Mark Burnell - Gemini

After Komarov there had been other men before Mark, but no relationships. She’d used them to scour herself. It wasn’t making love, it was barely sex. It was just fucking, as emotionally charged as an hour on a treadmill: aerobic, sweaty, occasionally sore, with only a dull muscular ache for a memory. Mark was supposed to have been the same, the next anonymous man in the queue. When she realized she was falling for him she’d actually resented him for the way he made her feel. She’d never wanted a relationship to replace Komarov. She’d wanted him to be her last.

She could have stopped it, she told herself. But she hadn’t. Lately she’d come to believe that was because she couldn’t.

Mark returned from the kitchen. He was carrying a small box wrapped in silver paper. He handed it to her.

She said, ‘I didn’t get you anything. I wasn’t sure you’d remember.’

Inside, there was an antique watch with a chain. She picked it up. Gold, to judge by the weight. There was a crack across the glass.

Mark said, ‘It doesn’t work. And never will.’

Stephanie wasn’t sure how to react. ‘It’s lovely, though.’

‘The hands are frozen. That is the only time it will ever tell.’

Eight minutes past six. As it had been the first time they kissed.

One year to the day.

Frontier News shared a building on Charlotte Street with KKZ, a graphic design agency. KKZ’s offices were graphite and glass, central air-conditioning and espresso machines. Employees worked at the latest Apple Mac flat screens on ergonomically designed chairs from Norway. Frontier News’s office was an attic with three fans, a leaking roof and second-hand furniture bought at a government auction from a bankrupt insurance company.

Gavin Taylor was on the phone, bare feet on the desk, his tilting chair at a precarious angle. He waved Stephanie into the office. Open-plan was how he described it. In other words, he couldn’t afford partitions.

Taylor’s assistant, Melanie, was at her desk, talking to a broad-shouldered red-headed man as she examined a chipped fuchsia fingernail. A lit Lambert & Butler was going in a green glass ashtray stolen from a pub. The heat hadn’t prevented her from applying her customary mask of make-up. ‘Hiya, Steph.’

The man turned around and Stephanie recognized him. David Craig, a Frontier News regular, for whom no assignment was too hazardous.

‘Haven’t seen you for a while. Been away?’

‘Uzbekistan.’

Craig raised an eyebrow. ‘And how is the brother Karimov these days?’

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 Uzbekistan had been a de facto dictatorship under the rule of Islam Karimov, a man who once claimed that he would personally rip off the heads of two hundred people to protect his country’s freedom and stability.

‘It’s business as usual in Tashkent.’

‘And outside Tashkent?’

She faked innocence. ‘How would I know?’

‘All room service at the Holiday Inn, was it?’

Taylor finished his call and wiped sweat from his forehead. ‘Give her a break. At least she comes back with the goods.’ Turning to Stephanie, he said, ‘Last time out, David came back empty-handed from Pakistan. Made it across the border with nothing more than the clothes he was standing in.’

Stephanie knew the bitterness in Taylor’s voice was genuine. Craig was a reckless glory-hunter, a minor public-school product whose lacklustre army career had left him lusting for some kind of heroic validation. In Taylor’s view, the actions of adrenaline junkies like Craig demeaned the lives of men like Andrew Duggdale and James Hunter, co-founders of Frontier News. There were photographs of each dead man on the far wall.

Taylor stepped into a pair of worn docksiders and took her to lunch at an Italian bistro on Charlotte Street. By the time they were inside, sweat had stuck moist patches of his frayed cornflower blue shirt to his shoulders and belly. They settled into a gloomy corner at the rear, beneath a noisy fan. Taylor struggled to light a cigarette, then ordered a bottle of Valpolicella.

‘How’s business?’

He shrugged. ‘The ponces downstairs don’t want us sharing a communal entrance any more. They even offered to pay for one of our own.’

‘That sounds okay.’

‘Bloody pony-tails and polo-necks.’

‘Let me guess. Articulate to the last, you invited them to reconsider.’

He grinned, smoke leaking from his teeth. As far as Stephanie knew, Gavin Taylor was the only person outside Magenta House who knew what she was. Overweight, profane, a heavy drinker it was hard to see what Alexander saw in Taylor. The only thing they had in common was a taste for Rothmans cigarettes. Taylor’s past was in the military and Stephanie had always assumed that Alexander’s was too but she didn’t know that for certain.

‘I’ll put your Uzbekistan stuff out to tender. We might get a nibble. If not, I’ll give it a week or two before I get him to send the cheque. It’ll be the usual amount, I expect, five to seven. It’ll take about a week to rinse it through our books. Is that okay?’

‘That’s fine.’

Stephanie pushed the bulging manila envelope across the table. Inside were the Uzbek photographs and files that she had received from her Magenta House courier at Heathrow.

‘I heard Marrakech wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.’

‘Alexander told you?’

He nodded, then contemplated the tip of his cigarette. ‘I met Mostovoi a couple of times.’

‘Really?’

‘In Berlin, then Dortmund. I was with John Flynn.’

The name rang a bell but the chime was distant. ‘Remind me …’

‘Sentinel Security.’

An arms-dealing firm. With that, a face returned to the name. ‘He had to leave the country, didn’t he?’

‘That’s right. Lives in Switzerland now. But Sentinel’s still going. Doing well, too. Anyway, we were in Berlin. It was before I started Frontier News. John was putting a deal together with some Russians. Mostovoi was the broker. We met a couple of times. Nothing came of it in the end.’

‘What was he like?’

‘Mostovoi? Nice bloke. Good company, especially after a drink. Mind you, even I’m good company after a drink.’

‘Is that what you’ve been told?’

‘Oh, very funny.’

‘What else?’

‘Nothing much, really. To be honest, I was too busy eyeing his girlfriend. Russian, I think she was. An absolute cracker. Hard as nails, mind, but a real eyeful. Can’t remember her name. Still, no matter. I can remember all her important bits.’

‘Have you ever considered joining the twenty-first century, Gavin?’

He slid the cigarette back between his lips. ‘Now why would I want to do that?’

Maclise Road, four in the afternoon. Stephanie let herself in, dumped two bags of shopping on the kitchen table and checked the answer-machine for messages. Nothing.

‘Hey …’

Rosie Chaudhuri was standing in the living room. Magenta House’s rising star and the only female kindred spirit Stephanie had encountered in Petra’s world.

‘Christ! Don’t do that!’

‘Sorry.’

‘You’ll give me a heart attack.’

She smiled apologetically. ‘Yes, that would be inconvenient.’

‘What are you doing here?’

‘I didn’t want to give you the opportunity to put the phone down on me.’

‘Why would I?’

‘We need to talk.’

‘About?’

‘Marrakech. Mostovoi.’

‘How did you get in here?’

Rosie went into the living room, reached into her bag and produced a key, which she offered to Stephanie. It looked familiar. She checked the kitchen drawer where she kept the only spare. Which was still there.

Rosie said, ‘When you first started seeing Mark, Alexander had this copy made. He used to have the place swept once a week.’