'How long have you been dancing?'

'Since I was three years old.' But with no interest in her tone, even though her work must be her life, or whatever life Vasyl Sakkas allowed her. Perhaps she had worries on her mind tonight, wasn't always so scared of strangers.

The snow was hitting the windscreen with enough force to smother it, and I switched on the heater wash and slowed until the glass cleared.

'I need the address,' I told Antanova.

'Number 1183. It's one of the big houses, lying back.'

I gave it a moment. 'How is Vasyl?'

At the edge of my vision field I saw her head jerk to look at me.

'You know him?'

'I remember the address.'

Still watching me: 'He's in St Petersberg.'

Throp, throp, the wipers. Steam was rising against the windscreen as the lights of a car swept across it and the clinking of chains became louder suddenly, snow drumming in a wave against the side of the Mercedes as the other vehicle swerved across the ruts.

'When's he coming back?' I asked Antanova.

'Tonight.' She was facing her front now, worried about an accident.

'I would have liked to talk to him.'

'Vasyl? You'd need an appointment, and screening. Or do you know him well?'

'We've done business. And excuse me – my name's Berinov, Dmitri. I'm in jewellery, chiefly export.'

The snow blinding in the beams, the dim outlines of the houses ghostly on either side of the street, some of their numbers legible in the back-light: 1175.

'In any case he won't be in Moscow,' Antanova said, 'until the early hours.' Then she was silent for a time, and when I glanced at her I saw she was crying, her face buried in her furs, the tears glistening in the half-light.

In a moment I asked her, 'Can I help?'

She said nothing, shook her head vigorously, even desperately. Perhaps the worry on her mind tonight, then, was Sakkas' return to Moscow. He would have missed her, and was not a gentle man. I pushed the thought away.

No. 1181, and as I began slowing, headlights on full beam stabbed suddenly from the distance, and I dragged the visor down.

'The next house?' I asked Antanova.

She was shielding her eyes against the glare. 'I don't want to go in,' she told me, the tone raw, a soft cry muted by her hands.

'All right.'

But the headlights were closing on us very fast now and I said sharply, 'Get down.'

'It's one of -'

'Get down low.'

She dropped forward, holding her face in her hands, and I waited for the shots because this could be a hit set up for someone else, someone who was expected to arrive at No. 1183 at precisely this time, someone Sakkas wanted out of his way.

I kept on a straight course, accelerating a little and hearing the chains searching for traction; if I did a U-turn and tried to get out as fast as I could there'd be shots anyway: mere suspicion would be a good enough excuse in the mind of the mafiya.

'Stay down,' I told Antanova as the headlights came blazing through the snow directly at the Mercedes and then swung and went past and I felt the gross impact of the shots as the brain gave way to illusion, then there was only the white tunnel of our own lights ahead of us through the blizzard and I told Antanova she could straighten up.

'It was one of Vasyl's security units?'

She nodded, tightening her seat-belt, staring ahead.

'How many are there?'

'Several cars.' Blowing into a small embroidered handkerchief. 'They're always in the street.'

'And behind the house?'

'Of course. Everywhere.' Her face turned to watch me. 'You didn't notice them before?'

'When I came to the house? It was in daylight, and he'd sent a car for me.' Security units standing off and guards, for certain, at the gates: Sakkas territory, keep out. I'd memorized the number of the house but it was clear enough now that I'd have no hope of surveillancing it, even by night.

'You want to stay with friends?' I asked Antanova.

'Friends? No. I must go back there soon.'

'You want to drive around for a while?'

'No. Take me to the Entre'acte.' Turning to me: 'Do you have time?'

'All the time you need. That's a club?'

'Yes.'

'Where is it?'

She gave me the directions and I turned away from the Ring and headed south; in blizzard conditions it would take fifteen minutes, twenty.

'You can leave me there,' she said, 'and I'll get someone to take me to the house later.' Didn't say 'home'.

'Vasyl's coming in by air?'

'Yes.'

'They'll have cancelled the flight, of course.'

'He'll be in his own 747.'

'Even so, he can't land until this clears and they've opened up the runways again.'

'But I must go back there soon, anyway, or they'll report me.'

'His guards?'

'His aides.'

She wasn't withholding anything, even from a stranger; either she assumed I knew what the relationship was or she just didn't care, just needed to talk, to share her misery.

I asked her: 'Tell me exactly when you've got to be back there.' For her safety's sake I didn't want her to be late.

'By midnight.'

The clock on the instrument panel showed 10:31. 'That's your curfew?'

In a moment, disliking the word. 'It's when I need to be back. You should turn left at the next intersection. If you like you can drop me off at the taxi rank outside the Romanov Palace.'

'No, I'll see you to the club. Are you warm enough?'

'Yes.'

Not strictly true, even though the heater was switched to full fan; she was frozen, crouched beside me with her small body rigid, frozen with cold, frozen with fear as the snow drove against the windscreen in blinding gusts and the illuminated clock flicked to 10:32, another minute nearer midnight.

'So why don't you leave him?'

'I can't.'

She said it impatiently, as if I should have known. Did she expect everybody to know everything about her life with Sakkas? Did he parade her through the clubs of Moscow as his beautiful, talented white slave? It was an important question, because all I knew about him was that he liked his privacy, was a reserved, remote and ruthless entrepreneur operating from his winter fortress in the capital of the new Russia, unassailable because of his ability to control the very centre of Moscow's crime network. Most of this was in the briefing; some of it I'd picked up on my way into the mission, a lean dog hungry for scraps. But I'd found no kind of Achilles heel in the man, though now I thought it might lie here, in his relationship with Natalya Antanova, and this could give me something to work on, even,a chance of closing in on him.

'Why can't you leave him?' I asked her.

She looked down, then up again, but not at me, looking around her in the half-dark: the only light was from candles burning in Tiffany glass bowls on the little tables, so that the scene was a kaleidoscope of fragmented images – the bright outlines of bottles, the sheen of bare shoulders, the glimmer of eyes in shadowed faces, some of them turned to watch Antanova. They seemed to be mostly artists here, gathered together with friends after curtain-down to bemoan their performances and seek the comfort of immediate rebuttal – but darling, you were marvellous!

'I can't leave Vasyl,' Natalya said, her eyes on me now, 'because he would have my brother killed.'

The man in the corner near the bar was one of the people watching her; I'd locked on to him when he'd come in here, less than a minute after we had. He could be an admirer, like the others, or could be simply standing there with one foot hooked over the bar stool enjoying his lust at a distance. Or he could be one of Sakkas' henchmen.

'Tell me,' I asked Natalya, 'about your brother.'

She countered this. 'How long have you known Vasyl?'