by Tom Bradby
‘He’d been digging around in the foreign secretary’s African business interests. And there was plenty there.’
‘They say knowledge is power,’ Rose said. ‘But sometimes it’s a burden, too.’
‘Why is your name on the file closure?’
‘I think Alan’s a good man. I always have. He’s been loyal to me, and I have to him. He was taken in by this when he shouldn’t have been. Shutting down the Africa investigation was the price of keeping him in his job, and I thought it was worth paying. But everyone knew he was a school friend of the foreign secretary, so his name on the closure would have made him a hostage to fortune.’
‘What about Ian?’
‘We had no choice but to leave him where he was. He knew too much.’
‘Did the Africa file trace the source of the foreign secretary’s cash?’
‘Not to my knowledge. Mugabe or his cronies, I assume.’
‘The other day you told me Sir Alan seemed preoccupied with something. Do you know what?’
‘No. He’s been more than usually secretive.’
‘There’s something he might not want to share with you, under the circumstances,’ Kate said. ‘A week ago we received intelligence that suggested one of the leading candidates to replace the prime minister is working for the Russians.’
‘In what capacity?’
‘We don’t know the what, why or how.’
‘What about the who?’
‘It’s very likely to be the foreign secretary.’
Rose nodded, as if it made complete sense.
‘The same source suggested there’s a mole, probably inside Vauxhall Cross, which would explain why we lost the girl. The op appears to have been compromised from the word go.’
‘So you’re on a mole-hunt.’
‘Yes.’
‘How close do you think you are?’
‘It’s a small pool. Half a dozen people knew enough to put the Russians where they were at the time they were there: me, my two assistants, Danny from Ops, Ian and Sir Alan.’
‘This story doesn’t have a happy ending, Kate.’
20
‘Is there any way I can help?’
‘No. You’ve given me too much already.’
Rose got up and kissed her. ‘As I said, you’re the daughter I never had. But now you need to go to bed.’ She took the empty mug from Kate’s hand. ‘You need to rest and recharge. Simon and I will look after the children and your mother in the morning. Why don’t you and Stuart take that fabulous walk along the Ridgeway, have lunch at the White Horse? I’ll send Simon to pick you up afterwards.’
‘Rose …’
She stopped at the door. ‘Yes, my love?’
‘Do you ever think you can have too much knowledge?’
‘In our business?’ She pursed her lips. ‘Not if you want to win. And you’ve always been very competitive. In what we laughingly call real life? Perhaps.’
Kate hadn’t meant in their business, of course, but she didn’t correct her aunt.
She almost collided with Jed as he emerged from the ground-floor loo. ‘I’m so sorry, Mrs Henderson.’
‘Night, Jed.’ She headed for the door into the formal garden.
‘Er, Mrs Henderson …’
She stopped and turned.
‘I know you don’t think much of me, although you were very nice about my jacket, but the thing is, I really like your daughter. I get that you’re worried about the age issue, but I … I care for her. A lot.’
‘I can see that, Jed. And I’m sorry if I appear unwelcoming. I have a lot on my plate right now so please don’t take it personally.’ She felt herself smile at him in a way she hadn’t managed with anyone recently. ‘Goodnight.’
The tension seeped from her shoulders as she walked through the garden. The perfectly sculpted box hedge brushed her leg and she ran a hand through an ornamental rosemary bush, snapped off a sprig, rubbed it between her fingers and raised them to her nose. The night was still but for the sound of the breeze in the treetops and the distant hum of traffic. An owl hooted as Kate gazed up at the constellations above her. She glanced about her. All was still.
She meant to wait up for Stuart, but her eyelids grew so heavy once she’d burrowed beneath the duvet that she couldn’t stave off sleep a moment longer. She woke to find Stuart leaning over her with a bone china cup of tea. ‘Role reversal,’ he said. ‘I’ve been given strict instructions from Rose.’
He drew back the curtains and let in the bright morning sunlight. Kate sat up and sipped her Earl Grey. The four-poster bed afforded a magnificent view of the rolling hills beyond the garden’s ancient stone walls, and of the blue sky above them.
‘Apparently, we’re embarking upon a major expedition to the White Horse, and leaving the children to your mother’s tender mercies.’
‘Rose said she and Simon would look after them all.’
Stuart threw himself onto the bed. ‘Well, I couldn’t think of a better idea if my life depended on it. Let’s get going. It’s a beautiful day.’
‘What time did you turn in?’
‘Late.’ He hauled himself up again and went to the bathroom. ‘Simon’s Lagavulin is invariably a mistake, so I’m going to have to blast up that hill to eradicate the traces.’ He turned on the shower. ‘You must have slept well. You were snoring when I came in.’
‘I was not!’
His grin appeared around the door. ‘You most certainly were.’
She showered while he dressed, and then they had a huge family breakfast. Afterwards the two of them set off, feeling only moderately guilty. The children had been more than happy to be left behind. Gus and Fiona viewed a long country walk as the least amusing of all adult tricks, and Jed was not about to contradict them.
The merest hint of cloud brushed across the sun as they climbed towards the horizon, but the sky was clear again as they drew closer to the ridge, and the green fields below them were luxuriant in the sunlight. ‘On a day like this,’ Stuart said, ‘there’s not a shadow of a doubt that Jerusalem was builded here …’
‘Hmm,’ Kate said. ‘Pity about “those dark satanic mills”.’ Her nose was running, so she reached into the pocket of her jeans and almost took out the condom packet wrapped in its sheet of kitchen roll.
It burnt a hole in her pocket and her mind for the rest of the climb.
Stuart’s phone pinged and he fished it out of his Barbour.
‘You need to switch it off,’ she said.
‘Controversial.’ He smiled at her. ‘But all right.’
‘So?’
‘So what?’ he asked.
‘What was the text about?’
‘Ah – now who’s breaking her own rule?’
‘What’s happening?’
‘Imogen is on a media round tomorrow morning. She’s going to announce that she plans to review Trident and redirect all savings entirely to the Education budget.’
‘Bloody hell. Does she mean to ditch Trident?’
‘Not immediately, but that might be the outcome. She wants a nuclear deterrent, just doesn’t think it has to be Trident in this day and age. On Monday she’ll share a stage with three retired admirals, two generals and an air chief marshal who will all say they think she’s right.’
‘The press and the party will go crazy.’
‘Some of the press, perhaps. The party? I’m not so sure. The idea is for a new kind of leader with new priorities and ideas for a new generation. If she looks and sounds like the future, she may well swing it.’
Kate walked on in silence. It was a bold play. She wondered what the Russians would make of it.
‘You’ve been a bit odd this week,’ Stuart said, from behind her.
‘Have I?’
‘You know you have.’
‘I’m sorry.’
‘About Imogen, I mean.’ He took her arm and swung her around. ‘What is eating you?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Come on, Kate. Tell me. I can’t stand
tiptoeing around in no man’s land.’
‘I just wonder if you’re having an affair.’
‘For God’s sake …’
‘What on earth were you doing, calling her at three in the morning?’
He gaped at her, dumbfounded. ‘You’re spying on me?’
‘The Russians have someone inside our organization, for fuck’s sake. Or close to one of the candidates. We had to pull your phone records along with everyone else’s.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘A spy, a sleeper, a mole.’
‘How do you know?’
‘The same way we know about our foreign secretary possibly being one of theirs.’
‘And you thought it was me?’
‘Of course I didn’t. But my team couldn’t exclude you or me from the search. They’d get carpeted and sacked if it ever came to light. They pulled everyone’s logs. Yours show just how much you call her. Which is fine. But I’ve found it difficult to explain why you might have needed to speak to her in the middle of the night.’
‘That’s difficult to explain, is it?’
She shook herself free. ‘Of course it bloody is.’
‘Even though you regularly call your team at all hours?’
‘That’s different.’
‘Why? Because your job is more important than mine?’
‘It’s different. I was away in Greece. You were on your own with the children. You called her at three in the morning, and half an hour later, her phone was located inside our home.’
‘So I must have been fucking her?’
‘Were you?’
‘I am not going to dignify that with an answer.’
‘Don’t lie to me, Stuart.’
‘Jesus, Kate …’
She retrieved the kitchen towel, shook out the condom wrapper and handed it him. ‘So explain this, why don’t you.’
Stuart took the gold wrapper as if it were about to burst into flames. He stared at it for a moment. ‘You’re right. I did put this in the dog-food can and shove it in the bin.’ He looked at her, his gaze cold as ice. ‘And that is because I found it under the sitting-room sofa. Why was it there? Not because I can’t wait to hump my boss the moment your back is turned but because that was where your new best friend Jed left it.
‘I confronted Fiona. She admitted she’d lost her virginity to him while I was upstairs in our bedroom watching television. She begged me not to tell you. Begged me. I didn’t promise not to – after the last lecture you gave me – but reckoned I’d wait for a better moment, given everything you have on your mind. And, yes, I echoed every point you apparently made to her the other day, including the legal definition of statutory rape.
‘So let’s move on to the phone records – not that I should have to answer your stupid questions. Someone in our department got himself arrested in Scotland for allegedly downloading child pornography. We were shitting ourselves about the news leaking first thing in the morning. You were away. She texted me. I called back. Of course, if I was shagging her, I wouldn’t have had to call back, would I? I’d have been right there on the kitchen table with her. But that clearly never occurred to our local neighbourhood super-spy. She came over, we talked it through, she went away again. End of.’
Stuart was shaking with rage. Kate reached for his arm and only succeeded in tugging at his sleeve as he stepped further away.
‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry … really sorry. I’ve been under a lot of pressure.’
‘Fuck your pressure, Kate. Fuck your job. And fuck you.’
He stormed on up the hill and she let him go. He was a big, strong, athletic man and he could move at quite a pace when he wanted to. For half an hour or so, he charged ahead and she struggled to keep within fifty metres of him. When he eventually slowed, she closed in on him and this time wrapped her arm around his. ‘I’m truly sorry,’ she said.
He turned to her.
‘Truly.’ She saw his features soften, and dared to hope that the worst of his fury had blown through. ‘I’m not going to try to excuse myself,’ she said. ‘Except to say that my love for you has always been a kind of madness.’
‘It’s incredibly hurtful, Kate.’
‘Of course it is. But it’s not really about you. After what my mother did, I find it difficult to trust anyone. You know that.’
‘Honestly – screw your mother. Jesus, seriously, let’s do her in and bury her here, under the Ridgeway, and then we can move on. I’m well up for it. I don’t want to live with someone who doesn’t trust me to be as good as my word. It’s totally debilitating, and just a bit fucking depressing …’
‘I know, I know.’ She drew him closer and kissed him.
He gripped both her arms, took half a pace back and looked into her eyes. ‘I need you to be in no doubt that I would never betray you.’ His voice cracked. ‘I never have. Never even wanted to.’ He smiled at her sadly. The skin around those big blue eyes crinkled in a way she had always found almost impossible to resist. ‘Even though you’re emotionally autistic, frequently remote and preoccupied, you’re still the one.’
‘A ringing endorsement. Lucky me!’
‘We love who we love. Sometimes, as you say, it’s beyond reason.’ He kissed her this time, the palm of his hand gently cupping the back of her head. ‘On the plus side,’ he said, ‘you’re still unbelievably sexy and have a great sense of humour.’
They held hands along the ridge, and her footsteps were lighter than they had been in a while. Until her thoughts returned to the condom wrapper.
‘I suppose I should talk to Fiona,’ Kate said.
‘I suppose you shouldn’t. I’ve already said everything that needs to be said, and issued every warning that needs to be issued. Besides, we’ve had enough tension in the house, so just leave it.’
‘I’m her mother.’
‘True. And I’m her father. And parenthood, as I recall, is a shared responsibility. Even though we both know “literally nothing”.’ He let go of her hand, but only long enough to mime a pair of quotation marks in the brisk autumn air.
Later they walked arm in arm to the folly, peeled off their hiking gear and sat in front of the fire, which one of their hosts had lit. Still later they lay together in the roll-top bath and then Kate sat naked in the deep armchair by the fire, the relief still washing through her like a drug. Stuart caressed her with the languid ease that only long experience can muster. He massaged her feet, then ran his fingertips over her knees and the inside of her thighs, and brushed his lips across her stomach.
She rested her hands on the back of his head as his tongue darted ever lower, and arched her back, losing herself in the sheer, exhilarating pleasure of the moment in a way she would not have imagined possible only a few hours ago.
They lay in each other’s arms, by the fire, occasionally glancing up at the hands of the mantelpiece clock, willing it not to march them too briskly to reality. Eventually Kate raised herself on an elbow and kissed him. ‘Let’s get dressed and head over for supper before people begin to wonder what we’re up to.’
She had a quick shower and was humming as she got dressed. As they strolled through the garden to the main house, she stopped for a moment by the rosemary bush. She picked another sprig and raised it to his nose. ‘Rosemary,’ she whispered. ‘For remembrance …’
When they arrived in the kitchen Rose was frying slivers of foie gras, as Simon eased the cork out of a bottle of chilled Muscadet. ‘Ah, the young lovers,’ he said easily. ‘Time for something restorative, I fancy.’ He poured the wine and handed Kate a glass.
‘And why not indeed?’ She could hear the children joshing with their grandmother in the sitting room over the burble of the radio. Even Lucy seemed caught up in the magic of the occasion.
Rose turned as Simon held out her glass, but her expression was a mixture of curiosity and alarm. ‘Oh, bloody hell,’ she said.
‘What?’
‘Imogen.’ She motioned Stuart in the
direction of the radio.
Puzzled, he reached across and turned up the volume.
‘The Westminster Confidential website has published a tape of the minister for Education having sex with one of her aides, which appears to have been filmed in a hotel during a government-sponsored visit to the Russian capital.’
21
Kate put down her glass, swung around and rushed out into the garden. Stuart trailed her as she sprinted across the grass and into the folly. He was beside her as she opened her laptop on their bed, firing the same question at her, again and again: ‘What the hell are you doing?’
It took her seconds to find the site and the tape. She hit play and they were suddenly watching graphic images of flesh against flesh. They froze, unable to tear their eyes from the screen.
The quality of the footage was incredible, the action as explicit as any porn film. Imogen straddled a man, whose face was out of frame, her head tipped back as she panted and writhed, her small breasts bobbing. She giggled as, eventually, she raised a shapely knee and eased herself off her lover.
The camera tracked up his glistening torso and Kate finally saw his face.
It wasn’t Stuart.
It was Andy or Connor or Gregor – or somebody else entirely.
‘Would you like to turn it off now and tell me what the bloody hell is going on?’ Stuart’s tone was icy again.
Kate closed the screen. She breathed in deeply and gave herself a moment. ‘The Russians must have leaked it.’
‘What do you mean?’ He looked horrified.
‘They want Imogen out of the race. Who is he?’
‘Andy Mac.’
‘Did you know they were an item?’
‘Suspected. Not knew. They were pretty discreet. But, honestly, I only care how you and I behave. I don’t want to be the world’s moral policeman.’
‘Was Andy on that now legendary Russian trip?’
‘As far as I remember, yes.’
‘And they were fucking each other back then?’
‘No idea.’ Stuart was shaking his head. ‘You thought it was me,’ he said.
‘No.’
‘That was why you dashed across here, like a scalded cat. Even after everything we’ve said and done today, you still thought it was me.’