Free Hidden Man by Charles Cumming

lawyer’s a barrow boy, a bright entrepreneur out for whatever he can get. His sort usually run into trouble.’
    A braver part of Taploe wanted to embarrass Keen into an explanation of the term ‘barrow boy’, but he let it go.
    ‘And the boss?’ he said. ‘How does Sebastian fit into the picture? How does he benefit from the Russian organization?’
    Keen shifted slowly in his chair.
    ‘Look,’ he said, ‘there’s absolutely no point in asking me about Roth.’ The use of his surname was a slip. ‘I should have thought that these were the sort of questions to which you might already have answers. As I told you at our previous meeting, my organization doesn’t tend to meet the chaps at the top of the tree. They send their underlings, their lawyers. Mr Ro - ‘This time he checked himself. ‘Sebastian is a man about whom I know very little. I take it as read that he is greedy. I take it as read that he is unscrupulous. So many of us are, Stephen. But why would he bestupid enough to get involved with the Thieves? He must understand the power they exert in Russia? He’d be in over his head, could very quickly lose control of all his investments. It simply doesn’t make sense.’
    ‘And did Divisar warn him about that?’
    ‘Of course we did. Unfortunately Thomas ignored our advice to get a Russian partner on board whose contacts would have facilitated the company’s ex-pansion. Nor were they interested in franchising the name to local entrepreneurs. I advised them to become active in establishing relationships with senior government officials in the Ministry of Interior, men who might have offered them protection from organized crime, even if that meant paying off government bureaucrats instead. But Sebastian wanted total control. Apparently that was how he had built up the company and that was how he knew how to operate.’
    The schoolgirls, gathered in a chattering huddle around one of the larger sofas, began giggling at a photograph in a magazine. Taploe looked across at them, absorbing Keen’s remarks and then running them through his mind like a filter. Eventually he said, ‘Does your son trust Thomas?’
    Keen did not know how to answer the question beyond a simple, one-word response.
    ‘No.’
    ‘But they’re friends? They rely on each other.’
    ‘If that is your impression, then yes,’ he replied unhelpfully. He recalled asking Mark a similar question in the Chinese restaurant.
    ‘But what’s your impression?’ Taploe had begun to feel hemmed in by the crowded basement, the black coffee working through him to a flushed sweat. It was not even a question to which he required an answer, but he had been flustered from the moment he walked into the coffee house.
    ‘My impression?’ Keen ran the dark blue silk of his tie between the thumb and index finger of his left hand, smoothing it before letting it come to rest on the soft folds of his cream shirt. ‘My impression is merely common sense. That they may rely on one another, but that there is a world of difference between reliance and trust. If there wasn’t, after all, men like you and me would be out of a job. Loyalty within the world of business is a fiction. When push comes to shove, Thomas will no more look after my son’s interests than he would cut off his own hand.’
    ‘And vice versa?’
    Keen moved forward.
    ‘You appear to be labouring under a misconception. Mark may have made several trips with Thomas, but they spent a lot of that time apart. What he gets up to in my son’s absence remains a mystery. You seem to think they’re some sort of double act, Libra’s answer to Morecambe and Wise.’
    Taploe frowned, angered that Keen had mentioned the company by name.
    ‘You can understand that he’s our best lead,’ he said.
    ‘Well, what about the French chap?’ Keen asked.
    ‘If you want someone on the inside, why don’t you run him?’
    ‘French chap?’ Taploe said.
    ‘Philippe, I thinkhis name