The Diplomat's Wife

by Michael Ridpath

  A hundred metres or so below them, the trees briefly opened up, revealing the path. She kept her eyes on the spot and, sure enough, she saw a flash of yellow as first Emma and then Phil ran along it. Emma was moving fast for a grandmother, certainly as fast as the limping Rozhkov.

  Phil stopped and glanced upwards. For a second, he stared right at her; then he was gone into the trees.

  She rushed on.

  She was pretty sure she was catching them up. They were getting close to the foot of the hill and the cove, which was rimmed with a narrow pebbly beach.

  She emerged from the trees at a spot about twenty metres above the shore. Emma was running headlong through the pebbles. There was no sign of Phil.

  Emma slipped and fell.

  Heike stopped, and raised her gun, fighting to control her breath. The range was only about fifty metres, but that was difficult with a handgun, especially if you were panting as heavily as she was.

  She could hear Rozhkov behind her.

  ‘Shoot her,’ he commanded.

  *

  Despite her age, Emma was moving fast. But probably not as fast as the two KGB agents.

  They came to an opening in the trees and Phil looked back. He saw one of the agents staring at him.

  Heike.

  They needed a plan. Phil had one.

  He caught up with Emma.

  ‘Give me your gun, Grams!’

  ‘Why?’ she called back.

  ‘Just give it to me.’

  She paused and handed Phil her gun. In a rushed couple of sentences, he explained his plan.

  He could hear them behind him. He was searching for the perfect spot. They didn’t have much time – the beach was nearing. Once out on the beach, they would be sitting ducks. Emma would be a sitting duck.

  He found his spot and pushed himself into a bush.

  Twenty seconds later, Heike appeared in front of him, breathing heavily. She paused and looked out over the beach, where Emma was running.

  Phil could hear the sound of her colleague scrambling down the path a few yards above him.

  He raised the revolver, cocked it as quietly as he could, and pointed it at Heike’s back.

  Just for an instant, an image of Heike’s lively smile, of those glittering blue eyes, leapt to the front of his mind. But only for an instant. Heike was about to shoot his grandmother. And she would shoot him too, if she got the chance.

  He had to time this right. He had to take out Heike’s KGB colleague as well.

  Two seconds later, the man arrived next to Heike, limping.

  The man spotted Emma on the beach. ‘Shoot her,’ he commanded in German.

  Phil squeezed the trigger.

  The bullet hit Heike between her narrow shoulders from ten yards. The recoil surprised Phil.

  He steadied himself and moved the barrel of the pistol towards the other guy, who was turning towards him and raising his own gun.

  Phil shot him in the head.

  And then he shot Heike again, just as Emma had done, to make sure she was dead.

  And then he was out of bullets.

  EPILOGUE

  Chapter 58

  July 1979, Buckinghamshire

  Phil sipped his pint of Brakspear with pleasure. It was good to be back in a proper English pub, especially if it was the Three Castles.

  He had arrived a few minutes early for his meeting with Mr Swann. He wanted to have time alone with a pint to try to process what had happened over the last couple of weeks.

  It would take much longer than ten minutes to process; it would take a lifetime. He was still buzzing from the adrenaline of it all. He had avoided death not once, but twice. He had saved his grandmother’s life. He had plunged into the world of spies and spying.

  He was also grateful for getting to know Emma better. Not only his grandmother as she was now, but also as she had been forty years ago, as a young diplomat’s wife.

  He had left England a schoolboy, less than three weeks before. He didn’t feel like a schoolboy now.

  He had slept with a woman for the first time in his life.

  And then he had shot her.

  He had had no choice about Heike and her colleague; it was self-defence, and defence of his grandmother. But he had had his first bad dream the night before. He knew it would be the first of many; perhaps a lifetime’s worth.

  Emma had killed someone in cold blood. Murdered him. Sure, she had a reason to kill him – to avenge her brother’s death – but revenge wasn’t a justification for murder. This woman, whom he had grown to love over the last couple of weeks, was a murderer. What was he going to do about that?

  Nothing. Until the tumour got her. Then he would think about it.

  They had left the two bodies where they had fallen and hurried back up the path, which forked left to where they had parked the car. They heard the sound of a police siren as they were driving down the hill, and just managed to pull off into a driveway before a small Guardia Civil police car sped up the road towards Lothar’s villa. They didn’t pass any other police cars as they headed out of Jávea, pausing to dump the gun in a rubbish bin off a side road. There were plenty of GB registered cars on the Spanish roads in July, so they felt less conspicuous than they had elsewhere.

  As soon as they had reached Dover, Phil rang the number Swann had given him. He was put right through. He told Swann that Lothar was dead and that he didn’t have the name of the mole, and he agreed to meet him the following lunchtime at the Three Castles.

  He had come clean about Swann to Emma; after all that had happened, she didn’t seem to hold it against him.

  After much thought, she had asked Phil about Mr Swann’s teeth.

  The return home the evening before had been difficult. On the one hand, it was wonderful to be once again surrounded by the security and minor irritations of his family. On the other, he and Emma had told lie after lie to his parents, with his sister Mel looking on sceptically. She knew something was up.

  ‘Phil!’

  Phil recognized Mr Swann immediately, still wearing a suit, still with tufts of hair sticking out above his ears. Phil wondered whether he looked the same to Swann as he had the last time they had met. Or whether killing someone changed you on the outside as well as the inside.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ Phil asked politely. He was flush with cash; Emma had paid him the three hundred she had promised for accompanying her. He had earned it.

  ‘That’s all right. I’ll get it,’ said Swann.

  He was back with his own pint within a couple of minutes.

  ‘You have been in the wars, haven’t you?’

  ‘You’ve heard?’

  ‘One KGB agent killed in Annecy, another and a Stasi agent killed near Valencia, plus a former West German diplomat in France. And, of course, a retired NKVD agent from before the war. Are there any I’ve missed?’

  ‘I don’t think so. We didn’t kill Kurt,’ Phil said. ‘And I’m sure you heard that Freddie Pelham-Walsh was run over in Berlin. That wasn’t us either, but I’m pretty certain it wasn’t an accident.’

  ‘So am I. So, Lothar is dead, and he took the name of the mole with him?’

  ‘That’s right,’ said Phil.

  ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘Why don’t you ask my grandmother?’

  Phil looked up behind Swann, who turned to see Emma coming towards him.

  ‘Hello, Kenneth,’ she said.

  Swann scrambled to his feet. ‘Emma? I wasn’t expecting to see you.’

  ‘I thought it unfair to leave Philip to explain everything. And I suspected it would be you.’

  ‘How?’ said Swann.

  Emma touched her front teeth. After much thought, she had asked Phil whether his Mr Swann had a gap between his front teeth. Phil had confirmed he had.

  Just like Kenneth Heaton-Smith.

  ‘Well, you are easily recognizable after all these years,’ said Swann, as Phil still thought of him.

  ‘Are yo
u still working for MI6?’ Emma asked.

  ‘That’s not the sort of question I can answer.’

  ‘Don’t be coy, Kenneth.’

  Swann nodded. ‘They drag me out of retirement every now and then.’

  ‘“They” being C?’

  Swann nodded again. ‘After you spoke to Freddie a few months ago, Freddie came to C. C drafted me in because I had a good relationship with you going back a long time. It was good, wasn’t it?’

  ‘I suppose it was,’ said Emma. ‘At least I helped you.’

  ‘And your country. For which I am very grateful.’

  ‘But why did you approach Philip and not me? And why did you ask him to keep quiet about it?’

  ‘We suspected that you were sympathetic to the Russian point of view before the war,’ Swann said carefully. ‘Rightly or wrongly, we were concerned that you still might be.’

  ‘Wrongly,’ said Emma.

  ‘I can vouch for that,’ said Phil. ‘As can those bodies of Russian agents we left about the place.’

  He was surprised to hear himself talking so casually about the people he and Emma had killed, but he meant to defend her from the British secret service as much as the Russian one. He was committed now.

  ‘So you think there is another mole? Beyond Anthony Blunt.’

  Swann winced at the mention of the name. Phil had never heard it before.

  ‘Anthony is Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures,’ Emma explained to Phil. ‘And for many years it’s been widely known that he was a spy for the Russians.’

  That didn’t sound like a particularly sensitive job to Phil. Did this Blunt bloke keep the Kremlin up to date with the pictures hanging in the royal toilet? He was coming to realize that the British establishment was a very curious beast.

  ‘It’s not widely known,’ said Swann. ‘That, young man, is still a secret. But yes, Emma, C has a suspicion that there is yet another spy hiding somewhere. He thinks he was recruited by Lothar before the war.’

  ‘I see,’ said Emma.

  ‘But Lothar didn’t tell you who?’

  ‘No,’ said Emma. ‘Phil did ask him. Phil is a loyal citizen; he seems to do what you tell him. But Lothar refused to say who it was.’

  ‘What happened next?’

  ‘I shot him,’ said Emma. ‘Lothar killed my brother Hugh before the war. I needed to put that right.’

  ‘Meanwhile, we lost any chance we had to find the spy.’ Swann’s tone was calm and matter-of-fact, belying the frustration he must have been feeling.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Emma, not sounding in the least bit sorry.

  ‘Do you have any idea who it might be, from back then? Anyone you knew whom you think Lothar might have recruited?’

  Phil had been asking himself the same question. He was anxious to hear Emma’s answer.

  Emma seemed to take the question seriously. ‘The only person I can think of is Freddie,’ she said. ‘But I am sure that has occurred to you.’

  ‘It has. We think Freddie dabbled for the Russians for a couple of years before the war, but the Nazi–Soviet Pact in 1939 put him off. He helped us extensively after the war. That’s not the man we are looking for.’

  ‘Then sorry. Nothing.’

  Swann turned to Phil. ‘Do you have any clues? Any suspicions from what you have heard?’

  ‘Just Freddie,’ said Phil.

  But then someone else popped into his mind.

  ‘Phil?’ Swann had noticed.

  ‘No. I was racking my brains, but no.’

  ‘All right,’ said Swann. ‘Let’s order some lunch.’ He passed the simple pub menu card to Emma.

  ‘You two have left quite a mess behind you,’ he said as she read it. ‘Interpol has been in touch about a young man who said his name was Eustace Parsons, who was enquiring after Freddie in Berlin and claimed to be his godson. Fortunately, the real Eustace found the local police’s questions amusing, once I had assured him that you were safe. He denies being eighteen years old, or being in Berlin a couple of weeks ago.’

  Phil winced. Not his brightest moment.

  Swann continued. ‘The French police have questions about a green British sports car seen at the house where Kurt Lohmüller was killed. Nothing from Spain as yet, but we must be prepared. Don’t worry; we will protect you both. But I do need to know exactly what happened.’

  ‘All right,’ said Emma. ‘But before we go into all that, will there be any retribution, do you think?’

  ‘From the French and German police?’

  ‘No. From the KGB. I’m more worried about Philip than myself.’

  Swann smiled. ‘No. The KGB will not want to carry out a vendetta against an old lady and a schoolboy. It’s an embarrassment. They will want to forget all about it. The relevant officers will be blamed and disciplined, and it will all be swept under the carpet, I am quite sure of that. There’s a lot of stuff under that carpet, believe me, but there is always room for more.’

  Chapter 59

  July 1979, Cornwall

  It was raining the whole way from Reading to St Austell, which gave Phil a chance to polish off War and Peace, the last section of which seemed to be an extended essay on Napoleonic warfare and the theory of history. Which Phil found fascinating.

  The rain cleared as the train entered Cornwall, and Phil put down his book. Emma had rung earlier in the week, angling for him to visit her, while at the same time giving no hint to her daughter that there was anything wrong with her. He had got back his labouring job on a building site starting the following Monday, so Phil had decided to visit his grandmother for a few days before then.

  He was looking forward to seeing her. He also wanted to talk to her about the idea that had lodged itself in his brain in the Three Castles.

  He thought he knew who the mole was.

  He didn’t have much evidence, he certainly didn’t have proof, but it fitted. And he needed to talk to his grandmother about it.

  She wasn’t waiting for him at the station.

  Dick was.

  He grinned and waved when he saw Phil, grabbed Phil’s rucksack and slung it into the back of the TR6.

  ‘I didn’t know you were staying with Grams?’ Phil said.

  ‘She is so secretive, your grandmother,’ said Dick. ‘Yes, I rearranged things. I’m planning to stay with her until . . .’

  ‘Until?’

  ‘Until.’

  That shut Phil up for a bit. ‘Is it close, do you think?’

  ‘She had a brain scan when she came back. The tumour has grown. Her balance is really bad now, and often she can’t grip things or do up buttons. She gets headaches, especially early in the morning, but nothing too persistent. Yet.’

  ‘Do they say how long?’

  ‘No. They don’t know. It could be any time. Or it could be weeks.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘Still. She is in very good spirits. And she’s so pleased about you coming.’ Dick grinned. ‘I do like this car, by the way. It must have been fun driving it around Europe.’

  Fun? Could you call fleeing halfway across the continent from homicidal KGB agents fun? And yet.

  ‘Yes,’ said Phil. ‘It was fun.’

  ‘We’ve been talking a lot,’ said Dick. ‘About her life. About her brother – my time at school with him, university. About you even. She’s been enjoying it. And so have I.’

  They drove through the narrow streets of Mevagissey and then high up the hill overlooking the fishing harbour to his grandmother’s familiar house. He found her in the conservatory, which overlooked the garden and the white houses of the village down below. She looked pale and exhausted, but her eyes lit up when she saw Phil.

  ‘Ciamar a tha thu?’ she said in Gaelic.

  Phil screwed up his face in concentration. ‘Tha mi glè mhath.’

  She smiled. She was sitting in a wicker chair, a copy of The Black Prince by Iris Murdoch next to her.

  ‘Would you like some lime cordial?’

  Rose’s li
me cordial with ice was the drink she used to fix for Phil and Mel when they came to stay in the summer as children.

  ‘That would be lovely, Grams.’

  She struggled to get to her feet.

  ‘I’ll get it,’ Phil said.

  ‘Don’t worry, I will,’ said Dick.

  He returned with a glass a minute later, and then left them alone, explaining that he was going to walk out to the cliffs.

  ‘I’m so pleased you came,’ said Emma.

  ‘Dick said there might not be long to go,’ said Phil. He had learned over the last month not to beat about the bush with his grandmother.

  ‘I know. That’s why I wanted to see you.’

  ‘You really must tell Mum,’ said Phil. ‘Or let me do it.’ His mother still had no idea that her own mother was terminally ill.

  ‘No,’ said Emma. ‘Please no. You know, I’m really enjoying these last few days. With Dick. And you. I don’t want Caroline bustling about here bossing me around.’

  Phil felt sorry for his mother. He knew she would want to know, and would be furious with Phil for not telling her. But he supposed it was Emma’s right to decide whom she told.

  ‘All right, Grams. If you insist.’

  She smiled her thanks. She insisted.

  Phil realized that with Dick gone for his walk, he had an opportunity that might not reappear.

  ‘About Dick.’

  Emma gazed into Phil’s eyes, searching, finding, affirming.

  ‘You think so too?’ said Phil.

  ‘That he’s Kenneth’s mole?’ said Emma. ‘Yes.’

  ‘I can’t be sure,’ said Phil. ‘He’s the only one you knew back then who isn’t accounted for. We know it’s not Freddie, we know it’s not Kurt. Dick’s a management consultant working with international defence companies, plus he worked for some dodgy ministry during the war, so he would be well placed to spy for the Russians.

  ‘There is a chance that the mole is someone you’ve never met, but that doesn’t quite make sense. Swann must suspect that the mole is someone you knew, which is why he told me and not you about him; he was afraid you might warn whoever it is. You and Swann trusted each other. Why else wouldn’t he have spoken to you directly?’