here?’
‘Just in case you didn’t hear me before: the answer is no.’
‘I’ll double your fee. You can take the Rolex now and I’ll make a sizeable donation to the bank account of your choice.’
Victor’s lips stayed closed. He didn’t blink.
There was no surprise in Leeson’s expression, but there was some kind of calculation running behind his eyes. He sat still and considered Victor in silence.
‘You invited me here for a reason,’ Victor said. ‘You know who I am. My reputation speaks for itself and I won’t change how I conduct myself for anyone, for any price. No amount of money will send me into a situation that I have not fully evaluated beforehand. But, as long as I am able to prepare for a job properly and unrushed, there is nothing I won’t do for you. I won’t kill the woman because I am here to discuss taking a job. I’m not here to do a job. When you require my services you present the work to me in a manner of my choosing and I, not you, will determine the appropriate fee after I have that information. That fee will not be up for negotiation.’
‘You make a lot of demands for a man being interviewed.’
‘I’m not the only one being interviewed.’
Leeson nodded, neither displeased nor pleased. He said, ‘Then I think this conversation has come to its natural conclusion.’
TWENTY
Victor climbed out of the limousine. The air was cold. The wind rippled his jacket. He heard a jet pass overhead. As he shut the door behind him he thought about the marksman lying on the hard ground approximately one hundred metres to his left. He would no doubt be using a thermal imaging scope on which Victor would appear as a stark white shape against a black background. Victor preferred heat as black against a white background, but he knew he was in the minority. It would take a little over three-hundredths of a second for a high-velocity rifle round to cover the distance between where the marksman lay and where Victor stood. The sound wave produced by the gunshot would take more than twice that time to cover the distance. Victor wouldn’t hear it. He would already be dead when the sound reached his ears. He would never know a shot had been fired. He would just die. One second alive; before the next second was out, dead.
Not a bad way to go, considering. He knew that better than most.
But the bald-headed driver didn’t exit the car, so Victor knew he wasn’t going to die just yet. If Leeson had given the marksman the order to fire, the driver would know about it, and he wouldn’t have stayed in his seat. He wouldn’t have been able to see from there. He would have climbed out. He would have wanted to watch.
As Victor crossed the killing zone he saw Francesca looking his way. If she knew of any prearranged course of action, she wouldn’t want to see it go down, whatever he had done to her. She didn’t have the driver’s fondness for violence or Victor’s detachment from it.
He climbed into the back of the Saab taxi and shuffled on the back seat so he sat behind her. She was rubbing her throat. It would be sore for several days. She stared at him via the rear view.
‘How did it go?’ she asked, not because she was interested but because he made her nervous and conversation always induced less fear than silence.
‘Hand me your phone.’
She hesitated, confused and scared. ‘Why?’
‘Because I have a gun and you don’t.’
Francesca continued to stare for a moment, then twisted and tugged on the phone until she had freed it from the holder on the dash. She looked at it and hesitated, and Victor could read her thoughts clearly enough. He didn’t say anything because he didn’t need to.
Eventually, she swivelled in her seat so she could look at Victor as she held it out for him to take. She gripped one corner between her thumb and index finger and pointed the opposite corner his way to create the maximum distance between her hand and his when he took it from her. She didn’t want his fingers to touch hers.
‘Thank you,’ Victor said.
‘You’re welcome.’
It was a reflexive response, politeness infused into her from an early age. Even now, with someone who had nearly killed her, she couldn’t escape the conditioning.
The phone was clean and unmarked. A thin rectangle of protective transparent plastic covered the screen.