The Restoration Game by MacLeod Ken

Author:MacLeod, Ken [MacLeod, Ken]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Pyr
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

3.

“That isn't a rumour,” I said, indignantly catching up on the other side of the street. “It's a fucking shaggy dog story!”

“Such things happened in Soviet times,” said Yuri.

He said it like it was the final explanation.

“I'm not buying that,” I said. “Come on! This film just happened to be destroyed?”

“Yes,” said Yuri. “The same was blindly and stupidly and unforgivably done to priceless footage of the early Soviet space programme—its triumphs and disasters alike. As I said, such things happened. Normally the loss of the only physical evidence would for me suggest that there was nothing behind the story. In this case, it inclines me to think the story is more than a rumour.”

He glanced around.

“We are nearing Haymarket,” he said. “Let us talk no more of these things.”

I couldn't think of anything else to talk about. Yuri regaled me with stories as we walked, up Shandwick Place and around Charlotte Square and along George Street. They weren't tales of his life in the Soviet Union—they were scurrilous, eye-opening, unrepeatable snippets about what went on behind the sandstone and granite walls of Scotland's imposing institutions: Bute House and the law firms and learned societies and brokerages and the small nation's mighty, world-straddling banks.

We reached the side door of Harvey Nichols a few minutes before six.

“A moment,” Yuri said. He lit up, and stood watching the rush-hour homeward flow of people through the mall. He said nothing, but I noticed on his face a pensive and almost sad expression, which after a few moments I recognised as compassion. The look made me feel vaguely uneasy. Yuri stubbed his cigarette on the wall, looked around for somewhere to put it, then dropped it. We stepped through the glass doors and took the lift to the top of the store, stepping out into a broad space of polished wood, white tablecloths, dim lighting, and bright windows. Ross Stewart was sitting on a stool at the small bar on the way to the restaurant area. He saw us, smiled, knocked back a shot, and swung his feet to the floor.

“Good to see you, Lucy. Hi, Yuri. Let's get dinner.”

We had a table near the window overlooking St. Andrew's Square. The sun was still high enough not to be a nuisance. I had a G&T, Ross had another whisky, Yuri chose vodka.

Time to order.

“And how would you like your venison?” the waiter asked Ross.

“Very rare. Just caught in the headlights.”

Over my seared salmon and Ross's startled deer and Yuri's roasted chicken we talked about everything except what I wanted to talk about. It was frustrating. Ross, in waistcoat and shirtsleeves (complete with stretchy silver armbands to keep his cuffs from slipping too low), jacket over the back of the chair, was in relaxed and expansive mood. Yuri (sleeves rolled up) was sombre. I could have done with picking the brains of both of them—about Amanda, about Krassnia, about the Maple Revolution and “the business,” but they instantly cut out any such allusion. Not that

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