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something to do.
    On the ground floor, he stepped off the elevator into a deserted lobby. Even the ubiquitous doorman was absent as he exited the hotel onto Hyde Park Corner, but as he crossed the street and automatically glanced behind him, a movement beneath the hotel’s portico caught his eye. A figure had moved abruptly back into the shadows.
    Once again his skin prickled, and the intuition was not as easy to shake a second time. Someone was watching him.
    Without breaking stride, he continued across the street, disguising the kinetic emotion that wanted to drive him forward at a more reckless rate. It wasn’t fear; it was anger, and he embraced it with a cathartic intensity.
    He had given years of his life as penance for signing his name in ignorance, but it still wasn’t enough. It wasn’t enough to have been his brother’s hapless pawn in a financial scheme that destroyed his career and future. Now, he was also expected to be the cat’s paw in some contorted intelligence game that was likely to get them both killed.
    To make the irony even more exquisite, when Frank had presented the papers, Conor had signed them without blinking, as if five years had taught him nothing. Well, he’d signed up for the match, and someone appeared to be wasting no time in getting it underway.
    “Let them come, then,” he said, resisting the urge to look behind him again. “Whoever the hell they are, let them come. Maybe we can get it over with fast.”
    He reached the large archway of Apsley Gate and passed under it into the park. It was more active than he would have expected for such an early hour. A small collection of runners and dog-walkers moved along the paths, and a group of Tai Chi practitioners was already gathered near the water’s edge of the Serpentine. After pacing off a quick hundred yards, he risked a furtive glance over his shoulder and detected one figure stepping along with a more purposeful gait.
    When he arrived at the Lido, he was alone again. The park’s sunbathing and recreational area was deserted, its facilities locked, shuttered, and swept clean. The Lido’s restaurant offered a temporary screen from observation, and he passed around its far corner before pausing to consider his options.
    Ahead of him, the path—with a wide, empty lot next to it—straightened out again, carrying on toward a bridge that spanned the Serpentine. A little to his left, an enormous weeping willow stood near the rear of the building. Its branches spilled down to the ground in a green curtain of lance-shaped leaves. Conor moved closer to study it, and then, parting the tangle of drooping branches, he stepped through to crouch behind the trunk. As the rustling leaves settled back into stillness, a broad-shouldered form appeared around the corner of the restaurant.
    Conor pressed against the trunk and squinted through the branches. The man carried a briefcase and was dressed in a dark blue suit and gray raincoat, looking like a businessman on his way to work. He had a head full of brown, curling hair, and as he passed the tree, Conor caught a brief glimpse of a square-jawed face. The man walked a few paces down the path and then stopped and rotated slowly, scanning the empty space around him, looking bored and irritated. He pulled a mobile phone from the pocket of his raincoat and impatiently stabbed at the keypad.
    “Yeah, it’s Shelton. I’ve lost him.”
    The voice was gruff, carrying the strong, matter-of-fact tone of an East London accent.
    “Well, I had to stay well back, didn’t I?” he snapped. “It’s a bloody big, open park. I had him in sight about two hundred yards ahead and then he went into dead ground and disappeared. Might have gone on to the bridge or he might have cut through the car park back to the street.”
    The burly figure turned. His eyes swept across the willow tree without pausing and looked back along the path in the direction he’d come.
    “Bollocks,” he snorted. “I told you I