But Luxmore was transmitting, not receiving. ‘The way those stuffed-shirts backed you up this evening, Andrew. My God, it’s not often you see respect like that lavished on a younger man. There’s a medal in here somewhere for you when this is over. A certain little lady across the river may feel obliged to show her appreciation.’
A lull while he gazed in perplexity at the bay and seemed to confuse it with the Thames.
‘Andrew!’ – abruptly as he woke.
‘Sir?’
‘That fellow Stormont.’
‘What about him?’
‘Came a cropper in Madrid. Some woman he took up with, social tart. Married her, if I remember rightly. Beware of him.’
‘I will.’
‘And her, Andrew.’
‘I will.’
‘Do you have a woman here?’ – peering round facetiously, under the sofa, at the curtains, acting bright. ‘No hot-arsed Latin lovely tucked away at all? Don’t answer that. Good health again. Keep her to yourself. Wise fellow.’
‘I’ve been a bit too busy actually, sir,’ Osnard confessed with a rueful smile. But he refused to give up. He had a notion he was printing things into Luxmore’s subliminal memory for later. ‘Only in my view, you see, in a perfect world we should be shooting for two safe houses. One for the network, which would obviously be my sole responsibility. Cayman Islands holding company’s the best answer – and another house – available on an extremely limited, need-to-know basis and more representational in style – to service the Abraxas team, and eventually – provided always we can do it without creating interconsciousness, which at this stage I rather doubt – the students. And I think probably I should be handling that one too – as far as the purchase and cover details go – even if Ambass and Stormont have sole use at the end of the day. I don’t think they have our expertise, frankly. It’s a risk we just don’t need to take. I’d love your view on this. Not now, necessarily. Later.’
A long-delayed suck of the teeth told Osnard that his regional director was still with him, if only just. Reaching out, Osnard removed the empty glass from Luxmore’s hand and set it on the ceramic table.
‘So what do you think, sir? An apartment like this one for the Opposition – fashionable, anonymous, handy for the financial community, nobody has to step out of his element – and a second house in the Old City to be run in tandem?’ He had been thinking for some time of getting a foot on the ladder of Panama’s booming property market. ‘Basically, in the Old City you get what you pay for. It’s location and location and location. A decent conversion at the moment – good duplex, architect-designed – sets you back give or take fifty grand. Top o’ the range you get a twelve-room mansion, bit o’ garden, rear access, sea view – offer them half a mil and they’ll cut your arm off. Couple o’ years from now, you’ve doubled your money, long as nobody does anything dramatic with the old Club Unión building that Torrijos turned into an Other Ranks Club out o’ spite because the Club wouldn’t have him as a member. Better get an update before we plunge. I can arrange that.’
‘Andrew!’
‘Right here.’
Suck of the teeth. Eyes close, then sharply reopen.
‘Eh, tell me something, Andrew.’
‘If I can, Scottie.’
Luxmore cranked his bearded head round until he was facing his subordinate. ‘That prim Sassenach virgin with large attachments and come-hither eyes who graced our little gathering this evening -‘
‘Yes, sir?’
‘Is she what in my young day we called a cock-teaser, by any chance? Because it seemed to me that if ever I saw a young woman who needed the undivided attention of a seven-foot tall – Andrew! For the love of God! Who the devil’s that at this hour of the night?’
Luxmore’s prescription for Fran was never revealed in its entirety. The ring of the front doorbell became a peal, then a blast. Like a scared rodent, Luxmore and his beard retreated to the furthest corner of the armchair.
The trainers had not been mistaken when they praised Osnard’s aptitude in the black arts. A few measures of malt whisky in no way impaired his reactions and the prospect of being disagreeable to Fran sharpened them. If she had come to kiss and make up she had picked the wrong man and a worse moment. Which he now proposed to tell her in words of one Anglo-Saxon syllable. And she could take her foot off his bloody bell while she was about it.