From Russia with Love

The Devil in London

Note to the reader: this chapter is structured like matryoshka dolls. You can read the main storyline or digress to take side quests. Or both.

A Belgravia mansion set back among the trees. The sky is blackening as a limo pulls away from the curb. Rain is coming and it will be a violent night. Through the window a computer clacks "I have decided to let the Master and his mistress rest for the time being." A black cat crosses the street outside. The Devil is in London again and the rain is here to stay. Unexpected floods and fires will last all summer and into the autumn.

Across town in the agency office above Oxford Street they are discussing the Kirov-Mariinsky and Bolshoi letters and the war in Ukraine. Do we have to have more Tchaikovsky? I'm so tired of Swan Lake and Sleeping Beauty. But we need to make our numbers interject the financial people. Maybe Queen of Spades but please no Nutcracker. Should we commission something new ask the innovators? Why not that new opera? Have you spoken to Lloyd-Webber's people again? Not Boris Godunov. Maybe Rite of Spring -- tart it up a bit?

They're coming for me. Sushi in Picadilly or tea in Highgate? Home to Muswell Hill or make a run for it and catch a plane from Stansted? Too late, the storm is coming.