Michael Dobbs - The Final Cut

'And good friends,' Nures responded, 'to whom we owe more than gratitude.' Theophilos wrenched the towel from around his neck and with an impatient wave of his hand dismissed the barber.

'What's your problem?' Dimitri badgered as the door closed. He was seated at the monitor on the Bishop's ornate mahogany desk, his thick fingers tapping out instructions on the keyboard. The screen sprang to life. 'Market's up, it likes all this talk of peace. And Swiss interest rates rose the other day. It's been a good week for us.'

'Political capital, that's what we must watch, little brother,' Theophilos replied, scratching the roots of his newly trimmed beard. 'If we are to rid ourselves of this fool of a President we need a taste of chaos. Peace at his hand is about as welcome as an outbreak of cholera.' He glanced at his watch. A television interview in ten minutes. He exchanged the Rolex for a plain leather band and climbed back into the dark bishop's cassock, hanging around his neck the heavy crucifix, once more the simple man of God. 'So what are we to do?' 'Pray. To God in Heaven and any other gods you can find in the back of your closet. Get down on your knees. Humble yourself. And beg that the Turks will be caught trying to fuck us up once more.' The telephone warbled. From the rear seat of the Citroen limousine on the congested streets of Paris, the businessman stretched to answer it, listening carefully. He said nothing, his attention focused absolutely on the message and its consequences, which were clear. The quarter of a million dollars he'd already handed to – what was the name of that Turkish quisling? He'd already forgotten – had been thrown away, the gamble had been lost. And it hurt. Even in the oil business, a quarter of a million unreceipted dollars makes a heavy hole in the petty cash account. Yet that was the least of the pain, for it seemed certain that he was about to lose more, far more. Thousands of millions of dollars' worth of lost opportunity. Oil by the seaful. It seemed he would never get to drill his wells.

He replaced the receiver without a word, hearing it latch gently into place. The darkened glass and heavy noise insulation of the limousine cocooned him from the chaos on the street beyond. This was a sheltered world, a world of privilege and security, protected from the outside. Except for the phone. And the messages it brought.

He was a controlled man, emotionally desiccated, with his appetites reserved for only one thing. Oil. The Earth's milk. More precious to him than his own blood. With a rage as silent as the engine at idle and his fist balled like a mallet, he began pounding the leather arm rest, heedless of the pain, until it broke. She rolled to one side and, as the sheet slipped across the contours of her body, he felt himself shaking inside once more. Until he had met Maria he hadn't been sure quite where his loins were, now they seemed to be everywhere, vibrating with an extraordinary energy every time he undid a button or clasp. In Maria he had found an ideal partner, a woman of natural curiosity and wit who was not afraid to acknowledge the shortcomings of her experience and was anxious to overcome them. They were explorers, trekking together through new territories and relishing the joys of discovery.

He was surprised he felt no guilt, for he knew now that his marriage was over. It was form with no substance, his wife the absentee landlord of his loyalties, his house no longer a home, and it was not enough. He had tried many things to fill the void in his life – ambition, esteem, endeavour, achievement – but nothing would work while he was alone. The presence of Maria Passolides in his world – and in his bed – had made him realize that.

As she propped herself up on the pillow, he watched transfixed as a bead of sweat trickled its way from around her neck past the creases of olive skin between her breasts. 'What are you thinking, white man?' she asked, amused.

With the point of his little finger he traced the passage of the droplet, which had made a sudden rush for her navel. 'I'm thinking about what I can do for you.'

Her eyes closed as his finger slid slowly past her belly button, her breath quickening. 'Christ, what did you have for breakfast?' she panted. The blood was beginning to rush once more, her body desperate to make up for so much lost time. Reluctantly his finger side-tracked, diverted to the outside of the thigh and then was gone. 'Not this,' he muttered. 'You came to me for help. About the graves.'

'Sure,' she said, 'but why the sudden hurry?' She sought his hand but he rolled back to give them both some breathing space.

'We have little time left' he continued. 'If we don't get an answer during the next eight weeks, before the peace agreement is signed, it will never happen. After that no one will be interested, not in this country. Something else will be in the news. They'll say they've done their job, wash their hands. Cyprus will go back to being a faraway island where it might be nice one day to take a holiday in search of young wine and old ruins. Nothing more. It must be now, or we'll never find the answer.' 'So what do we do?'

'We make a fuss. Put on some pressure. Try to stir up a few old memories.'

Instinctively, as she thought about his words, she pulled the sheet up to her neck. Over the last few days she'd tended to forget the reason why she had originally sought his help, distracted by the discovery of how versatile his help could be. They had made love in his kitchen chair that first time and in her exuberance she had torn off the arms. After they had finished laughing she had volunteered to take it back to Habitat, but then she changed her mind, deciding she would never be able to keep a straight face when inevitably they asked how it had happened. Somehow she felt sure everyone would guess simply by the way she smiled. So they'd pushed the pieces into the comer and tried the other kitchen chair, and the Chesterfield in his study where her damp skin stuck to the leather and made a ripping sound as it peeled off. He'd only invited her to bed his wife's bed – when it seemed there was something more than sweating flesh behind his willingness to see her. He'd not offered help in exchange for sex any more than she had offered sex for his help, but their separate motives were becoming more intertwined and confusing, so much so that she'd had to be reminded of her original purpose in knocking on his door. She felt a pang of guilt, but orgasms could be so distracting. And such fun.

'If only I'd met you while I was still Foreign Secretary this might have been so much easier,' he said wistfully. 'I could've unlocked some doors from the inside rather than having to kick them down from out in the street.'

'But then you would be deceiving me officially instead of personally.'

'What do you mean deceiving you personally?' He sounded affronted.

'That cup of tea you offered me the first day we met and you invited me into your kitchen? I still haven't had it.' She leaned over and kissed him before rolling out of bed.

'Now get up, Makepeace. There's work to be done.' Evanghelos Passolides sat alone in his darkened restaurant. The last diner had long gone and he'd made a perfunctory effort at cleaning up, but had been overcome with melancholy. He felt deserted by everything he loved. He hadn't seen Maria for days. And his own Government in Nicosia was about to give away a large chunk of his beloved homeland to the Turk. Was this what he had fought for, what George and Eurypides had died for? He sat amongst all the memorabilia, drunk, an empty bottle of Commanderia at his elbow. A glass was lying on its side, the table cloth stained red with droplets of what many years before might have been blood. He sobbed. In one hand he held a crumpled photograph of his brothers, two tousle-haired boys, smiling. In the other he held a much burnished Webley, the pistol which had been taken from the body of a British lieutenant and with which he had always promised to exact his revenge. Before he had become a cripple.