Games Traitors Play

32

The woman made no effort to cover herself as she stepped from the shower, walked across the bathroom and removed a towel from the radiator. She tilted her head, drying her blonde, shoulder-length hair as she looked over at the bed and smiled. Marchant wondered if she had been waiting for him to open his eyes. Her actions had a rehearsed choreography about them, more subtle than a porn star’s but no less calculated.

He knew before she began to speak that it was the same woman who had been sitting on the terrace earlier, whenever that might have been. Bells were ringing so loudly in his head that he thought, for a moment, that they were the reason he had woken. He hoped that something visceral in his sleeping state had raised the alarm. An uninvited Russian woman in his hotel room was about as bad as it could get for an MI6 field agent, the sort of scenario they taught on day one at the Fort.

If the implications weren’t so serious, his situation was almost funny. Textbook honeytrap, perfected in the 1960s, fell out of fashion after the Cold War, seemingly back with a vengeance. A British diplomat had recently been fired after he was filmed by the FSB with a couple of Russian tarts in a hotel room.

His head was clearer now, but he couldn’t be sure how long he had been lying in bed. Several days, at least. Where was Lakshmi Meena? Why had no one from London been to visit him? Hadn’t she said that MI6 knew where he was? And what was a naked woman doing in his bathroom?

He propped himself up in bed and took in his surroundings, tried to order random memories. He was in Sardinia, brought here by Meena after the Americans had handed him over to Abdul Aziz. He touched his mouth again, which was less swollen. He looks just like his father.

‘You’ve been sleeping for three days,’ the woman said. Her English was good, but there was no disguising the Russian mother tongue that thickened her cadences. She was standing in the doorway now, between the bathroom and the bedroom. Her shoulders were broad, like a swimmer’s, her breasts high and firm. Marchant estimated she was in her early thirties. Despite himself, he began to stir. Her pubic hair was tidy, trimmed rather than shaved, its soft brownness framed by tanned thighs.

‘I tell you this because I know how much the British men like to be in control,’ she smiled, glancing at the sheet covering Marchant. ‘On top of things.’

For a moment, Marchant felt pity for her, the wooden lines spoken with all the conviction of a hard-up lap dancer. But something about the way she moved across the hotel room and picked up a hair dryer made Marchant’s hands begin to sweat. And it wasn’t because of any desire she might have roused. Despite the air of a performance, her manner had a lover’s familiarity, an easiness born of intimacy. Instinctively, he felt about on the sheet next to him, trying to be discreet. It was damp.

‘Please, put something on,’ he said. More memories, scent, taste. ‘A dressing gown, clothes, anything.’

‘Clothes? It’s 40 degrees outside and you want me to put something on? Relax. You’re on holiday.’ She was sitting now, one leg tucked under her, head tilted, hair dryer in hand.

‘Where’s Lakshmi Meena?’

‘You ask too many questions. Please, try some of this.’

She picked up a plate piled high with watermelon and walked over to him, placing it beside the bed. Then she slid a piece into her mouth, holding it carefully between thumb and finger. A small trickle of juice escaped from her lips as she crushed the fruit. She gathered it in with her tongue, which lingered a moment longer than was necessary.

‘Do you know why Russian men like watermelon so much?’ she asked. Marchant had sat up now, careful to cover himself with a sheet.

‘I need you to leave,’ he said, strength returning to his voice, his body. More memories: Morocco, the mountains, Nye strelai. The woman might have some information on Dhar, but he wasn’t in control. He needed time to think, rid his head of the drugs he must have been given with his morphine, work out how to play the hand in front of him, but she held all the cards. ‘Ten minutes. Some time to wash, freshen up. Recharge.’ He managed to garnish the last word with a twist of innuendo.

‘Of course. I’ll go to the beach. Join me in the restaurant when you’re ready. I’m Nadia, by the way.’

He watched her walk over to a wardrobe and put on a black bikini. The bottom was decent enough at the front, but hardly covered her buttocks. Again, she knew she was being observed, which annoyed Marchant, who turned away when she catwalked towards the sliding glass doors. As she started to close them behind her, she leaned back into the room.

‘Watermelon juice is a natural Viagra, at least that’s what our men believe. Yes, it’s sweet too, and we love sweet things in Russia, but this is not the main reason. Enjoy.’

She slid the door shut, the click of the catch cutting into Marchant’s thoughts. Once he was sure she had gone, he lifted the receiver on the hotel phone, but the line was dead, as he expected. He stood up, unsteady on his feet, and went over to the wardrobe, where he had seen some of his clothes. His wallet was there, complete with some Moroccan dirhams and the ‘litter’ he had put in it for his photographer’s cover (Dirk McLennan’s business card, some studio receipts), but his phone was missing. He looked around the room. Had they slept together? He kept seeing them on the bed, caught in the reflection of the mosaic mirror. How could he have allowed himself to get into such a vulnerable situation?

After taking a shower, washing off any traces of what might have been, he put on a pair of shorts, a T-shirt, sunglasses and some flip-flops that someone — Meena? Nadia? — must have bought from the resort shop for him. They all fitted well enough. He glanced in the mirror, put a hand to his bruised jaw, and stepped outside into the midday sun, watched discreetly by a gym-toned man lying on a sunbed outside the adjacent villa.