by Tom Bradby
‘Indeed.’
‘I just mean . . . if you go back to the beginning of the operation on Igor’s yacht, he’s overheard saying, “Viper can help.” If you consider the stakes, does it really make sense that Igor would be referring to a relatively tangential player in those terms?’
‘Stuart worked for the prime minister’s principal rival. He was married to me. I am not sure he was tangential.’
‘I get that. Stuart was betraying you. In the heat of an operation, I totally understand that, as you began to appreciate his treachery, you would naturally conclude he was Viper.’
‘But I was wrong?’
‘I’m not saying that. It’s just, to me, as an outsider, looking at this afresh, it doesn’t make sense of Igor’s comment. “Viper can help” implies someone more important in the food chain than your husband.’
‘Perhaps, perhaps not.’
‘And yet how could they possibly have known what Rav was up to in Geneva? According to the file, your husband had no idea of that.’
‘They must have been monitoring his phone.’
‘Rav was surely much too experienced and capable to have communicated with anyone in a manner that was less than secure.’
‘He called the Guardian journalist.’
‘True. I saw that. But he was unlikely to have told him what he was really up to.’
Kate thought about this. On Rav – perhaps – Suzy might have a point. And now that she had brought it up, Kate wasn’t sure this doubt hadn’t been nagging at her ever since Rav’s murder. ‘Okay,’ she said. ‘Thanks.’ She debated telling her of the way in which someone in the Russian hierarchy had started the Night Wolves retreat from Estonia at nine the previous evening, but thought better of it.
The circle of knowledge had been the same small group: C, Ian, Julie, Danny and Kate. The betrayal of one or another was unthinkable.
‘I’m not trying to be difficult, Kate.’
‘I understand that.’ She nodded. ‘I do. You make valid points. I don’t know how profitable it’s likely to be to reopen this right now, but I will give it some thought.’
Suzy slipped out and Kate closed her eyes. ‘Fucking hell,’ she whispered to herself.
8
KATE TOOK THE opportunity to leave Vauxhall early that afternoon. She chose one of the six aliases common to officers at her level and asked Travel to book her on to the first flight to Berlin on Monday morning. She warned Operations to put Danny, her favoured team leader, on standby to manage the surveillance on the ground in the city, pending the foreign secretary’s approval. And then she walked up to Victoria to catch the Circle line to Paddington.
The train journey to Bodmin Parkway should theoretically have been a time of relative peace and relaxation, but the temporary relief she had felt after her appointment with Dr Wiseman was overtaken by a tidal wave of further anxiety. If she had heard ‘We have a solution’ as she left his office, all she could hear now was ‘You have a problem.’ The questions crowded in: was she going to have to take drugs? Would she become addicted? Would they affect her ability to do her job? Why did she think like this anyway? When was she going to feel better? How would she feel better? What would happen if she got worse, if she lost control, if things began to spiral? Would she lose her job, her children? Who would look after them then?
The questions clattered in her mind. And that was before she had even got around to turning over whether she might really have been wrong about Stuart being Viper. Suzy had a point. But if not Stuart, then who?
She hoped to see Rose at the station, but instead she got only the cheery face of her husband, Simon. Perhaps it was a relief. She just about managed to make small-talk on the short journey up to the coast. Simon looked as if he had been in Cornwall for a month already, dressed in a T-shirt and shorts despite the season, his curly white hair as wild as the wind, which was blowing in hard from the west.
Rose knew something was wrong as soon as Kate walked through the door. ‘Are you all right, my love?’
‘I just need a few moments.’
‘Well, you know where you are.’
Kate went straight upstairs to the main spare bedroom on the first floor, without saying hello to her children or her mother. She closed the door, drew back the curtains and looked out at the moonlight shimmering on the flat, calm water. She started to cry and, before she could contain herself, she was sobbing uncontrollably.
Her chest constricted again, as if she were having some kind of heart attack. She lay down on the sofa by the window and put her legs into the air. She tried to slow her breathing and bring some control to her quickening pulse.
There was a soft knock on the door and Rose crept in. She came closer. She’d bought a new pair of oval glasses, which somehow served to exaggerate the kindly expression that was her default demeanour. Her long dark hair was shot through with more grey now, though she seemed disinclined to do anything to hold back the march of time. ‘Anxiety attack?’
‘I don’t know. I—’
‘They are horrible things.’
‘What the hell is happening to me?’
‘You mean physiologically? You’ve been driving yourself too hard for too long. Too much stress. Too much trauma. The release of adrenalin and cortisol has become your body’s learnt reaction and now your mind and your body are winding each other up, collectively panicking that things appear to be spinning out of control.’
‘Have you ever had it?’
‘Yes.’
‘When?’
‘It’s a long story. It was in the period we were trying to have children. I was very busy at work and I invested too much hope in . . . and . . .’ Rose shook her head, clearly reluctant to go back there. ‘The main thing you need to know is that it will pass. You will get better. As long as you take action now.’
‘Did Dad suffer from anxiety?’ Kate’s father had been Rose’s much-loved younger brother.
‘Not that I was aware of, but . . . perhaps. He certainly wasn’t himself after he found out about your mother’s affair with David Johnson.’
‘David Underpants.’ Rose permitted herself the ghost of a smile. ‘You know,’ Kate went on, ‘he used to wear these really tight swimming trunks that stretched high above his waist. Even as a child, even when he was supposed to be still our friend, I could see he was a ridiculous figure.’
‘I’m not sure that helped your father.’
‘I can still remember the call to Helen like it was yesterday. I was sitting on the stairs. I could tell from the moment she answered the phone something terrible had happened. She said she couldn’t see me any more and when I asked why, she said my dad could explain.’
‘Did he?’
‘Not really. He said there had been some difficulty with Helen’s father. I thought maybe he’d gone bankrupt, or they’d lost their house or . . .’ Kate’s voice trailed off. ‘But then I couldn’t understand why that was causing so much tension in our home.’
‘Did he ever talk to you about it?’
Kate shook her head. ‘You know how he liked to avoid confrontation. But I don’t entirely blame him. What would he have said? “Your mother is poisonous, deeply selfish, dishonest and unreliable”? I already knew that.’
‘I assume you have seen Dr Wiseman.’
‘Yes.’
‘How did it go?’
‘When I walked out of his office, I felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. But as I came down on the train, I lost sight of the potential for a solution and all I could focus on was the certainty that I have a problem.’
‘Well, you’re in a very volatile state of mind. And you will be for a while. But the first step to recovery is to admit you’re not well. Did you talk about work?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Taking some time off.’
‘I can’t do that.’
‘Kate—’
‘I can’t, Rose.’ Kate sat up. The pain in her chest was still searing. �
�Please don’t push it. I just absolutely cannot take any time off now and that is all there is to say on the subject.’
Rose nodded in a way that made it crystal clear she was far from convinced and the matter was certainly not closed. ‘All right. Just stay here for a while. I’ll bring you up a cup of tea and tell the children you had to rest.’
‘Did you hear from Belgrade?’
Kate’s aunt hesitated a moment too long. ‘Let’s talk about it at work on Monday.’
‘What happened?’
Rose was now staring at the floor. ‘It’s complicated.’
‘How?’
‘You know it is. We have to find a couple willing to adopt Maja there. Then we have to go to court to force the state to remove her from her mother, see through the legal adoption, then bring the entire new family over here. It’s long-winded, extremely expensive, and success is far from certain.’
The anxiety in Kate’s chest was exploding again now. ‘We don’t have a choice.’
‘Ian thinks we do.’
‘No . . . No. We made a promise!’
‘Calm down, Kate. That’s why I suggested we deal with it on Monday or whenever you’re in a fit state to have a rational discussion about it.’
‘We’ll do it outside the law!’
‘We can’t, and you know we can’t.’ Rose’s gaze was steely. ‘Look, I’m on your side. I think Sir Alan will be, too, so I suggest in the strongest possible terms that you let it go for now.’
Once Rose had gone, Kate closed her eyes and started to cry again. She had never felt so hopeless and ashamed.
Rose came back with a cup of tea. ‘Take your time,’ she said. ‘And if you can’t make it down to supper, that’s fine.’
‘Can I help?’
‘No. Absolutely not.’ Rose pointed to the huge rolltop bath in the bay window. ‘Run yourself a hot bath, look up at the moonlight, drink your tea and relax for a few minutes. I’ll bring you something stronger in a while.’
‘Thank you,’ Kate said, as Rose reached the door. ‘I don’t know what I’d do without you.’
‘With any luck, you won’t find out for a while, because I intend to hang around for as long as I possibly can.’
‘You’d better.’
Rose slipped out again. Kate ran a deep bath and tried to relax into it. But neither the hot water, nor the tea, nor the moonlight did much to alter the basic physiology of her body, which felt as if it was vibrating constantly.
Rose returned with a gin and tonic. ‘You probably shouldn’t,’ she said. ‘But I’m not sure it’ll do any harm.’
Kate took a sip. ‘Christ! What did you put in it?’
‘Five parts gin.’
Rose went back to her cooking and Kate came down twenty minutes later as supper was being served. She felt quite drunk and consequently played little part in the conversation, which, in any event, didn’t cover much of substance. They mostly talked about what they would do tomorrow.
It was at this point that Kate’s mother chose, incomprehensibly, to pipe up. ‘Where is Stuart?’ she asked.
There was a stunned silence. The children stared at their food. ‘Stuart went away,’ Rose said quietly. ‘You know that.’
‘Where to?’
‘Russia.’
‘Russia? Why on earth did he want to go there?’ She turned slowly to her daughter. ‘Was he running away from you?’
‘That’s enough, Lucy,’ Rose said. ‘Would you like some more chicken?’
‘I don’t understand. Why did he leave?’
Kate nodded at Rose to indicate that she could and would handle it. Her mother always had the ability to rile her, if nothing else. ‘Stuart is still my husband and the children’s father, Mum, so I’d be grateful if you’d drop the subject.’
‘Well, I did warn you.’
‘About what?’ Fiona asked.
‘Leave it, love,’ Kate said.
‘I just want to know what Granny warned you about.’
‘Oh, you know what. Your mother is awfully difficult.’ Lucy looked from Fiona to Gus and back again. ‘You both know that. She drove him away. I knew she would. I told her she’d never be able to hold on to a man.’
Even by her mother’s standards, this attack was so vicious and brazen as to take Kate’s breath away. But that didn’t stop the rage exploding inside her head.
‘I think you should go to bed, Lucy,’ Simon said. ‘No good is going to come of you sitting here with us at supper in this mood.’
They all turned to him. Simon was normally emollient, generous, munificent, steady. None of them had ever heard him talk like that before. Even Lucy was a bit taken aback. ‘That wasn’t a request,’ he added, smiling.
Lucy put down her knife and fork, thrust her plate away and left the room. Rose waited a few moments, then pushed back her chair. ‘I’d better go and see if she’s all right.’
‘Thank you,’ Kate said to Simon.
‘It’s my pleasure.’
‘Sometimes, I think the Alzheimer’s is actually just a front to allow her an old age full of the pleasure of dispensing poison as and when the mood takes her.’
‘Don’t say that,’ Fiona said. ‘She’s ill.’
Kate didn’t fancy an argument with her daughter, so the rest of the meal passed off in small-talk.
Rose insisted Kate leave the washing-up and go straight to bed, but her fevered state of mind seemed to accelerate with the night. She climbed beneath the huge duvet ready to pass out, but something in her brain prevented her from drifting off. And the more she thought and worried about it, the more awake she felt. Worry became fear, then panic.
She didn’t know whether it was better to lie there and hope that sleep crept over her or get up and distract herself, so she ended up doing both in turn. She switched on the bedside light and tried to read the new William Boyd novel she’d brought with her.
Then she switched off the light and lay still.
She got up, drew back the curtains and gazed at the moonlight, which shimmered on the still waters of the bay.
But as the hours of the night crawled slowly by, she had to acknowledge to herself that sleep would not come. As a consequence, the dawn was a kind of relief. The sun came up over the estuary with a crisp amber hue. Kate watched the light creep across the landscape, freeing her inch by inch from the terrors of the night.
She let herself out and walked around the headland towards the small town of Rock, crossed the golden sands of Daymer Bay and climbed to the top of Brae Hill, where the view took in a contrasting patchwork of green and blue all the way down to Padstow on the far side of the inlet.
Rose and Simon were already at the breakfast table by the time she returned, but there was no sign of her mother or either of the children. Rose poured her a cup of coffee. ‘Did you sleep?’
‘No.’
‘Not much or not at all?’
‘Not at all.’ Kate shook her head. ‘It’s weird. It’s a long time since I managed to go all night without any sleep.’
‘It’s not weird at all,’ Rose said. ‘You’ve been under the most incredible pressure. Something has to give.’
‘I guess so.’
Kate pulled the newspaper across. ‘NATO in Crisis’ was the headline on The Times. ‘The Germans say they still want to send more troops to Estonia, even if NATO refuses to do so officially,’ Rose said. ‘The French will follow suit.’
‘Any word from Downing Street?’
‘Still the same line, that the crisis is receding. It’s a time to cool tempers, especially as the British public wouldn’t wear being drawn into a conflict over a country like Estonia. Or words to that effect.’ Simon put down his copy of the Financial Times and poured himself more coffee. ‘Makes you proud to be British, doesn’t it?’
Kate’s phone buzzed. There was a message from C. The foreign secretary has asked to see us at Chevening tonight. I hear you’re with Rose in Cornwall, so will send a car to Paddington to bring you down
there.
‘They want you back,’ Rose said. Kate nodded, wondering how Sir Alan had known where she was spending the weekend. ‘One of the advantages of not actually being your mother,’ Rose went on, ‘is that I don’t feel obliged to nag. So just take this as a statement of obvious fact. I don’t think you’re in any fit state to be at work and I’m sure Sir Alan will understand if you explain it to him. And if you don’t want to, I’m quite happy to do so.’
‘I’ll be fine. I’ll catch the afternoon train back. I’ll sleep tonight.’
Rose didn’t make any attempt to hide her disquiet. ‘All right, but let me know when you’re ready to acknowledge that things are stacking up against you. There’s no shame in admitting you’ve reached your limits.’
Kate buried herself in the paper. She had absolutely no intention of admitting she had reached her limits. She wasn’t even entirely sure what that meant.
She woke the children at nine, so that they would have time to eat before their scheduled surf lesson. It took three attempts to get Gus out of bed, but once he was awake, he ate his breakfast with the speed of a gulag prisoner finally offered a square meal. Fiona had coffee, black, no sugar. Her once dappled cheeks looked gaunt, her greasy blonde hair tied back in a tight knot. Her vivid blue eyes were in danger of being the only trace of the beauty she’d once been.
Normally, she would pretend to eat something – usually cereal, which she would then push around her bowl until it looked as if she’d had some. But this morning, she didn’t even do that.
Kate tried to get her daughter on her own on the way down to the beach, but Fiona wedged herself alongside Jed the entire way, as if she knew what her mother was trying to do.
Simon and Rose went back to the house, so Kate watched the surf instruction alone on the beach. Despite the sunshine, it was cold, and she kept her hands thrust deep into her pockets. Polzeath was a small community that swelled in the summer months. Drab in the rain, it could pass itself off as quaint when the sun was shining, as it was that morning.
All three of the children got up easily on their surfboards at the second or third attempt. Jed was by far the best and Fiona consequently lost his company to her brother on the walk back to the house. Kate thought her son’s admiration for Jed bordered on adulation these days, but perhaps there was no harm in that.
