He rested his leg for a while and looked around the flat. He tended to be practical and unsentimental, but over the years he’d become fond of the building and the neighbourhood. After Anastasia, he’d thought of selling both flats but feared he’d lose the money in his gambling binge, so his home had become an anchor of stability, something he wasn’t prepared to lose. Now, while there was a threat to his life, he obviously couldn’t live here, but in a more general way it had suddenly soured for him. The man he’d killed had apparently expired in the flat just a few feet from where he now sat. Blood was all over the place; Jo would no longer bring her uncomplicated companionship to Maida Vale; and MI5 had crawled through his possessions, leaving a vague sense of violation. Right then he decided he would sell up. He’d keep the smaller flat until Derek and Jericho, who had, after all, saved his life, wanted to move on.
He rose with the image of Remy in his mind, and dialled Jo. This was breaking some kind of agreement, but his encounter with Remy had prompted a question and no one else could answer it. He recorded a message saying he wouldn’t be contacting her unless it was important. Then he left the flat. As he descended to the street, he received a text from Jo. ‘They are pressing me to change my statement. You know what that means. If you’re going abroad, as you said, leave today. They are going to fucking well tie you up so you can’t move. Speak later. X’
Chapter 15
Live Frog
It was a warm day in Washington. Across the capital, puffs of white and pink blossom were evidence of an accelerating American spring, the pace of which Anastasia had never quite got used to. The spring of her childhood in the Pindus Mountains in Greece crept slowly across the landscape with several distinct stages. Here, it came and went in one gaudy flash. She was packing, or rather sorting the clothes which had been sent from New York by FedEx, and, like Samson, she included one piece of formal wear in the bag. The rest were practical clothes she used for travel and her work – boots, jeans, sweaters, an olive-green thermal jacket and several versions of a white shirt that allowed the wearer to secure rolled sleeves with a tab. Denis commented that her style increasingly tended towards the military and said he wished she’d sometimes make a concession to femininity, which is why she had worn a plum-coloured shirt and a silver necklace with her suit to the hearing.
It was not yet 7 a.m. For a moment, holding her coffee just below her lips, she watched the joggers in a park. Then Tulliver was beside her, now dressed in a navy jacket, dark grey trousers and button-down blue shirt and looking much more himself. ‘Congressman Speight is on his way up. You want me to sit in on this one, too?’
‘Absolutely. You have all that thanking to do.’
Speight arrived with a staffer and suggested that they might take breakfast in the main cafeteria. When they got there, the staffer was sent off to get the congressman juice, berries and scrambled eggs, while Tulliver organised coffee. Speight, a lean man with a high parting and a polished, friendly face, waited for Anastasia to take a chair before sitting down himself. Earnestly, he asked how Denis was.
‘I hear he’s doing fine, and I hope that’s the truth, Mrs Hisami,’ he said, pouring water into her glass. Her husband’s nemesis certainly had manners, but that only served to put her on her guard.
‘They’re pleased with his progress, but it’s a long road,’ she said. ‘I cannot hide from you that he may suffer permanent impairment.’
‘I’m sorry to learn that. We were all very fortunate.’
‘You acted quickly, Congressman. You kind of saved the day by shouting at Jim here. How come you knew what was happening?’
Jim added, ‘It goes without saying that I’m immensely grateful, Congressman.’
He nodded to Tulliver. ‘I was in the military, Mrs Hisami. We underwent basic chemical-weapons training before Desert Storm. People forget that Saddam had deployed nerve agents and mustard gas against his own people at Halabja way before he invaded Kuwait.’
‘Actually, it was against Denis’s people. Halabja was Kurdish and the people who were killed were all Kurds.’
‘I stand corrected, Mrs Hisami.’ Speight smiled. ‘I know what you were saying when I asked you about your husband – you don’t want the committee to recall your husband anytime soon. And I hear you.’ He looked around expectantly for the staffer. ‘One of my father’s rules for life was – if you have to work before breakfast, make sure to eat breakfast first.’ He smiled again. ‘Shall we wait to do our business until we got some nourishment inside us?’
‘Do we have business, Congressman?’
‘Maybe we do; maybe we don’t.’ Tulliver returned with coffee and sat down. Then the staffer appeared with the food.
Speight stirred sweetener into his coffee and chuckled to himself. ‘Mark Twain also said something humorous about breakfast – eat a live frog first thing in the morning and nothing worse will happen to you all day.’
‘Are you the equivalent of the live frog, Congressman?’ she asked, without smiling.
‘I sincerely hope not, Mrs Hisami.’
‘Why are you here?’
‘To express my concern for what happened. Without our inquiries, Denis would not have been there, and Mr Steen would not have been killed.’
‘You presumably have your reasons,’ said
