stood at the furthest urinal. He glanced over his shoulder.
‘I’m sorry,’ Victor said. ‘She’s going to be sick. You don’t mind, do you?’
The man didn’t break stream. He cast his gaze over Francesca and responded with an approving nod. He continued to stare at her while Victor took her into one of the cubicles. He toed down the toilet seat, sat Francesca on it, and closed and locked the cubicle door behind him.
‘I—’
He put a finger against her lips and she stopped talking. He waited, hearing the overweight man zip up his flies and then leave without a visit to the sinks. Victor took his finger away.
‘Am I drunk?’ she asked.
‘In a way. But you feel okay, don’t you?’
‘I feel great.’
He fished Francesca’s phone from her purse. She watched him, but didn’t speak, her head periodically nodding forward before she set it back again. He scrolled through her sent messages. She had sent two messages to the same number. The first had been after they had passed security at 07:33 p.m. The second had been sent twelve minutes later at 07:45 p.m. Victor and Francesca had arrived at the embassy at 07:30 p.m. in sight of Hart and Coughlin. The first message had been sent at the earliest opportunity as the time it took get through the security checks couldn’t be predicted. The next had been sent at a specific time. Leeson had said there would be regular updates. So there would be another at 08:00 p.m. and another fifteen minutes later and so on. Both of the messages Francesca had sent contained just a single word, different each time. Each was followed by a message back from Hart soon afterwards: confirm.
The clock on the phone gave the time as 7.54 p.m.
He adjusted Francesca’s seating position and rested her head against the wall of the cubicle. She seemed happy enough like that and wasn’t likely to fall off the toilet seat.
‘I’m going to leave you here now,’ he explained, ‘but I’ll be back soon. Okay?’
‘Why?’
‘Because the less people see of you, the better.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you can barely walk. You’ve had a strong dose of Flunitrazepam and you’ve made it worse by drinking alcohol with it. You just need to stay here and wait for me.’
She frowned. ‘But the… the drug was for you, not me.’
‘Yes, but I did a magic trick. You wanted to see one, remember?’
She nodded. The frown disappeared. She looked confused. ‘Yes, but…?’
‘And it was a good trick. You didn’t see me palm the capsule instead of swallowing it and you didn’t see me empty the capsule into your drink, did you?’
‘No.’
‘So it was a good trick, wasn’t it?’
She smiled. ‘Yes.’
‘Now you can do a trick of your own and stay here for a few minutes, okay?’
‘Okay.’
The men’s room door opened and Victor put a finger to Francesca’s lips. She smiled. Two minutes later they were alone again. Victor reached up, gripped the top of the cubicle wall and pulled himself up, hooking his left leg over and then his right. It was difficult to swivel his torso around because of the vest restricting his movement, but it wasn’t enough to stop him. He dropped down on the other side.
‘Just wait there,’ he said. ‘I’ll be back soon. Don’t make a sound. Okay?’
She didn’t respond. Either she had passed out or she was obeying his request, but as long as she stayed quiet he didn’t care which it was. He exited the bathroom and headed down the hallway past the busts and paintings. In the entrance hall he joined a short queue of new arrivals handing over their coats. When he reached the front he handed over the ticket belonging to the tall man with white hair whose pocket he had picked while he was distracted by Francesca stumbling – tripping – into his wife.
‘Tan raincoat and fur,’ he said to the attendant.
The young man who took his ticket nodded and left to seek out the garments from wherever it was they stored them. It wouldn’t be far. There would be a utility room or closet nearby. The embassy would throw enough parties to warrant the space and the stature of the guests would ensure the room’s proximity to the entrance hall. No one liked to wait. The rich and powerful wouldn’t stand for it.
He returned in less than three minutes with the white-haired man’s raincoat and his wife’s fur. Victor took them, thanked the attendant, and returned to the men’s room. It was empty. He hung the