-and-ready camping, I hear. Hosting a few like-minded friends and family. I admire that. We all do. For a person of your means, we call that true grit.'

'Wanna game?'

'Doubles?' Perry asked, extricating himself from the intensity of Dima's stare in order to peer dubiously at Gail.

But Mark, having achieved his bridgehead, pressed home his advantage: 'Thank you, Perry, no doubles for Dima, I'm afraid,' he interjected smartly. 'Our friend here plays singles only, correct, sir? You're a self-reliant man. You like to be responsible for your own errors, you told me once. Those were your very words to me not so long ago, and I've taken them to heart.'

Seeing that Perry was by now torn but also tempted, Gail rallied to his rescue: 'Don't worry about me, Perry. If you want to play a singles, go ahead, I'll be fine.'

'Perry, I do not believe you should be reluctant to take this gentleman on,' Mark insisted, ramming his case home. 'If I was a betting man, I'd be pushed which of you to favour, and that's a living fact.'

Was that a limp limp as Dima walked away? That slight dragging of the left foot? Or was it just the strain of carting that huge upper body around all day? as Dima walked away? That slight dragging of the left foot? Or was it just the strain of carting that huge upper body around all day?

Was it here too that Perry first became aware of the two white men loitering at the gateway to the court with nothing to do? One with his hands loosely linked behind his back, the other with his arms folded across his chest? Both wearing trainers? The one blond and baby-faced, the other dark-haired and languid?

If so, then only subconsciously, he grudgingly maintained, to the man who called himself Luke, and the woman who called herself Yvonne, ten days later when the four of them were sitting at an oval dining table in the bas.e.m.e.nt of a pretty terrace house in Bloomsbury.

They had been driven there in a black cab from Gail's flat in Primrose Hill by a large, genial man in a beret and an earring who said his name was Ollie. Luke had opened the door to them, Yvonne stood waiting behind Luke. In a thickly carpeted hall that smelled of fresh paint, Perry and Gail had their hands shaken, were courteously thanked by Luke for coming, and led downstairs to this converted bas.e.m.e.nt with its table, six chairs and a kitchenette. Frosted windows, shaped in a half-moon and set high in the exterior wall, flickered to the shadowy feet of pa.s.sing pedestrians on the pavement overhead.

They were next deprived of their mobiles and invited to sign a declaration under the Official Secrets Act. Gail the lawyer read the text and was outraged. 'Over my dead body,' she exclaimed, whereas Perry, with a mumbled 'what's the difference?', signed it impatiently away. After making a couple of deletions and inking in wording of her own, Gail signed under protest. The lighting in the bas.e.m.e.nt consisted of a single wan lamp hanging over the table. The brick walls exuded a faint scent of old port wine.

Luke was courtly, clean-shaven, mid-forties and to Gail's eye too small. Male spies, she told herself with a false jocularity brought on by nervousness, should come a size larger. With his upright posture, sharp grey suit and little horns of greying hair flicked up above the ears, he reminded her more of a gentleman jockey on his best behaviour.

Yvonne on the other hand could not have been much older than Gail. She was prissy in Gail's initial perception of her, but in a blue-stocking sort of way beautiful. With her boring business suit, bobbed dark hair and no make-up, she looked older than she needed and, for a female spy, again in Gail's determinedly frivolous judgement, too earnest by half.

'So you didn't actually recognize them as bodyguards bodyguards,' Luke suggested, his trim head eagerly switching between the two of them across the table. 'You didn't say to each other, when you were alone, for instance: ”h.e.l.lo, that was a bit odd, this fellow Dima, whoever he is, seems to have got himself some close protection,” as it were?'

Is that really how Perry and I talk to each other? Gail thought. I didn't know.

'I saw saw the men, obviously,' Perry conceded. 'But if you're asking, did I make anything of them, the answer's no. Probably two fellows looking for a game, I thought, if I thought anything' and plucking earnestly at his brow with his long fingers 'I mean you don't just think the men, obviously,' Perry conceded. 'But if you're asking, did I make anything of them, the answer's no. Probably two fellows looking for a game, I thought, if I thought anything' and plucking earnestly at his brow with his long fingers 'I mean you don't just think bodyguards bodyguards straight off, do you? Well, straight off, do you? Well, you you people may. That's the world you live in, I a.s.sume. But if you're an ordinary citizen, it doesn't cross your mind.' people may. That's the world you live in, I a.s.sume. But if you're an ordinary citizen, it doesn't cross your mind.'

'So how about you, Gail?' Luke inquired with brisk solicitude. 'You're in and out of the law courts all day. You see the wicked world in its awful glory. Did you you have your suspicions about them?' have your suspicions about them?'

'If I was aware of them at all, I probably thought they were a couple of blokes giving me the eye, so I ignored them,' Gail replied.

But this didn't do at all for Yvonne, the teacher's pet. 'But that evening evening, Gail, mulling over the day' was she Scottish? Could well be, thought Gail, who prided herself on her mynah bird's ear for voices 'did you really really not make anything of two spare men hovering in attendance?' not make anything of two spare men hovering in attendance?'

'It was our first proper night in the hotel,' said Gail in a surge of nervous exasperation. 'Perry had booked us Candlelight Dinner on the Captain's Deck, OK? We had stars and a full moon and mating bullfrogs in full cry and a moonpath that ran practically to our table. Do you honestly suppose we spent the evening gazing into one another's eyes and talking about Dima's minders? I mean, give us a break' and fearing she had sounded ruder than she intended 'all right, briefly briefly, we did did talk about Dima. He's one of those people who stay on the retina. One minute he was our first Russian oligarch, the next Perry was flagellating himself for agreeing to play a singles with him and wanting to phone the pro and say the game was off. I told him I'd danced with men like Dima and they had the most amazing technique. That shut you up, didn't it, Perry, dear?' talk about Dima. He's one of those people who stay on the retina. One minute he was our first Russian oligarch, the next Perry was flagellating himself for agreeing to play a singles with him and wanting to phone the pro and say the game was off. I told him I'd danced with men like Dima and they had the most amazing technique. That shut you up, didn't it, Perry, dear?'

Separated from each other by a gap as wide as the Atlantic Ocean they had recently crossed, yet thankful to be unburdening themselves before two professionally inquisitive listeners, Perry and Gail resumed their story.

Quarter to seven next morning. Mark was standing waiting for them at the top of the stone steps, clad in his best whites and clasping two cans of refrigerated tennis b.a.l.l.s and a paper cup of coffee.

'I was dead afraid you guys would oversleep,' he said excitedly. 'Listen, we're fine, no bother. Gail, how are you today? Very peachy, if I may say so. After you, Perry, sir. My pleasure. What a day, eh? What a day.'

Perry led the way up the second flight to where the path turned left. As he turned with it he came face to face with the same two men in bomber jackets who had been loitering the previous evening. They were posted either side of the flowered archway that led like a bridal walk to the door of the centre court, which was a world to itself, enclosed on four sides by canvas screens and twenty-foot-high hedges of hibiscus.

Seeing the three of them approach, the fair-haired man with the baby face took a half-pace forward and with a mirthless smile opened out his hands in the cla.s.sic gesture of one man about to frisk another. Puzzled, Perry came to a halt at his full height, not yet within frisking distance but a good six feet short, with Gail beside him. As the man took another step forward, Perry took one back, taking Gail with him and exclaiming, 'What the h.e.l.l's all this?' effectively to Mark, since neither the baby face nor his darker-haired colleague showed any sign of having heard, let alone understood, his question.

'Security, Perry,' Mark explained, pressing past Gail to murmur rea.s.suringly into Perry's ear. 'Routine.'

Perry remained where he stood, craning his neck forward and sideways while he digested this advice.

'Whose security exactly? I don't get it. Do you?' to Gail. security exactly? I don't get it. Do you?' to Gail.

'Me neither,' she agreed.

'Dima's security, Perry. Whose do you think? He's a high-roller. Big-time international. These boys are just obeying orders.'

'Your orders, Mark?' turning and peering down on him accusingly through his spectacles. orders, Mark?' turning and peering down on him accusingly through his spectacles.

'Dima's orders, not mine, Perry, don't be stupid. They're Dima's boys. Go with him everywhere.'

Perry returned his attention to the blond bodyguard. 'Do you gents speak English, by any chance?' he asked. And when the baby face refused to alter in any way, except to harden: 'He appears to speak no English. Or hear it, apparently.'

'For Christ's sakes, Perry,' Mark pleaded, his beery complexion turning a darker shade of crimson. 'One little look in your bag, it's over. It's nothing personal. Routine, like I said. Same as any airport.'

Perry again applied to Gail: 'Do you have a view on this?'

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