One of the men got up from his chair and looked at his watch. "There's a flight to Moscow ..."

Podgornin held up a hand. "We go through France," he said. "It's all in the plan."

The woman suddenly pointed at Freddie de la Hay. "And him? What do we do about the dog."

"Shoot him," said one of the men. "They won't like that."

"Yes," said the woman.

Podgornin looked at Freddie, who looked back up at him with dark, liquid eyes. "He's innocent," he said.

"Of course he's innocent," said the woman impatiently. "But that's not the point, is it? The point is to get the message back to them that if they use animals in this way, this will be the consequence. They won't like it. Dmitri is right we need to show them."

Podgornin looked again at Freddie de la Hay. "I will deal with him," he said. "Leave it to me. I brought him here, and I shall deal with him."

How?" asked the woman. "You tell us, Anatoly. How?" Her manner was entirely rude and aggressive, and, unlike the others, she did not address Podgornin by his patronymic.

"I shall give him something," he said. "I shall take him to a place where they will definitely find him and I shall administer something lethal. You leave it to me."

The woman looked doubtful. "The whole operation ruined by a dog," she said.

"As in Shakespeare," said one of the men.

"It was a horse," said Podgornin. "The king needed a horse, not a dog."

"This is no time to discuss literature," said the woman. "It's time to act."

"We are all actors," mused Podgornin.

"What do you mean by that?"

He said nothing. He lifted up the now transmitter-less collar and approached Freddie de la Hay. Freddie watched him warily.

"Come along, my boy," Podgornin said quietly. "Come here. Come to your uncle Anatoly."

Chapter 58: Caroline Turns to Jo for Advice.

For Caroline, it was a time of reappraisal. Her frank discussion with James, during which he had dashed such hopes as she had been harbouring for a romantic relationship, had been painful. She liked James, whose company she found both amusing and undemanding. They could talk together about anything and everything; he was considerate; he was understanding; they laughed at the same things. Now he had closed the door on anything more than a friendship between them, and she felt a curious emptiness that bordered on numbness.

It was not that James had gone away or refused to see her any more, as can happen when a romance comes to an end; it was not like that. He was still there, and he still wanted them to be friends. But after his declaration that their relationship had no chance of becoming a physical one, she felt that they were both on a path that led nowhere: a cul-de-sac.

She wanted to talk to somebody about this, but who? Many people have a friend at work whom they can confide in, but Caroline worked for Tim Something, the photographer, who employed n.o.body else. She wondered whether she could talk to Tim, but decided against it. One could not talk to a man about this, or not to most men; one could certainly talk to James about such questions, but then one could obviously not discuss this particular case with him. No, it would have to be a girlfriend, and there, Caroline had to admit, she had a problem.

Caroline was not one of those women who had difficulty in forming friendships with others of her s.e.x. She had been reasonably gregarious at school and university, but since she came to London she found that she had not kept up with the friends she had made in those days. Her school friends had certainly drifted off or she had drifted off from them and although she occasionally saw members of her circle from university days, a number of them had become either engaged or even married, and this had resulted in another form of drifting apart. The world, she decided, was designed for couples; a discovery that the recently divorced or widowed also often reported. Couples might protest that this was not true, but it was something that Caroline was beginning to feel herself. And now she was in need of friends to discuss the very social isolation that came from not having friends.

Of course there were her flatmates in Corduroy Mansions, and in normal circ.u.mstances who better to turn to than a group of female flatmates? But circ.u.mstances were not normal, because again Caroline felt that she had drifted away from the other three. She had never been particularly close to Dee, and recently, of course, Dee had lied to her about having dinner with James. This meant that she could definitely not discuss James with her. And even if she did, Dee was so obsessive that any discussion would probably end up being diverted into a conversation with a nutritional bent.

No, Dee would not do, which left Jo, her Australian flatmate, whom she had barely seen for weeks, and Jenny, who had spent the last two months in Mexico with a software engineer from Sheffield. The software engineer was working on a contract in Cancun and Jenny had gone with him. They had received a few quite lengthy emails from her, saying that the two of them liked Mexico a great deal and were thinking of staying. George, the software engineer, had taken up scuba diving and Jenny was thinking of doing so too. They were both learning Spanish, and George was almost fluent, having previously done an A Level in the language at school. They had made numerous friends and George's hair had been bleached by the sun. "I have a whole new life," Jenny had written. "When I think of what I put up with when I worked for Oedipus Snark, it makes me sick. I wasted all that time when I could have been here, learning to scuba dive and having my nails painted."

"She never had her nails painted in London," Dee had said at the time. "She's changed, and that's not the letter of somebody who's coming back. She's finished with London."

Caroline had agreed. Jenny had paid three months' rent in advance before she left; in another month they could let her room again.

If she could talk to neither Dee nor Jenny, that left Jo. Jo at least was approachable, and seemed the type to listen. So Caroline waited in the kitchen, flicking through a magazine, hoping that she would hear the sound of a key in the front door that would signify Jo's return from the gym.

She waited an hour or so before her flatmate returned, coming into the kitchen in a light blue tracksuit with a sweat band round her forehead.

"h.e.l.lo Caroline. Haven't really seen you in a while. How are you doing?" Jo asked.

This was Caroline's opportunity. "Not so well."

Jo frowned. "Not so well? What's the problem? Going down with something? There weren't many people at the gym, you know I think there's a bug doing the rounds."

Caroline shook her head. "No. I'm not sick."

"Well, you look a bit crook to me." Jo used the Australian expression; Caroline had heard it before and knew what it meant to be crook. No, she was not crook at least not in the physical sense; the emotional sense might be another matter.

"I don't think I'm crook,' she said. "I'm just ... Well, James and I are splitting up."

Jo sat down opposite Caroline. She peeled the headband off her head, releasing her hair. "Oh. So that's it. Boyfriend trouble."

Caroline nodded gloomily. It was so cliched, this whole thing. Boyfriend trouble what a cliche.

"Except I didn't think he was your boyfriend," Jo said. "You know what I mean?"

Caroline looked at her indignantly. "I don't, actually." She felt loyalty to James. What did Jo know about his inclinations? There were plenty of straight men who were artistic a bit camp, even and why should she not think that James was one of these. It was a blatant case of prejudice.

"Well, he doesn't strike me as the sort to have a girlfriend," sad Jo breezily. "I thought that you and he were just friends. Know what I mean?"

Caroline could not constantly say no, she did not know what Jo meant. Of course she knew what the other woman meant.

"It's not like you think," she said. "He's not gay. He's ... he's ... Well, he's nothing in particular."

Jo was silent for a few moments. Then she said, "I see. So you and he are not ... you know, actually sleeping together?"

Caroline shook her head. "No. And he doesn't want to." She paused. "I'm so miserable, Jo, I really am. And I'm so confused. I love James. I love him, and he's not interested in me."

She started to cry. Jo reached out and took Caroline's hand, and held it in silence. She caressed it, gently, and her touch was warm and rea.s.suring.

"Oh," she said. "Oh. That's bad luck, Caroline. Rotten luck. But that's the problem with men. They're not really interested in us not really. They use us. But that's all."

Caroline sniffed. Jo handed her a tissue, which she used to blow her nose. "I don't know if all of them do. Some, maybe. Not all."

Jo shook her head. "No," she said. "All of them, Caroline. All of them use us."

"But how has he used me? I don't see how you can say James has used me? If anybody's used anybody here, it's ... it's me. I've used him."

"He's used you subtly," said Jo. "And that's often the worst way of being used. You don't know it, you see, and then you realise later that you've been used. And that hurts it really hurts."

Chapter 59: The Rea.s.surances of Home.

"So what do I do?" Caroline asked. "What do I say to him?"

Jo shrugged. "I don't see that you need to say anything to him. I thought you had gone over that ground. He's told you what he feels or doesn't feel, in his case. So now you both know and you can move on."

"Move on?" People always talked about moving on, but Caroline wondered precisely what was involved in moving on. She a.s.sumed that you had to have somewhere to move to before you actually moved on; where did she have to move on to?

There was a faint smile on Jo's lips as she said, "I take it that you're sure about yourself?"

Again Caroline was puzzled. "Look, I'm sorry, you must think me really stupid, but I'm not sure what you mean."

"What I mean," said Jo, "is this: are you sure that men are where you're at?"

"That men are where I'm at?"

"Yes. Do you like men? Are you sure?"

Caroline looked at Jo. "What about you?"

"This isn't about me," said Jo quickly. "It's about you. I've already moved on. You're the one who's to decide whether to move on or ..."

"Or stay where I am?" Was that the alternative to moving on? she wondered.

"Yes, that's about it." Jo paused. She was watching Caroline closely. "There are alternatives, you know. You don't have to stay in the place you're at."

Caroline thought quickly. No. Female solidarity was important, and sustained a lot of women but she did not want to be too solid.

"I don't think so, Jo," she said quietly. "I know that for lots of people, that's ... well, that's where they're at. But I don't think so. Not in my case."

Jo looked down. "Fair enough. In that case, just give it time. Move on, and wait."

Caroline was intrigued. Moving on and waiting seemed to be a new option.

Jo explained. "Be single. There's no pressure. Enjoy your life. Wait for somebody else to come along. He will. Eventually." She paused. "Does that make sense to you?"

Caroline nodded.

"And here's another bit of advice," she said. "You've got a home, haven't you?"

"You mean parents? All of that?"

"Yes, all of that. Your olds. People forget about them, but they're always there, aren't they? Go and chill with them."

Caroline resisted an urge to laugh. The idea of chilling with her parents in Cheltenham ... And yet, and yet ...

"I'm not sure if they do chilling," she said. The picture came to her of her mother, with her pearls and her county att.i.tudes. And her poor father, with his utter certainties and his tendency to talk in plat.i.tudes. There was a vague sense of failure there, which was strange, as in many terms he had succeeded, certainly by the standards of those with whom he mixed. Neither of her parents had moved on, she decided. They were both still in the place they were at.

"It's hard for me to get back home," said Jo. "When I was at uni over in Melbourne and my folks were back in Perth, you couldn't go back for the weekend. But sometimes you could go for a week, maybe. I remember feeling really bad once. Something had happened. Something messy and I felt all raw inside. You know that feeling, when everything is just pointless and you feel that you're on the edge of a void a void of meaninglessness? That feeling?"

Caroline nodded.

"I went and bought a cheap flight back to Perth. I didn't even tell my folks that I was coming back I just got on the plane, and when I reached Perth I jumped in a taxi at the airport. Coming into Perth is fabulous, you know. Suddenly there are the hills we've got these low hills just outside the city, you know and there they were with all their trees, and there were the houses, with their large yards and gardens. And the smell of it. The eucalyptus. The dryness, which has a smell, you know. The taxi driver in his blue shorts. And I started to cry, there in the taxi, and he was really sympathetic, in the way that these guys sometimes can be. Like a father. And I said that he shouldn't worry, that I was just pleased to be home, which of course was exactly how I felt.

"And then I went in and surprised my mother in the kitchen. She gave a shriek a really loud shriek, a scream even. She was making scones she makes these really good cheese scones for my old man and her hands were sticky with the mixture. She screamed and ran to put her arms around me, flour and all that stuff, and it was all over my shoulders.

"And then my dad came in to find out what the fuss was. He was wearing shorts and a singlet. That's what he wears when it's hot it was the hot season then. He looked at me and smiled and said, 'Strewth!' That's all he said. He just smiled. I tell you, Caroline, it was all I could do to stop myself bawling my eyes out.

"Because, you see, that's what home's all about, isn't it? Scones and singlets and everything the same as it always was. And if you get a dose of that of all that familiar stuff that you thought you never wanted to see again then it sorts everything out, it really does."

Jo had more to say. "I went over the road. We have these neighbours who are really good friends, you see, and they were all in the house. They have a daughter who's my age and she was at uni in Perth. She was there with a friend of hers I knew a bit, and we sat and talked about people we all knew and hadn't seen for a while. And I asked them what was going on in Perth and they said nothing. So I laughed. Because that's what I wanted. I didn't want anything to have changed."

She paused now, and looked enquiringly at Caroline. "Can you go home for the weekend?"

Caroline said that she could. Cheltenham was a couple of hours in the train. Then, on impulse, she said, "Come with me, Jo. Why don't you come home with me?"

Jo did not reply immediately. But then she accepted. She had nothing planned, she said or nothing she could not cancel.

"There's nothing to do there," warned Caroline.

"That's why you're going," said Jo. "Remember?"

"And I'm not sure what you'll make of my folks."

"Or what they'll make of me?"

Caroline looked out of the window. "They're not too bad," she said. "In their way." Her father would not wear a singlet. And her mother bought her scones.

Jo looked at Caroline with concern. "Feeling better?" she asked.

Caroline nodded. "Yes. And thanks for ... for helping. Thanks a lot."

"It's what flatmates are for," said Jo. "That, and making dinner for their flatmate when she's feeling a bit low. Like now."

"Really?"