Stephen nods. ‘I’ll look after morale, and follow your lead. I don’t suppose we’d be in such comfortable chairs if they meant to kill us? You’d know better than me?’
‘I suspect they want to speak to me about something or other.’
‘And decide whether to kill us based on what you have to say?’
‘Possibly.’
They are both silent for a minute.
‘I love you, Elizabeth.’
‘Don’t be so sentimental, Stephen.’
‘Well, either way, there’s never a dull moment,’ says Stephen.
The door to the library opens, and a very tall, bearded man stoops through the doorway.
‘Viking, is it?’ Stephen whispers to Elizabeth.
The man takes his place in an armchair opposite Elizabeth and Stephen. His frame overflows the chair, like a teacher sitting on a classroom chair.
‘So you are Elizabeth Best?’ he asks.
‘That rather depends on who you are,’ says Elizabeth. ‘Have we met?’
The man takes something from his pocket. ‘Do you mind if I vape?’
Elizabeth holds out her palms in invitation.
‘Terribly bad for you,’ says Stephen. ‘I read a thing.’
The man nods, takes a drag on his vape and turns to Stephen.
‘And you must be Stephen? Sorry to drag you into this.’
‘Not a bit of it. Par for the course with this one. Afraid I didn’t catch your name?’
The man ignores Stephen’s question, and returns his attention to Elizabeth.
‘You have been very busy for an old woman.’
What is the accent? Swedish?
Elizabeth notices that Stephen is scanning the shelves of the library, eyes opening in wonder from time to time.
‘Now, Elizabeth,’ says the Viking. ‘To business. I believe you stole some diamonds?’
‘I see,’ says Elizabeth. At least she knows where she is now. No ancient history, simply their last little adventure. It felt like she had wrapped the whole thing up with a pretty little bow, but no good deed goes unpunished. ‘Am I to take it that I stole them from you, and not from Martin Lomax after all?’
‘No, no,’ says the Viking. ‘You stole them from a man named Viktor Illyich.’
‘Viktor Illyich?’ Elizabeth takes it all back. Ancient history at its very finest. ‘The most dangerous man in the Soviet Union’， they used to call him. She has to hand it to herself, however. Whatever jolt of electricity passed through her body at the mention of the name ‘Viktor Illyich’， no outside observer would have guessed she had ever heard it before.
‘And you work for this Viktor Illyich?’
The Viking laughs. ‘Me? No. I work for no one. I am a lone wolf.’
‘We all work for someone, old chap,’ says Stephen, eyes still scanning the books. He’s up to something, God bless him.
‘Not me,’ says the Viking. ‘I’m the boss.’ He howls like a wolf, for an uncomfortably long time. Elizabeth waits, patiently, for his howl to end.
‘So why am I here?’ asks Elizabeth. ‘Not your diamonds, not your boss’s diamonds, not your business.’
‘I don’t care about diamonds. You think I care about twenty million? It’s nothing.’
The Viking leans forward in his chair, tilts his head and looks Elizabeth straight in the eyes.