‘I’ll find it.’ He hung up and walked over to the refrigerator. Inside was a single egg in a soggy carton and a half-pack of bacon. He put the frying pan on the gas hob and dropped in some oil. His stomach rumbled, so he put all the bacon in and cracked the egg. In the pantry was half a loaf of stale bread. He selected the least mouldy piece and chucked the rest in the bin, along with an assortment of pizza boxes and takeaway curry containers from the benchtop.
He continued to clean up while breakfast sizzled mouth-wateringly nearby. Working back from one o’clock he mentally planned his day. It would take him the best part of an hour to eat and get clean and dressed. He’d booked the Jag in for a service on his first day of suspension. He’d discounted the idea of going away anywhere and figured — correctly, so far — he would spend most of his time either drunk in a pub or drunk at home. He hadn’t been wrong until now. He would have to take the tube to meet Olga.
He scooped the bacon and egg from the frypan, added another half-inch of oil and dropped in the slice of bread. He devoured the lot in seconds. Cooked breakfasts always seemed like a lot of effort for little return. He hoped that wasn’t an omen for the rest of the day.
Upstairs he showered and scraped three days’ worth of growth from his face, put on his charcoal-grey suit pants, black brogues and socks, and took a clean white shirt downstairs to the laundry to iron. Olga wouldn’t know he was suspended — unless, of course, she had read a newspaper in the last week. Tom figured that if she had, she wouldn’t have called him. He mightn’t be on duty officially, but he wanted her to think he was. He wondered if the dancer would give him anything that might help Sannie’s investigations back in Africa. He doubted it, but perhaps the South African police could run a check on Precious Mary Tambo.
Before leaving the house, he stopped to straighten his tie in the hall mirror and pull on his suit jacket. It felt good to have a sense of purpose again. It might come to nothing, but would keep his mind off Greeves, Joyce and the impending inquiry for a few hours.
Outside it was a perfect autumn day. The chill in the air helped clear his head, and he felt virtuous walking off some of his breakfast down Southwood Lane towards Highgate tube station.
Two young mums pushed their children in prams, chatting and laughing at something. It was a reminder that life went on, even though his world had been turned upside down. He wondered how Greeves’s wife and children were faring, and if Bernard Joyce had family.
There were already Christmas decorations in some of the shop windows. He wondered what it was like for Sannie’s kids at this time of year, without their father.
Tom entered Highgate Underground station and descended the long escalator to the platforms, his nostrils filling with the unnaturally warm, humid air. A Euston-bound tube train arrived within minutes and he nipped through the sliding doors into the hot, stuffy carriage. Only the drivers got airconditioning.
On the seat beside him was a copy of the Metro, the free newspaper handed out to commuters. He opened it and on page five found the news Sannie had already told him. SOUTH AFRICAN BODYGUARD TO GIVE EVIDENCE AT GREEVES INQUIRY
A South African police officer is being flown to the UK to testify at the inquiry into the abduction and killing of the former Minister for Defence Procurement, Robert Greeves.
Inspector Susan van Rensburg was assigned as the protection officer for Mr Greeves’s South African government counterpart during two days of meetings between the two politicians.
Tom skimmed the recapping of the events, and looked for the ‘why’ in the story.
Mr Greeves’s former spokesperson said the government had decided to invite Inspector Van Rensburg to appear at the inquiry in order to better understand security arrangements which had been put in place prior to Mr Greeves’s visit, and to outline the events leading up to the minister’s abduction.
‘Shit,’ Tom said aloud. An old lady sitting opposite in a plastic mackintosh looked up from her magazine and raised her eyebrows at him. Sannie’s appearance was part of the government’s efforts to set him up as the patsy for Greeves’s death. He could have guessed it. He wondered what she would make of the story and if it would affect her evidence. All she could do was tell the truth — and that would be enough to have him dismissed.
He felt the fog of depression start to settle on him again, almost wilting the creases in his freshly ironed shirt.
‘Only ever bad news in those things.’ The old lady was looking at him, smiling as she nodded to the newspapers beside him. ‘Stick with OK! that’s my philosophy.’
He laughed and nodded as she held up the glossy celebrity gossip magazine.
At the end of the noisy, jolting journey, he gratefully slid onto the crowded tube platform at Euston. Making his way out of this subterranean world, Tom surfaced in the brightly lit main-line station.
He left the bustling terminus, turning left into Euston Road and passing the gothic splendour of the recently restored and enlarged St Pancras International station. Just before King’s Cross station, Tom weaved across the busy road to the Burger King.
He was half an hour early. He felt like buying a packet of cigarettes, but knew he shouldn’t. His brain hadn’t been at full speed when he’d spoken to Sannie on the phone, but he remembered now there was something he wanted to ask her.
There was an internet cafe a few doors down and Tom went in thinking he might find his answer there. A long-haired man looked up from his screen and directed him to a machine. Tom took out his notebook and typed ‘primates of southern Africa’ into the browser. He filled two pages and left the cafe at five minutes to one.
There were a dozen people inside the Burger King when he arrived but none he could recognise as the alluring young exotic dancer. He walked back outside onto the footpath. Perhaps she was late.
‘Hey, Mr Policeman.’
He turned around and looked down. The girl who was talking to him had Ivana’s — Olga’s — voice, but he could have been looking at a different person.
She stood about five feet tall, much shorter than he’d remembered. Her hair was pulled back in a pony-tail and her lack of makeup revealed traces of acne scarring. She wore a baggy grey sports top with a hood attached, faded jeans and old trainers.
‘You didn’t recognise me.’ Olga craned her neck back and peered up at him through rimless Coke-bottle glasses. ‘You walked right past me.’
‘Sorry.’
She shrugged. ‘Not surprising. I have clothes on now and no five-inch stiletto heels.’
He smiled. ‘And the glasses?’
‘It should have been me not recognising you, instead of other way around. In club I can barely see the men who come in. All my time there is like in a — what do you say… haze.’
‘Probably better that way.’
She nodded. ‘We eat?’
They stood side by side in the queue, making small talk about the weather while they waited to be served.
‘What are you studying?’
‘Medicine at UCL,’ she said. ‘No jokes about anatomy or biology, though, please. I get enough of that from fellow students.’
The University College London campus at Bloomsbury was nearby. Tom was a little surprised she told her peers about her job.
‘Is legal and is not money for sex, like some people think. You would be surprised what some students do. Not all of it is legal, either.’
He muttered an apology and said nothing more until they were served and took their food to a red laminate- topped table.
‘Why you come alone? You not have partner, like TV policeman? Even in Russia, where government has no money, militia detectives have partner.’
Tom didn’t want to lose the initiative before the interview began. He wanted to remind her, as much as himself, who was who in this exchange.
‘What have you got to tell me, Olga, that you didn’t tell the investigating officers?’
‘So you talked to them?’
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘I thought that since you were suspended from duty over African business that other police would not
