how.”
She shook her head, still frowning.
“He has overreached himself. He has the fatal weakness of a man who believes he cannot be touched. He has forgotten that the international powers still control this city. He can be broken.”
Natasha gazed out the window, a look of utter hopelessness in her eyes.
“What life will you have if you do not try?” he asked.
“It’s not about my life . . .”
“I’m asking you to trust me.”
She snorted, quietly but with derision.
“Can you speak and read Chinese?” he asked.
“Of course.” She looked at him. “Who knows about this?”
“A very small group of people.”
“And you trust them?”
“Yes,” Field said without hesitation. “Completely.”
“You shouldn’t. Everyone is corrupt here.”
“I’m not.”
“You’re young.”
“So are you.”
She didn’t answer.
“Parts of the force are corrupt, but not the unit that I’m dealing with.” Field pulled up his chair and leaned onto the table. “We believe Lu has overreached himself. He has become complacent and Lena’s murder was a challenge to the integrity of the force. We know we can break his hold on the city. I can take you away from here. When this is done.”
“When it is done?”
“When this is done,” he went on, “we will go away, somewhere better.”
“To Venice, perhaps.”
He hesitated, not sure whether she was mocking him. “If you like.”
“As a little girl, I dreamed of Venice.” She looked up at him. “Have you been to Venice, Richard?”
Field shook his head. “No.”
“Would you like to go?”
“Yes. My . . .”
She waited for him to go on.
“My sister also. It was a dream.”
“Then she is a romantic, too.” Natasha’s smile was fragile and hesitant. “What is it like, do you think?”
“My sister loved art. Florence, Venice. Even the thought of it was an escape. The idea of it.” He stared out of the window. “It was how we imagined life if money was no object: long hot days and hazy, languid sunsets over still water and the shouts of the boatmen.” When he turned back, Field saw the deep longing in her eyes.
“You would like to live in Venice?” she asked.
“I would like to live in Venice.”
“We could live there together.”
As she smiled at him, he tried to stop his stomach from somersaulting again.
“We could sleep in late and then have wine in the piazza—it is the right word?”
“It’s the right word.”
“And we could watch the sunset over the lagoon and then lie out and watch the stars.”
Field didn’t know what to say.
“Mama and Papa took their honeymoon in Venice. Papa was at military school in St. Petersburg and Mama only a schoolgirl; they met and married one month later and then went to Venice.” She looked at him. “Papa always talked of it. He used to take out photographs of the lagoon, and one of Mama, and there would be tears in his eyes. He told me how they had planned to go back, one last time, even as she was dying.” Natasha shook her head, tears in her own eyes.
Field reached for her hand, but she withdrew it.
“What do you dream of, Richard?”
He looked at her. “I dream of you.”
She stared at the table in front of her. “Then it must remain a dream.”
“Natasha . . .”
