‘I told you how I felt. That’s not the same as promising any kind of outcome. I can’t say that we’ll be together again as a couple, much less that we can recreate what we had before. But I think we can, with enough goodwill, be friends, and that would greatly improve all our lives, wouldn’t it?’

Clearly, it wasn’t what Fiona wanted to hear. Like her brother, she yearned for what they’d once possessed. ‘It’s enough,’ she said. ‘For now. But how will it work? I thought Dad wasn’t able to stay in Europe except for very brief visits.’

Kate stood and moved towards the door. ‘Dad is guilty of treason. If he ever sets foot in this country again, they’ll put him on trial and he’ll go to prison for a very long time. But that would also come with an avalanche of bad publicity for the Service that it would be keen to avoid. I negotiated them turning a blind eye for that trip to Venice. It’s possible I could do the same for a longer period – perhaps indefinitely – so long as he agreed never to return to the UK.’

‘So he can’t ever come home?’

‘Never.’

Fiona’s gloom seemed to return at being reminded of this fundamental truth and she took to staring at her hands.

‘I have to go to the office briefly,’ Kate said. ‘Would you mind holding the fort here with Gus?’

Fiona looked up and gave her a broad smile. ‘Of course not.’ And, as she walked down the stairs, Kate tried to recall the last time she had seen her daughter smile like that. A long while ago, that was for sure.

24

24

IT WAS JUST past eight by the time Kate reached SIS headquarters in Vauxhall, and the third floor was deserted. She walked through to her office in the corner, switched on the desk lamp but not the overhead light and fired up her computer. She logged on, pulled up the electronic version of the Operation Sigma file and punched in the passcode.

She read through it slowly, methodically, trying to view it through fresh eyes. If Stuart was telling the truth about the relative paucity of the material he’d passed on to his handlers, that left two possibilities: either the Russians had stumbled upon Lena’s presence on the yacht through luck rather than judgement, or Sergei was right and they had a much more important source than Stuart in or close to London Centre.

Kate checked through the timeline carefully once more. It was possible that someone in Athens had spotted her coming through the airport and alerted the Russians. But why would they have immediately scrambled a wet team from Moscow?