»How long have you worked for Mr. Swain?« she asked, as they made their way along the icy pavement of the crescent. »Long enough,« he replied. »Mind you don’t slip. Wicked heels on those boots . . .« Kumiko tottered along beside him on black French patent spikes. As she’d predicted, it was virtually impossible to navigate the glass-hard rippled patches of ice in these boots. She took his hand for support; doing this, she felt solid metal across his palm. The gloves were weighted, the fingers reinforced with carbon mesh. He was silent, as they turned the sidestreet at the end of the crescent, but when they reached Portobello Road, he paused. »Excuse me, miss,« he said, a note of hesitation in his voice, »but is it true, what the boys say?« »Boys? Excuse me?« »Swain’s boys, his regulars. That you’re the big fellow’s daughter — the big fellow back in Tokyo?« »I’m sorry,« she said, »I don’t understand.« »Yanaka. Your name’s Yanaka?« »Kumiko Yanaka, yes . . .« He peered at her with intense curiosity. Then worry crossed his face and he glanced carefully around. »Lord,« he said, »must be true . . .« His squat, tightly buttoned body was taut and alert. »Guvnor said you wanted to shop?« »Yes, thank you.« »Where shall I take you?« »Here,« she said, and led him into a narrow arcade lined solidly with British gomi .
Her Shinjuku shopping expeditions served her well with Dick. The techniques she’d devised for torturing her father’s secretaries proved just as effective now, as she forced the man to participate in dozens of pointless choices between one Edwardian medallion and another, this or that fragment of stained glass, though she was careful only to choose items, finally, that were fragile or very heavy, awkward to carry, and extremely expensive. A cheerful bilingual shop assistant accessed an eighty-thousand-pound charge against Kumiko’s MitsuBank chip. Kumiko slipped her hand into the pocket that held the Mass-Neotek unit. »Exquisite,« the English girl said in Japanese, as she wrapped Kumiko’s purchase, an ormolu vase encrusted with griffins. »Hideous,« Colin commented, in Japanese. »An imitation as well.« He reclined on a Victorian horsehair sofa, his boots up on an art deco cocktail stand supported by airstream aluminum angels. The shop assistant added the wrapped vase to Dick’s burden. This was Dick’s eleventh antique shop and Kumiko’s eighth purchase. »I think you’d better make your move,« Colin advised. »Any moment now, our Dick will buzz Swain’s for a car to take that lot home.« »Think this is it, then?« Dick asked hopefully, over Kumiko’s purchases. »One more shop, please.« Kumiko smiled. »Right,« he said grimly. As he was following her out the door, she drove the heel of her left boot into a gap in the pavement she’d noticed on her way in. »You all right?« he asked, seeing her stumble. »I’ve broken the heel of my boot. . . .« She hobbled back into the shop and sat down beside Colin on the horsehair sofa. The assistant came fussing up to help. »Get ’em off quick,« Colin advised, »before Dickie puts his parcels down.« She unzipped the boot with the broken heel, then the other, pulled off both. In place of the coarse Chinese silk she usually wore in winter, her feet were sheathed in thin black rubber toe-socks with ridged plastic soles. She nearly ran between Dick’s legs as she cleared the door, but instead her shoulder struck his thigh as she squeezed past, toppling him into a display of faceted crystal decanters. And then she was free, plunging through the press of tourists down Portobello Road.
Her feet were very cold, but the ridged plastic soles provided excellent traction — though not on ice, she reminded herself, picking herself up from her second spill, wet grit against her palms. Colin had directed her down this narrow passage of blackened brick. . . . She grasped the unit. »Where next?« »This way,« he said. »I want the Rose and Crown,« she reminded him. »You want to be careful. Dickie’ll have Swain’s men here by now, not to mention the sort of hunt that friend of Swain’s from Special Branch could mount if he’s asked to. And I can’t imagine why he shouldn’t be asked to. . . .«