bar on St Martin’s Lane. She’d picked a small table by the door and watched the pavement traffic for half an hour, letting alcohol soften the ache. The place had been busy, the after-work crowd unwinding; groups at tables and around the bar, laughter, gossip, cigarette smoke.
He wore a cheap pin-stripe, she remembered. Thick around the waist, growing a second chin. Pink cheeks and ginger stubble. He emerged from a crowd at the far end of the glass bar, a pint in one hand. He offered to buy her another drink. She smiled and declined but he sat down opposite her.
She said, ‘I’m waiting for someone.’
He grinned, revealing smoker’s teeth. ‘Me?’
Stephanie said nothing.
‘Seriously, love, sure you won’t have another?’
She glanced at his group. ‘Am I part of a bet?’
‘Don’t worry about them.’
He was slightly drunk. She could smell the beer on his breath.
‘I’m not worried about them.’
‘I’m Charlie.’
‘I’m not interested.’
When he offered his hand, she took it, rolled the fingers into the palm and crushed the fist against the table-top. He sucked air through his teeth, his eyes widened and perspiration sprouted instantly across his pale forehead. Stephanie felt as though she was watching someone else hurt him. But when she thought of how she’d turned on Olivier, she was filled with self-disgust. She let go of him and he sprang up from the chair, backing away from her, bumping into other customers, muttering something she couldn’t hear.
Martin Palmer was waiting for an answer.
Stephanie said, ‘I’m not much in the mood for partying at the moment.’
‘Are you drinking?’
‘What?’
He kept his eyes on his notes. ‘Are you drinking alcohol?’ Now, he looked up. ‘At night, when you go home?’
Beneath the anger ran a current of sadness. ‘Not enough.’
She was aware of her defences rising, which made her aware of how quickly they’d been lowered. Not by Palmer’s crafty questions – she was surprised by his clumsiness – but by something within her. She recognized the feeling. It was the desire to unburden herself. But Palmer wasn’t the right confessor. For two hours, they talked. There were many questions she wanted to answer honestly but couldn’t, not to him. To have done so would have been to cheapen the truth.
She was disappointed, then frustrated and eventually bitter.
‘Let me see,’ Palmer murmured. ‘This Turkish arms dealer, Salman Rifat. According to Mr Alexander, you told him that you had to sleep with Rifat in order to gain his trust and earn yourself access to files he kept at his villa.’
‘Sleep with?’
Palmer looked annoyed by the semantic distinction. ‘Have sex with.’
‘What about it?’
‘Well, how did you feel about that?’
‘How did I feel?’
‘Yes.’
‘Sore.’
He blushed. ‘That’s not what I meant.’
‘I know what you meant,’ Stephanie snapped. ‘But sore is what I felt. And do you know why? Because Rifat had a dick as thick as your wrist and there wasn’t a part of me he didn’t like to force it into. And I let him do that to me because that was part of the job.’
Palmer tried to convey control and began to scribble notes. ‘Fine. I see. Okay …’
‘Okay?’
He winced. ‘Sorry. I didn’t mean it to sound like that.’
‘What did you mean it to sound like? Compassion? Comprehension?’
‘Look, I’m trying to help here …’
‘Let me tell you about Salman Rifat. He’s an arms dealer. A charmer. A monster. And he has his pleasures.’ She hesitated, then looked at her feet. ‘His favourite thing was to make me strip for him, usually in a living room, never in a bedroom. While I stripped, he’d tell me to do things and I’d do them. But the end was always the same. He has this estate in Greece. It produces olive oil. And wherever he is in the world, he has these small bottles of home-made olive oil with him. Dark blue glass, a miniature cork in the top. What he liked to do most was to make me bend over something – the back of a sofa, a table – and he’d pour a little of this oil onto the centre of my spine. He liked to watch it run over skin. That was his thing. He’d tell me to move this way or that. And the more turned on he became, the more aggressive he became. Finally, when the oil ran over my backside, he’d fuck me. One way or the other.’
She looked up. Palmer was staring at her and appeared to have stopped breathing.
‘So when you ask me what I felt and I say I felt sore, you can bloody well write that down. Along with all the other shit that’s going to tell Alexander what he wants to know.’
‘Look, Steph …’
She snorted contemptuously. ‘Steph? You make it sound as though we’ve known each other for years.’
‘I’m only trying to be friendly.’
‘Don’t waste your time. Or mine.’
‘There’s no need to be so hostile.’
‘Why are you asking me these questions? What do you think my answers are going to tell you?’
He averted his gaze. ‘It’s just a routine evaluation.’
Stephanie smiled and it was enough for both of them to understand the lie. ‘Have you ever wondered what it feels like to kill somebody? I mean, as a psychologist – or whatever you are – I imagine you must have considered it. From a professional point of view.’
Palmer couldn’t find anything to say.
‘To look into someone’s eyes – both of you fully aware of what’s coming – and then to pull the trigger. Or to stick the blade in, to feel the hot blood on your fingers and around your wrist. Because I could tell you, if you like. I could describe these things in as much detail as you could take. But it wouldn’t mean anything. Not by me telling you. My answers to your questions won’t tell you anything about me. You’re theory, I’m reality, and the difference between us is something you will never understand.’
Stephanie rose to her feet and began to circle the table, drawing closer to him.
‘Look at you, all dressed up in your street-cred gear, trying to be someone I can relate to, not someone remote. You read my file and picked this as a look, didn’t you? Did you get your hair cut like that especially?’
There was an affirming silence. She rested against the edge of the table, her leg almost touching his. Now, she felt the icy calm that came with full control. Palmer was pale.
‘You’re in a conflict zone,’ she whispered. ‘You’re hiding among a pile of dead bodies. You see conscript soldiers rape a young girl, then decapitate her. From start to finish, they’re laughing, these bakers, teachers, farmers. Once seen, never forgotten, it’s tattooed onto your memory. The only question that remains is this: how do you cope with it?’
His eyes were grey, she noticed. And unblinking.
‘You’re the psychologist. Do you know?’
He shook his head.
‘Exactly. I don’t know, either. You just do. Most of the time. Until there comes a time when you don’t. And that time does come.’ She turned her back on him. ‘Don’t take it personally