‘What if you’re right?’

Julie took a deep breath. ‘Then we crack on and we beat Grove, the PM and their eerily handsome aide at their own game. You’re much smarter than they are. It’ll be a piece of cake.’

‘You’re a good friend, you know that?’

‘I do, yes. And you’re welcome. And you owe me, obviously. So give me a plan.’

‘All right.’ Kate slipped her hands into her pockets. Considering this as a game she could win made it seem far more manageable. ‘I’ll need Ian and Sir Alan’s personal files.’

‘How am I going to get those?’

‘Grove can help. She can make it look like a routine Whitehall bureaucratic exercise connected to Ian’s elevation. We’ll go through each one job by job and year by year. You also need to hoover up everything that relates to Operation Cyclone and the KGB translator, Irina. A lot of it’s locked away, but see what you can dig up. You’ll need to see what you can get on Natasha Demidova as well, our potential SVR informant in Istanbul. I’ll ask Grove to rustle up Tess Winkelman’s file too.’

‘Who’s she?’

‘The diplomat the Russian woman made contact with. Then go home. I’ll see you at Heathrow tomorrow at ten.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Istanbul. I want to see the whites of this woman’s eyes.’

‘Sergei’s former lover, you mean.’ Julie gave her a lopsided smile. ‘Oh, boy, this should be interesting.’

7

SHIRLEY GROVE APPEARED surprisingly open to securing Sir Alan’s and Ian’s records and didn’t request Kate’s own in the process. Perhaps she already had them. Kate also successfully blocked Grove’s presence in Istanbul. She had to accept young Callum as a substitute, but that wouldn’t be a hardship.

She had bigger problems on the home front. Since her departure from the Service, Kate had relieved her aunt of the need to stand in with Fiona and Gus. Rose had responded with her habitual fortitude and selflessness by taking some of the burden of dealing with Kate’s mother, Lucy, whose condition and behaviour were deteriorating by the week.

So, it was no surprise when Rose’s husband Simon pointed her towards Lucy’s care home, where she found Rose with Jane Dillon, the long-suffering manager, listening to Lucy rant through the closed door to her apartment at no one in particular. ‘Bitch,’ she hissed. ‘Bitch.’

‘Is she talking about me?’ Kate asked.

‘Me, I think.’ Rose rewarded her with a thin smile. ‘She bit Ellen again.’

‘Oh, God.’ Kate’s lingering fear was that her mother would be expelled from the premises and she would be forced to deal with her at home. It didn’t help that Ellen, like a lot of the staff, was black, and her mother had emerged as a not-so-closet racist. ‘I’ll deal with her.’ Kate calculated her best chance of retaining the status quo was to take command. ‘I’ll read her the mother and father of all Riot Acts.’

‘We understand she’s not in her right mind,’ Jane Dillon said, ‘but I can’t condone assaults on our staff, or putting them at risk. I’m sure you understand.’