“There you go, your royal-ness,” the police-officer said, as we arrived safely at the Russian embassy. “I hope that everything is to your satisfaction, and you will leave my balls quite well alone.”

Botter opened his mouth to reel off some more Russian, but I had had quite my fill of his showing-off, so I elbowed him in the groin. He groaned in agony.

“Uh, what..what did he say, then?” inquired the policeman.

“He…uh, he said that you have done very goods, dah?” I replied, in my increasingly awful accent. “And that your testiculars are perfectlys safe. Now, please be leavinks us, before he changes his minds, dah?”

“Oh! Right. Of course,” blustered the constable. “I’ll…I’ll be on my way! Good-bye!”

And with that, the policeman turned on his heels, and dashed off into the night.

“And never speaks of this again, dah!” I yelled after him. Satisfied that the man was gone, I turned back to Botter.

“As for you, you grotty little swine, where on Earth did that Russian come from?”

“Uh, Russia, sir.”

I chose not to question Botter further, fearing I might haemorrage something in my brain. Instead, I chose to focus on our next problem.

“Now, how are we going to get in here, then, Botter?,” I said, searching the building for an open window or loose brickwork. “Any suggestions? You wouldn’t have happened to have attended lock-picking classes whilst you were learning Russian?”

“No, sir,” said Botter, examining the front door of the embassy.

“Then I fear we may well be up Shit Creek, without a paddle or even so much as a boat. We are right in that creek, Botter, and we are getting shit in our shoes.”

“It’s alright, sir!” Botter exclaimed behind me. I turned to see him standing proudly in the doorway of the embassy, door held wide open in his grubby mitt. “The door wasn’t even locked anyway!”

I straightened myself, brushed down my fake beard, and strode up to my man-servant, who was still beaming like an idiot.

“No-one likes a smart-alec, Botter,” I sneered as I walked into the building. “Although, I daresay no-one much likes you however smart you are.”

“Thank you, milord.”

“Hmmm.” I said, absently, as I took in my new surroundings. It was pitch black, so it did not take long. “This has been all too easy, has it not, Botter? We get all dressed up in our elaborate disguises, then we get escorted up here by a police-man only to then find the embassy conveniently unguarded and unlocked. It is almost as if we are walking straight into a trap…”

“Very well done, Mister Likely,” said another voice, as if it’s owner had been waiting a lifetime for such a perfectly-timed moment. “You are almost as intelligent as I had hoped.”

We slowly turned around, to face our new aquaintance. I immediately recognised the man before us, from his picture in the news-paper. Except of course, in the news-paper he wasn’t pointing a gun at us.

“Ivan Romanov,” I said. “Our runaway Russian!”

“дерьмо,” said Botter.

He was quite right, of course.

- Lord Likely.

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