The gas explosion at an address not necessary to mention had left the place unrecognizable. Its owner could testify to that; she knew well how it was before and now entered the destruction. She’d like to forget the last few hours. Her eyes were swollen from tears, recent or about to start again, since a tear was running down her cheek. She couldn’t say whether for this unhappy sight or for the sorrow she felt over losing two friends. Natalie and Greg were dead. That was inconceivable, no matter how much she tried to convince herself. She knew death would happen to all of us at a certain hour on a certain day, maybe without warning. What most affected her was the way they left this world. Surely they didn’t even realize they were dying. In one second they were alive, making love, according to what the agent John Fox had described; in the next, dead, cadavers, lifeless, inanimate. It was cruel. And as if this weren’t enough, she now had to face this shredded house, without personality, in ruins. Surely both sorrows merged in the tear. This hadn’t been an easy day for Sarah Monteiro.

“Are you sure Simon Lloyd’s in the hospital?” she asked uncomfortably, remembering with a shiver what she’d come to see.

“We’re sure. Relax,” John Fox assured her. “This is someone else.”

“I hope I don’t know him,” she confessed selfishly, more for her own sake than the agents’.

They put on gowns and wrapped their shoes in protective covers that tied at the ankle to avoid contaminating the crime scene, although Sarah Monteiro’s DNA would surely be found all over the place.

“Don’t touch anything,” ever-friendly Simon Templar warned her. “I want it on record that I’m against your presence in this place.”

“It’s on record,” John Fox affirmed, making clear who gave the orders, if this was still not understood. “Let’s continue.”

The place was lit with spotlights. Metropolitan Police technicians were scattered through the rooms of a once tastefully furnished house. Some walls still stood untouched by the blast of fire, stroked by the hot lights of the projectors reflecting off their clean surface.

They almost needed a map to see where they could step, since work was going on. There were still inaccessible areas where forensic technicians bent over small objects with a fine hairbrush, like archaeologists patiently uncovering bones from the Cretaceous period. The work required patience, dedication, and attention.

“Where’s the body?” John Fox asked one of the technicians.

“In the living room,” he answered without even raising his eyes.

John Fox looked at Sarah as if asking her where the room was.

“Ahead and to the left,” she said. “I think.”

Slowly they went along the blackened hallway, full of debris on the floor, officially sealed off with the crime-scene tape police use to enclose those areas that require more hours, perhaps days, of intense work. Luckily the public relations department had concealed the true cause of the explosion from the public, at least for now. This relieved the pressure on the forensic technicians. If the criminal origin became public, there’d be many more agents assigned to the investigation, and the phone calls would be pouring in, demanding a guilty party or scapegoat. This way there was time for work to be done with certain results, if necessary.

John Fox entered the living room first. Shelves, sofas, forty-inch flat-screen television, DVD player, dining table and chairs. At first sight nothing seemed in one piece. Everything showed signs of flames and explosion.

“I wasn’t expecting you today,” the coroner grumbled, anxious to hand over the corpse to the legal process and free up the rest of his day. “Can’t you see it at the morgue?”

“If we could or wanted to, we wouldn’t have told you to wait here,” Simon Templar snapped back, ready for a fight.

“Drop it, Simon,” John Fox ordered. He turned to the doctor. “It’ll be quick.”

The body was laid on a stretcher in a closed body bag.

“Let’s get this over with.” The doctor ran the zipper down to open the bag. The sooner the better.

John Fox looked at Sarah and didn’t need to say anything to prepare her. She came forward slowly toward the stretcher until the interior of the bag was in her field of vision. She didn’t have the courage to look at the face right away. She began with the chest because that was as far as the doctor had opened the zipper. She confronted her fear, turning her look closer to the side of the face. He was a large man, corpulent, who reminded her of Geoffrey Barnes, a bad memory. He was wearing a shirt and white jacket, both heavily damaged by the explosion, ripped and burned in some places, but intact enough to still be identified as a jacket and shirt. The body was in reasonable shape for someone who’d been the victim of an explosion.

“What was the cause of death?” Sarah asked.

“Who’s the lady?” the coroner asked rudely.

“I’m the owner of the house,” she answered. “I’m a journalist.”

“That’s great,” the coroner let slip. “Now is when everything gets fucked up.”

“Watch your language,” John Fox warned. “Miss Monteiro is here as a witness, and she’s not going to make public any of our conclusions unless it’s in our interests,” he concluded.

Sarah looked at last at the face of the corpse. Pale but calm. He seemed like the victim of a peaceful death.

“Homicide,” the doctor pronounced. “A blow to the head, but only the autopsy can confirm that.”

“Do you have any information on the identity?” John Fox asked seriously.

“We do. Judging by the documents in his wallet. Look for yourself,” the doctor said as he handed over a paper.

“What’s this?”

“A printout of the facts related to the victim. The wallet has been sent to the lab. They couldn’t wait for you.” He gave a laugh.

John Fox took the paper and began to read out loud.

“Grigori Nikolai Nestov, fifty-one years old, Russian from Vladi vostok, he is…” The words stuck in his throat. “Is this true?” he asked the coroner.

“It hasn’t been disproved yet,” the other responded, chewing some gum that showed every time he guffawed, like now. The situation amused him. The effect of working daily around death-forget sorrow.

“What’s going on?” Sarah was curious.

John Fox passed the paper to Simon Templar.

“Do you know him?” he asked Sarah.

“No. I’ve never seen him before,” Sarah replied without a shadow of doubt.

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“RSS?” Simon Templar asked.

“That’s what it seems,” John Fox replied.

“RSS?” Sarah asked curiously. “What does that mean?”

“That the victim was an agent in the Russian Secret Service.”

“Russian Secret Service?” Sarah’s jaw dropped. “What was he doing in my house?” she asked, half incredulous, half scandalized.

“Okay, I’m going to leave you to your problems and go on with my own work,” the coroner let them know, as he zipped the bag back up. He whistled at the door to call the technicians to carry the body to the ambulance. They were ready and began carrying it out, one on each side.

“Be careful on your way out. We don’t want to appear on television or in the papers,” the doctor warned as he looked at Sarah. “Good night, gentlemen,” and he went out behind the stretcher men.

Without the body the room seemed emptier, floodlights illuminating the space, the remnants of what was once solid construction. Sarah had moved so recently, and now she’d have to move again… if she survived. Something caught her attention. An object out of place. A small wooden box had survived the holocaust without a scratch or scorch. Although she couldn’t see inside from where she was, she knew what she’d find there. A bottle of port, vintage 1976, the year of her birth.

She stepped around the box thrown on the floor, in the midst of the debris. Such a small, fragile box had escaped the explosion and fire. What were the odds of that? If a body couldn’t even survive a blow to the head… Sarah knew the front part of the box was glass to show the untouchable nectar contained inside. Simon Templar’s words came to mind, Don’t touch anything. That wouldn’t be necessary. She could see inside, through the intact glass, and she was startled to see the bottle wasn’t where it should be. The box was empty. She bent over it.