Bonnie lifts up the leather holdall.
“And you packed this one yourself too?”
“Mmm hmm,” says Bonnie. “Mmm hmm.”
Just as a label is being tied to the handle of the holdall, there is a commotion behind her in the queue. The woman looks over Bonnie’s shoulder and points at someone.
“There’s a queue, sir.”
Bonnie turns to see who is causing the problem. A man in his late fifties is barging his way to the front, to the fury of the other passengers.
“Sir…”
The man, a little out of breath, heads straight for Bonnie and snatches the leather holdall from the belt.
“That’s my b—” begins Bonnie, before seeing another figure pushing to the front of the queue. Felicity Woollaston. “Felicity?”
Felicity puts her hands on her knees as she catches her breath. “So sorry, Bonnie, my mistake. Booked you on the wrong flight.” She nods toward Tony. “This is Tony.”
“Hello, Bonnie,” says Tony, now taking her case off the luggage belt too and placing it next to the holdall.
“Is everything okay, m’darling?” asks the check-in clerk.
“Yes, all fine,” says Bonnie. “This is my agent. What’s happening?”
“Just a mix-up,” says Felicity. “Nothing to worry about.”
Tony picks up the cases and leads Bonnie and Felicity away from the desks.
“You got my email?”
“In the nick of time,” says Felicity. “We nearly didn’t make it.”
“Roadworks on the M3 slip road,” says Tony. “As per.”
“Let’s get you a Costa, and have a little chat, shall we?” says Felicity. “My treat.”
86
As so often, the sun shines brightly on a brand-new Dubai day. Everything is possible here.
Rosie is enjoying the view from the breakfast terrace. Henk has arranged for them to have a meeting with Max Highfield before the Diamond Conference a little later this morning. She has a plan to get him to talk, or at least to find out if he’s lying. Rosie will be pretending that she wants Max to star in the film of one of her books. Steve is going to play a big-shot movie producer, and Rosie is already looking forward to dressing him up.
Does Max even know who François Loubet is, though? Amy will not be safe until he’s found. All of this journey will have been wasted. But she knows Steve will find—
Suddenly a very large figure blots out the sun.
“Miss D’Antonio, I wonder if I might join you?”
Rosie looks up at the obstruction, a bear of a man in a tank top and Speedos. He must be very rich indeed to be wearing those in this hotel. Russian accent. She knows precisely who he is, and today there is no Amy to protect her. While they were chasing the ghost of François Loubet, the flesh and blood of Vasiliy Karpin has been chasing her.
What unfortunate timing. If she’d known she was going to die this morning, she would have ordered the pancakes.
Okay, how to play this.
“I’m afraid that I have a rule,” says Rosie. “I won’t have breakfast with anyone who wants to kill me.”
“Lucky I don’t have the same rule,” says the man. “I would never eat. My name is Vasiliy Karpin.”
Rosie hadn’t needed telling. “You’d better sit, Mr. Karpin. I’m assuming you can’t kill me right here, but perhaps you’ll prove me wrong.”
Vasiliy Karpin lowers himself onto the chair. You had to admire chairs sometimes, those thin legs, but look at the weight they could carry.
“So, Mr. Karpin,” Rosie begins, “are you looking for an apology or a corpse?”
“Oh, neither, neither,” says Vasiliy. “I am looking for myself to apologize. Even though I believe you described my face as that of ‘a bulldog chewing a nettle’?”
“Not at all,” says Rosie. “I think that was a mistranslation. It was ‘a bullfrog chewing a nettle.’ ”
Vasiliy laughs, like an elephant seal in great distress. “My wife’s sister, you don’t know her, she says you are right. That is what I look like!”
Vasiliy reaches into a cloth swimming bag, and Rosie tenses. He brings out a book and a pen. It is Dead Men & Diamonds.
“Do you think you could sign it for her?”
Rosie raises an inquiring eyebrow.
“For my sister-in-law,” says Vasiliy. “She will kill me if I don’t get it signed.”
