"It's awful. Of course I will tell you whatever I can, but, truth be told, that's not much." The grocery store owner, Ivan Petrovski, a hefty man in his late fifties with a faint Russian accent, leaned on the counter and shrugged. "The young lady was in here. She bought the milk, then turned round and left. I handed over to Alyosha, here, and off I went."

"Did you see anyone following her?"

Both the owner and his son, who they'd questioned earlier, shook their heads. "She didn't look as though she thought she was being followed," the older man contributed. The son, a lanky young man barely out of his teens, just looked spaced out, hanging around as if he had nothing better to do. If they'd been looking to bust for possession of whatever brand of skunk was currently doing the rounds on the street, Eames thought, he'd have been her number one pick. He gave the impression that he should probably carry a piece of paper with his name on in case he needed to remember it in a hurry.

"But there was someone who came in afterwards. A man, maybe Alyosha's age, perhaps a bit older."

They pricked up their ears. This sounded promising.

"I didn't see any man," the son said, sounding puzzled.

"He was only in for a few seconds. You were in back getting some boxes of chips, remember?" He turned to Goren, and shrugged. "It was strange. He looked up and down all the aisles. I shouted to ask if he needed help finding something, then he started to leave."

"Can you describe him?"

"Looked Asian, maybe bit shorter than you-" he gestured towards Goren "-short hair, beard... I don't remember that much now, I'm afraid. He didn't strike me as being anything other than another customer."

"Would you be willing to describe him to a police artist?"

"Yes. Hold on. I can do better than that." The man glanced at his son. "Alyosha, go count stock or something."

"It's all there."

"Just go away, boy, okay?" The son stuck his hands in his pockets and slouched off. Petrovski went into the back of the store, and returned a few minutes later clutching a tape. "He doesn't know, but I have another camera." He jerked a thumb at the clock on the wall. Squinting, Eames could just make out a tiny camera lens hidden in the number '12'. "I switch it on when I leave the store in his hands, in case any of his useless friends decide they want some free chips and beer. It covers all the areas the other camera doesn't." He rolled his eyes and glowered in the direction of his son's departure.

"Thanks, Mr Petrovski." She took the tape from him. Behind her, Goren cleared his throat.

"You said... he started to leave the store. Did something catch his attention?"

"Yes, now that you mention it..." Petrovski looked thoughtful. "My wife, she and I speak Russian to each other, always have done. She called down, was I ready to go? I remember now – he looked round to see who was talking."

"Did he look to you like he understood what was being said? In Russian?"

"Yes... yes, I think he did."

"Thank you, Mr Petrovski, you've been very helpful."

Shortly afterwards, they were standing in the audio-visual lab, waiting for the tech to provide them with the results of the tape analysis. Thank God for Mr Petrovski's son's useless friends, Eames thought. They now had a clear picture of Ahmed Nissar, or whoever he really was. They both stared at it, committing the image to memory.

"It's a step forward."

"Yeah..." Goren was pacing the lab. The tech, used to him by now, was ignoring it. Suddenly, he spun on the spot. "Hold on... I know who we should talk to." He pulled out his cellphone, then checked the number in the small address book he always kept with his brown folder, and dialled.

"Hmm?" she asked.

"You mentioned Logan's idea about Nissar being some kind of professional?" he replied distractedly, then got through to whoever he was calling. "Hello? Yeah, it's Detective Robert Goren here, NYPD Major Case Squad. Can you put me through to Captain Tim Whitefield, please?" There was a pause, then he replied, "Yes, it is urgent. Well, you tell him who I am, and he'll want to take the call..."

Tim Whitefield? Where had she heard that name before?

"Hello? Yes, it's Goren. I need to speak with you as soon as possible."

Another pause. Sienna's ex-boss! Ooh, this was getting interesting.

"Yeah, we can do lunch. We'll meet you there." He hung up. "You know that diner two blocks away, the one hidden behind the laundrette?"

"Does pastrami sandwiches to die for?"

"That's the one."

Twenty minutes later, they were sitting in a booth waiting impatiently for Whitefield to show. Eames was torn between wondering how to approach Whitefield, and whether she should order salad, or say "the hell with it" and go for the chicken special on rye, with French apple tart to follow. She noticed with amusement that Bobby, too, was eyeing the dessert menu. Well, they could both switch their attention back to their jobs very quickly when the occasion required it. He's been eating a lot of cake, recently, she found herself thinking. Carbohydrates are a natural tranquilliser... heh, he told me that himself.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the thump of a heavy frame into the seat opposite them. She looked up to see Captain Tim Whitefield, Interpol Serious and Organised Crime Squad, settling himself opposite the two of them. She'd only met him once, briefly, just before she got injured on the Shorokogat case and had to take leave to recover, a long time ago. Even so, she couldn't help reflecting that the intervening years had not been kind; he'd aged and put on weight, his hair more grizzled and receding around the edges. The eyes, though, were still as sharp as ever. Whitefield had been Army Intelligence before he joined Interpol – like Bobby himself, she thought.

"Detective Goren, good to see you again. Detective Eames." He stuck out a meaty hand, and they shook briefly. He was perceptive enough to know exactly how hard to grip without crushing, she noticed.

The waiter had wandered across to them. "Can I take your orders?"

"Sure. You got any kind of salad with steak in it?"

"Yes sir, we do that..." The waiter indicated on the menu.

"Excellent, I'll have that."

"Me too." Bobby looked up from his folder briefly, then returned to it.

"And for you, ma'am?"

"The same."

"We do a very nice chicken salad."

She fixed him with her best glower and enunciated clearly. "I'll have the steak salad. With a mineral water. Thank you."

The waiter backed off, looking nervous. Both men grinned. "So, Goren, what can I do for you? Got any more planes to rescue? CIA giving you trouble?"

"Nope. This guy here." Goren handed across the photo to Whitefield, who studied it briefly. "Don't know him." He shoved it back across the table and shrugged. "Good seeing you again."

Undaunted, her partner tried again. "I was hoping you could have it run through your squad's database, see if it matches." He explained about the two kills and Mr Petrovski's statement. Whitefield listened carefully, then shrugged again.

"You want it checked out, Goren, drop it by the office some time. They'll get it done in time. We're real busy right now."

"We need it faster than that if we're to have any chance of catching this guy."

Whitefield spread his hands in the universal gesture of not my problem.

"You owe me for catching Daniel Smith," Goren said it very carefully, but there was a distinct edge to the conversation now.

"A good thing in the grand scheme of things.. but I don't owe you for that. Try the CIA. On second thoughts, don't. They don't take too kindly to being reminded about that kind of thing." The salads arrived, and Whitefield dug into his with relish. Eames followed suit, nibbling on a nice juicy steak morsel; Goren left his untouched.

"You do owe me for whatever information you got out of Shorokogat's kid. Without me, he'd have been killed."

Whitefield leaned back and folded his arms. "Hmm. Now, that's one way to look at it. Another way would be, I owe you one-third, that Brit spy another third, and Sienna Tovitz the final third, seeing as how without the two of them, your ass would have been grass."

"And vice versa." Ooh. She couldn't quite say how he'd done it, but there was a subtle hint in there. You owe me for Sienna's life. Nasty. Sienna had, after all, been Whitefield's protégé as well as Bobby's ex-girlfriend.

Whitefield thought about this. "You think this guy's a professional killer. Ex-KGB, Russian Army, maybe?"

They both shrugged. "Could be," she replied, noticing that Goren was chewing a lettuce leaf with little enthusiasm.

"And you just want a rush-job on this ID, nothing else?"

Goren nodded.

Whitefield pondered for a minute, then made a decision. "Okay, I'll arrange it. After this, though, I owe you nothing."

"No problems."

The discussion concluded, they turned to their lunches. Whitefield finished first. He wiped his mouth and grinned, then looked at his watch. "Ah, dammit – I gotta go."

"Meeting?"

"Ordering flowers. My wife's – our anniversary is later this week." He grimaced. "Last time I forgot, I slept on the couch for a week." He grinned, and she grinned in return, briefly sensing the man behind the professional mask.

"There's a florist round the corner-" she volunteered.

Whitefield was already nodding. "Yeah, I know. Tovitz found it for me... jeez, nearly two years ago." He shook his head. "Never should have let her go. That's the trouble with the good ones, they always move on. I guess she could come back, but I doubt it – won't want to be running round after me when she's been heading up a squad over in London..."

"Hunh?" She was aware that beside her, Bobby had frozen briefly, then apparently decided to play nonchalant. She wasn't fooled, and doubted that Whitefield was either.

"She's technically on secondment, could come back to her old job here, though I guess they'll offer her a permanent post over there if she decides to stay on this year. I hear she got herself assigned to a squad dealing with trafficking women into London for prostitution. Must be real helpful for them, having a female who speaks Russian, Ukrainian and a whole passel of other Eastern European languages... getting testimony from trafficked women is one of our major problems over here, they just don't want to talk about it. Don't blame them, but the number of times I've seen cases collapse because of it... then I have to keep the troops motivated for the next case, which is probably going to end the same way." He sighed. "Take my advice, don't ever go into management. Stay on the frontline."

"You miss being shot at, talking to witnesses who can't remember what day of the week they saw the event in question on, and having your testimony ripped to shreds on the stand?" she parried.

Whitefield grinned. "Hell yes, I do. I'll be in touch." He shoved a bill onto the table, and left them to finish their salads.