Covent Garden

At the hedge fund company they had two things to sort out. First, Christies had a request from Moscow to show Picasso's Angel and one of the potential buyers was thought to be Mrs. Putin.

"Well this complicates things. If the Russians are interested I think we should withdraw. It'll get too rich." After all, there were only a few people likely to be interested in an asking price of £30m.

"Not yet. The painting will go on display there for a couple of days, after Beijing, and I think Sir Andrew is going to go to Moscow too. Obviously he wants to sort out the rights mess over Master and Margarita and he hopes the Russians will sort it out for him. But, if the Foundation is hosting a reception, I think we'd better get someone over there anyway. They'll have celebs there - Chapurin, maybe Alla Verber, is she still alive? They'll make an event out of it."

"Now the other problem is this: Johnny Depp wants to do the Litvinenko story. But it's not so much about the poisoning. Their treatment has a lot of Bezdomny's novel about Pontius Pilate in it. It sounds a bit ridiculous but Bezdomny's idea is that Putin is like Pontius Pilate washing his hands and Litvinenko is Jesus. Pretty hilarious and tragic really; it's just so like Andrew's novel. Anyway, they haven't said which one Depp will play, but they're asking for a meeting."