He sighed. ‘Joan told me that Diana had forgiven her, accepted her love and Joan found some peace in knowing that.’ He wheezed. ‘That moment was fifty-six years in the making. She loves Diana so much that what she did destroyed her.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘All she could see was what she’d done to Diana, and that drove a wedge further and further between them and to be honest, between Joan and everyone . . . except you.’

She frowned.

‘She loves you, Lottie. She gave you the love she couldn’t give Diana.’

Lottie stood and spun around. ‘She loves you, too.’

‘Yes, in the end she did – because I knew. She didn’t have to hide the trauma within.’

‘I don’t understand.’ She ran her fingers through her hair.

‘Joan was a spy.’

Her legs wobbled. Of all the things he could have said, this was one she hadn’t expected. ‘What?’

‘Yes. And brilliant at what she did.’

She sat back down and studied his face. ‘Come on. Gran was a cultural attaché, a socialite.’

‘Which meant she had access to people’s homes.’

‘What?’

‘In Moscow she wasn’t snooping on her own people, she was the main contact for a double agent, but before that she kept tabs on our side.’

‘I still don’t understand.’

‘Her father was a career diplomat and her mother the ultimate hostess. Joan was “family”.’ He held up his hand to make the quotation marks.

‘So . . . Gran spied on friends?’ She ran a hand through her hair.

‘When asked, yes.’

She studied him. ‘I don’t like the sound of that.’

‘Sadly, it was necessary in our world. The Cold War was real.’

She squinted at him seeing him anew. ‘Were you a spy?’

He sighed. ‘Not as such. I was a handler.’

‘Were you Gran’s?’

‘I was about to be. The double agent was a joint operation and the handover took place here hours before Joan acted.’ He squinted into the distance.

‘Was that why she killed him?’

He nodded. ‘Allan had turned, honey-trapped.’

‘Honey-trapped?’ She frowned.

‘Allan was a very handsome man and although he wanted other children, she told me he wouldn’t touch her when she was pregnant. During one of the failed pregnancies, he had an affair and they held it over him to get to Joan to discover who the Soviet double agent was.’

She sank back against the cushions. ‘She didn’t have any choice.’

‘No, she didn’t. But it killed her.’ His hands shook.

‘But she had you.’

‘That took years, but she never forgave herself for taking Allan from Diana.’

‘Oh.’ She tried to absorb it all, but her tired brain was swimming. ‘And Alex, is he a spook too?’

Gramps pressed his lips together for a moment then said, ‘He’s a friend.’

She assumed that was code. Alex had served in the Navy – maybe it had been in intelligence. ‘Speaking of friends . . . this Tom Martin?’