‘Well, all I can say is, if so, it was a fit of conscience that I don’t think detained him before or has since.’

Kate stood, deciding to end the interview before it went off the rails entirely. ‘Thank you for your time, Celia. I’d appreciate it if you could, as we discussed, refrain from letting anyone know we were here, including – indeed especially – your former husband.’

‘I don’t think you have to worry much on that score, do you?’ She smiled again. ‘I hope you hang him from Nelson’s Column.’

Kate tried to smile back. ‘One final thing. Would you, by any chance, recall the name of the Czech intelligence official?’

‘Eva. I am not sure I ever knew her surname.’

14

‘GOD, I FEEL a bit shit,’ Julie said, breaking the silence that had held for about the first ten minutes of their return journey to London.

‘And so you should,’ Kate said.

‘Mind if I smoke?’

‘I do, yes.’ Julie ignored her, took out a pack and offered one to Callum in the back, who declined. ‘I meant it,’ Kate said. ‘Seriously, please don’t smoke in the car. I’ll throw up.’

Julie looked as if she would ignore the instruction, but eventually put the pack away.

‘What did you think?’ Callum asked, from the back. It was directed at Kate. ‘It all fits, doesn’t it? Every new piece of information seems to add grist to the mill of your working theory. You’d have to say he was probably recruited during those last six months in New York.’

Kate didn’t answer.

‘But what was his motive?’ Julie asked.

‘Just as his wife said. Fear of the affair being leaked and his marriage being undone.’

‘But you just heard her say she more or less knew of his affairs, and a man who persistently, over decades, behaves with so little caution hardly strikes me as one who would contemplate flipping to the Russians because of a few rolls in the hay with a buxom lady from Czech intelligence.’

‘If it is Ian we’re looking for,’ Kate said quietly, ‘and that is still a big if, I think we’re seeing another motive.’

‘Such as?’ Julie asked her.

‘Insecurity, ambition. I’ve never met anyone who needs a place in the world and the esteem of his peers more viscerally than Ian. By the time of his posting in New York, he was five years into a career in the Service and there was little sign of the stardust he craved. He was a B list player, destined for a series of solid but unspectacular appointments.’

‘So the Russians love-bomb him and he falls for it?’ Julie asked.

Kate shrugged. ‘They make him feel important. He’s so talented, so overlooked. They would never make the mistake of undervaluing him. Maybe Igor himself flies over from Moscow to handle the final approach, as they wheel out the big guns for the seduction.’

‘And perhaps there’s money, too,’ Callum said.

‘His wife’s rich,’ Julie said.