Chapters (38)
- Cover
- Also by Philip Kerr
- Dedication
- Epigraph
- ONE
- TWO
- THREE
- FOUR
- FIVE
- SIX
- SEVEN
- EIGHT
- NINE
- TEN
- ELEVEN
- TWELVE
- THIRTEEN
- FOURTEEN
- FIFTEEN
- SIXTEEN
- SEVENTEEN
- EIGHTEEN
- NINETEEN
- TWENTY
- TWENTY-ONE
- TWENTY-TWO
- TWENTY-THREE
- TWENTY-FOUR
- TWENTY-FIVE
- TWENTY-SIX
- TWENTY-SEVEN
- TWENTY-EIGHT
- TWENTY-NINE
- THIRTY
- THIRTY-ONE
- THIRTY-TWO
- THIRTY-THREE
- AUTHOR’S NOTE
“Nonsense,” he said. “What you’re saying—there’s no way I wouldn’t have known about a plan like that. Mielke and Wolf would certainly have said something.”
“Why? Because you’re that important? Nonsense. The whole operation worked all the better if you were ignorant of it. Anne’s betrayal now puts Hollis in the clear. And forever after, probably. Which can only mean MI5’s deputy director was Moscow’s man all along and will remain so. That Othello was never meant to discredit Hollis but actually to achieve the exact opposite.”
“No, it was Anne who betrayed me. Not them. Wolf isn’t that clever. Nobody is.” He clenched his fists and walked around the room cursing Anne and swearing to a whole variety of ugly revenges on her. I almost felt sorry for him. And in a way for her, too.
“Kill the goldfish in the pond or burn the house down if it makes you feel any better,” I said.
“What would be the point of that? It’s not hers. It’s rented. She’s not coming back here. If I thought there was even half a chance of that happening, I’d wait here and burn the house down with her in it.”
“You know, there’s a difference between revenge and vengeance,” I said, putting my hand in my jacket pocket.
“Is there? I can’t say I appreciate the difference very much, or even care.”
“Revenge is personal. An act of passion. An injury is revenged. But I think vengeance is about justice. That’s something very different. Crimes are avenged, don’t you think so?”
“Does it matter which it is when you’re the one being shot?”
“Probably not,” I said, and brought my hand out of my pocket. There was a gun in it. Julia Rose’s Beretta 418. The one that had killed my friend Antimo Spinola.
“That’s the second time you’ve pointed a gun at me,” he said. “There better not be a third, Gunther. What’s the idea this time?”
“You’re going to have to try very hard to convince me why I shouldn’t kill you, that’s all.”
“You’re sore about the girl. I can see why. Look, she was sorry about that. She really liked you, Gunther. She liked you more than she liked me. She told me. She didn’t have to go to bed with you. That was her choice.”
“Sure.”