CHAPTER 1

She had never really believed in the guru.

She was a firm believer in herself, in all her guilt and grief.

And in the noble art of running away, geographical distance, that too.

It had seemed enough, once. Behind her, back in London, where everything was loud and immediate and unbearable. Get away, get far away, be somewhere else. Somebody else.

It had seemed all too wonderfully attractive, if she were honest.

She could be honest, sometimes. If she was paid enough.

'Money's not an issue.'

Well, of course he'd say that. For him it was not, it never had been. He'd been born to it: the Honourable Anthony Fledgwood, son of his father, junior lordling and newspaperman. Editor to one of his father's rags; entitled to appear in the very social pages that he published. Entitled? Determined, rather. Which was how Grace had bumped into him tonight, as it happened: at that kind of party where one only went to be noticed.

For him, it was his stock-in-trade; for her, a professional engagement.

Those weren't quite the same thing, though it was easy sometimes to confuse the two. Confusion was something that she traded on.

Had traded on, in the past. No longer. The cost was too great.

That night her host Dr Barrett was her employer, though he was too polite to admit it. Certainly he was far too polite to call her a hat-check girl, though really he might as well. It wasn't that kind of establishment, but even so.

By her own definitions, it was a bell, book and candle night. She and the other girls were there to answer the door, serve drinks, listen to the conversations – and contribute too, in a wide-eyed admiring kind of way – and then go home with anyone who wanted them. It was a literary party – hence the book in 'bell, book and candle', coming handily between the doorbell and the night light: she could still amuse herself with her own bitter wit, even if she found little enough to laugh at any more – so there was likely to be a queue of hopefuls. In her own case, it was likely to be a long one. Notoriety will do that to a girl.

Notoriety will fill a room, too. Fill a party. She was one of the reasons the place was so hot tonight. A better reason – she thought – than the Soviet poet whose new book was being launched, whose embassy watchdogs stood four-square on either side of him in bad suits, glowering. In a spirit of perversity, she had ignored the poet and tried to charm the watchdogs. Having achieved nothing but a more severe glower, she was devoting herself now to their torment: sashaying by with a sway of miniskirted hips at every opportunity, trailing literati and gossipmongers at every step; bringing them the virtuous and regular orange juices they had demanded, spiked with lethal quantities of vodka they knew nothing about; sending anyone she could to murmur bright nothings into the poet's hairy ear, just a little too softly for his minders to overhear.

The vodka might be wasted effort – they were Russian, after all, and built like brick outhouses: so far they were showing no effects at all, despite the heroic quantities of Stolichnaya they were innocently imbibing – but she thought she was winning on all other fronts. Even outhouses had libidos, seemingly. They watched her come and go and come again. They watched everyone, of course; it was their job, just as it was her job – a part of her job, one of her jobs – to be watched. But even so. They watched all of the girls most of the time, which probably wasn't their job at all. But even so. She didn't think they did it indiscriminately. She thought they discriminated absolutely. In her favour, if it was a favour to be so coldly lusted after. She could feel their chill hunger follow her around the room like the eyes of a sinister portrait in some cheap Hammer Horror flick: dark and empty and meaningless and deadly.

Deadly to her spirits, at least, if she would let it be. But, of course, she wouldn't. She'd go on goading them, however she could manage it, for whatever mean pleasure it might give her. Already they were eyeing their charge askance, frowning after the purveyors of those whispered messages, half inclined to whisk him swiftly back to the embassy. Or else to durance vile, if life in the USSR wasn't already vile enough. A little more of this, a little more purpose to it, and she thought she really could make them believe that MI5 was trying to seduce him. The game was all the more enjoyable because they didn't know the rules. They didn't even know they were playing.

She had decided, quite some time ago, that all of life was a game. It was how she got through. She had lost a couple of rounds, quite catastrophically – but how could that matter in the long run, or the short run, or at all? It was just a game. She could be a good loser and start again. Nothing left to lose now, after all ...

'Grace, girl! Amazing Grace. Still strutting your stuff, then? Of course you are. I'd be proud of you, if I had any right to be. If you were mine.'

'Tony.' His hands were on her hips, his voice was in her ear; he was here, then. Well, of course he was here. He was a player too: on his father's behalf, and his own. If those were different. Neither man – nor any of their newspapers' avid readers – would have the least interest in a Russian poet, but there were other attractions tonight: the Beautiful People, the buzz of fashionable London. And herself. The Honourable Tony's readers were very much interested in her. Likely, he'd have a photographer stationed in the street outside. No matter. She knew a back way, if she was leaving with company, if she wanted to keep it a secret. Or she could be bold, leave by the front door, keep her face on the front page. If she chose to play it like that.

She leaned back against the familiar comfort of his body and said, 'You wouldn't want me, darling. Your dad would disapprove.' She was fine on the front page, selling papers at 6d a time; not so good on his son's arm at a nightclub. Appalling across the dinner table in the family home; worse across the breakfast table next morning. Unthinkable within the family, permanent, married.

Just as well that had never been on the cards, then. Not a legitimate move.

Tony made a noise that was obviously meant to mean bugger Dad, but it wasn't very convincing. Everything he had – money, position, access: that last particularly, every open door – he owed to his father. There had never been any question of a split between them. Even before she disgraced herself utterly, finally, irrecoverably.

She was still a player, but the game was different now. All she had to play for was survival. He was out of her reach. He probably always had been; it was just that she knew it at last.

Still. He had a tight grip and a firm body. A tight grip on a firm body, which was hers. His father wasn't here. If anyone was watching – apart from the Russian goons – she didn't care, and apparently neither did he.

Of course, people were watching. People were always watching. There was probably somebody here who was being paid to watch her, and not by Tony or any of his rivals. When once you've been a trouble to the government, they don't ever quite let you run free. Mr Wilson would be keeping an eye on her, she was sure.

She still didn't care. She tried not to think about it much; it was too strange, knowing that the...