Evensong

“I’ll tell him you’re here,” she said, and went through the door to Rafiq’s inner office.

Asika waited. As usual, several members of Rafiq’s personal staff were there, talking quietly among clusters of plain stone-white sofas and armchairs. A couple of them looked up as he entered.

A few minutes later, Arden Bierce came out.

“He’ll see you now.”

“Thank you for coming so promptly, Mr. Asika. I understand you had to postpone some business to come here.”

“You trump everything, Mr. Rafiq. Even the National Theatre.”

“Still, I’m grateful. I hope your work won’t be disrupted.”

Asika smiled. He was a gentle man, who smiled often. He was about the same height and build as Anwar. Along with

Levin, he was one of the four or five consistently highest-scoring Consultants. Despite his abilities, or perhaps because of them, Rafiq always felt comfortable in his company. More so than with any of the other eighteen.

“My work? No, my colleagues are used to my occasional absences. So is my family.”

Rafiq had a poker face that he deployed automatically when anyone mentioned their family. Most people didn’t notice when he deployed it. “I’d like to offer you a mission. May I describe it?”

“Please.”

Rafiq briefed Asika: the tenuous lead to Parvin Marek, Levin’s journey to Opatija and subsequent disappearance, and the villa north of Opatija which, according to the Croatian authorities, was now empty and deserted. When he spoke of Levin’s disappearance, Rafiq was carefully dispassionate. So was Asika.

“And you want me to find out what happened to Levin?” “Yes.”

“And Marek?”

“Secondary. The priority is Levin. Will you do it?”

“Yes. Of course.” 

3

When he first saw her she was at the top of a stepladder, scooping a dead fish out of a floor-to-ceiling ornamental tank at the far end of the Boardroom. She had her back to him.Her bottom was wobbling interestingly under a long, voluminous velvet skirt.

“Sorry,” she said without turning round, “I’ll be right with you. I just noticed one of these angelfish had died.”

“Do they die very often?”

“No, only once.”

She turned to look at him, and he realised that all the stories about her were true. Coming off her in waves was a clean and simple lust, uncomplicated by any other motives. He immediately reciprocated. He could feel the reciprocation growing, between his legs.

He watched her descend the stepladder. She was wearing a high-necked,long-sleeved dress of dark red velvet, like a ballgown, with a fitted bodice and a full, floor-length skirt. New Anglican Archbishops didn’t wear traditional robes, but chose something which suited them personally while also looking formal. The velvet dresses were her particular choice.

She walked over to him. She was smaller than she appeared (or contrived to appear) in the newscasts.

“So this is what a Consultant looks like. I thought you’d be seven feet tall.”

He thought, I only need another ten inches, but didn’t say it. He already knew her well enough to imagine her reply. So he smiled and shrugged, and muttered “I was, but I haven’t been well.”

Behind him, he heard Gaetano laugh softly.

“Don’t smile and shrug like that, it makes you look gormless. Not good for a guardian angel.”

She tossed back her blonde hair. Her face was small and almost delicate. Perhaps rather sharp-featured, but softened by the way she did her hair. Her movements and moods appeared quick and birdlike. Her expression was hard to read, and seemed permanently on the verge of changing. She was a little younger than him; middle thirties, he estimated. She really was quite slightly built.

Her eyes were dark violet. They missed nothing, including his reciprocation when he first saw her. It was now tenting the front of his well-cut trousers.

And there, rubbing against her ankles, was the famous ginger cat, brawny of body and wide of whisker. It glowered at him.

Fuck You it meowed.

“It doesn’t seem to like me.”

“It doesn’t like anyone, except me. And It is a He.”

As at Fallingwater, he tried to mask his feelings by taking stock of his surroundings.

The Boardroom was large, mainly white and silver; with its adjoining anterooms it covered nearly a quarter of the area of the Cathedral’s first floor. It had a long table of light wood set for twenty people. There were windows floor to ceiling down two walls, looking back along the length of the Pier to the beach and the i-360 Tower, and looking to the left over the pearlescent domes and spires and arches of the Cathedral complex. The third wall was lined with comms and screens, and the fourth wall, at the far end, with the tropical fish tank.

There were clusters of armchairs around the room’s perimeter, occupied by people who were obviously the Archbishop’s personal staff. They reminded him of Rafiq’s staff: competent and well-groomed, like Arden Bierce. They’d all stopped talking as he entered. They were still silent now.