where to wait but hadn’t specified an exact time. She was early. He had been earlier.
A case of fossilised eggs had captured Muir’s genuine interest and his reflection in the display’s glass protector informed her of his approach. She acted as though she hadn’t seen him and he approved of the attempt at deception. He did nothing to let her know she’d seen him only because he’d allowed her to, because he wanted her to continue building an inaccurate opinion of him.
‘Hello,’ he said.
She turned, and acted as though a little surprised. ‘Hey.’
‘Are you enjoying the exhibits?’
‘Are you kidding me?’ She put her elbows to her stomach and pulled in her forearms to her chest, clawing her hands in an impression of a Tyrannosaurus rex. ‘I love all that roar-roar stuff.’
She surprised him. ‘What are your thoughts on the hypothesis that the T. rex was a scavenger, not a predator?’
‘I was kidding.’
‘Oh.’
‘Don’t tell me you’re a dinosaur nerd?’
‘I have an interest in natural history.’
She smiled and gave him a doubting look. ‘Keep telling yourself that. I bet you had the dino lunchbox and everything.’
He ignored her and glanced at a procession of schoolchildren filing into the hall.
‘Let’s move on.’
Victor took her into a wildlife photography exhibition for which there was a charge for entry and hence fewer people. The lighting was dim so that the illuminated photographs could be better appreciated. They were almost uniformly spectacular, if the winning shot was uninspiring – a political, instead of an aesthetic choice. He took her to a position from which he could watch the entrance to see who followed. He recounted the phone call with Leeson.
‘He’s still being cautious,’ Muir said when he’d finished.
‘He may want to hire me, but he doesn’t trust me.’
‘Is there going to be another test?’
He shook his head. ‘No. He may not trust me as an individual, but he trusts I can do whatever it is he needs doing.’
‘Any idea yet who the target might be?’
‘No.’
‘I don’t like the idea of you meeting him again without knowing what you’re walking into.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because we’ve pushed our luck once already.’
‘I don’t subscribe to the concept.’
‘Of luck? Then call it whatever you want. I’m talking about factors outside our control here. I assume you subscribe to those?’
He nodded and said, ‘Leeson had the opportunity to kill me in Budapest when I stepped out of his limousine. He didn’t take it, and that was the best chance he’s ever going to get.’
‘If you’re sure you want to go through with this.’
‘I’m sure.’
‘Okay, good. Because I’m not going to make you do anything you don’t want to.’
‘You couldn’t make me.’
‘That’s not what I meant. I’m not going to ask you to do anything you don’t want to do. Better? Are you always this pedantic or am I a special case?’
‘I always prefer to be exact when my life is on the line.’
‘Okay, I can appreciate that,’ she said, nodding. ‘I’m just a little tense, you know.’
Victor nodded as if he knew. ‘I’ll arrive in Gibraltar tomorrow.’
‘You could end up waiting there a long time. Leeson didn’t indicate when he’d meet you, right?’
‘He didn’t, but it will be soon.’
‘Why do you say that? He doesn’t seem to be in any kind of hurry.’
‘He’s not improvising here. He’s working to a specific timeline. He’s gone to a lot of trouble to make sure Kooi is the right man for the job. If he waits too long his perfect assassin might get caught, or killed, or take some other job. Besides, if time wasn’t a factor he would have sent Kooi on another contract first after he failed to make Charters’ death look like a suicide. Leeson isn’t the kind of man to accept less than perfect if he can help it.’
‘Plausible. But he gave you the choice of where to meet. You could have picked anywhere in the world. Anywhere can take a long time to get to and back from.’
‘He didn’t give me a free choice. He was trying to use suggestion to influence me. He asked me to pick somewhere, but suggested somewhere hot. Where’s guaranteed to be hot at this time of year in Europe?’
‘You didn’t have to select Europe. You could have gone to a hundred different places.’
‘I could have, yes. But before he asked me where I wanted to meet, he justified the phone call by saying he wouldn’t have expected me to agree to another faraway meeting. Like I said, suggestion. Besides, going halfway across the world isn’t