‘He told me I was the love of his life and he was going to leave her for me.’ She smiled again. ‘So what a naive fool I was, eh? You’d think an officer in this business would know better.’

‘How did you meet him?’ Callum asked.

‘Oh, some cocktail party or other. He was saying he needed a new tennis partner, because the French press attaché was leaving. I said I’d step in, provided he could beat me in a singles game. He didn’t, but I relented and became his partner on the court and off.’

‘You knew he was married?’

‘Of course. He wore a wedding ring.’

‘Uncomplicated sex?’ Kate asked.

‘At first, perhaps. But …’ She spread her arms again. ‘Why do you want to know this?’

‘I assume it can’t have been a coincidence that you both ended up in Chile?’

‘He proposed to me on my last night in New York. We moved heaven and earth to secure a posting in the same city so we could work out the details.’

‘What happened then?’

Eva gazed at her, genuinely confused. ‘What happened was that I discovered the hard way that Ian was not as brave a man as he liked to make out. As the days became weeks and then months in Santiago, it dawned on me that his prevarication was about more than just the fine details. So I asked to be transferred home early. We didn’t part as friends.’

‘Have you spoken to him since?’

‘He’s called me from time to time. I don’t answer.’

There didn’t seem much doubt about Eva’s bitterness, which still had a sting to it even after all these years, and Kate wondered at how any woman could think Ian capable of loving anyone but himself.

‘I suppose this is exactly what you expected to hear,’ Eva added.

‘Yes,’ Kate agreed.

‘You can’t have come all this way to talk about whether or not he’s ever going to leave his wife?’

‘As a matter of fact, he has,’ Kate said. ‘Or, to be more precise, she finally booted him out.’

‘He’ll be devastated.’

‘Why do you say that?’

‘She was like his mother, the security blanket he couldn’t do without.’ Kate looked confused. ‘Surely you have worked that out already?’ Both Callum and Kate shook their heads slowly. ‘Ian got no love at all from his mother and nothing but the back of a hand from his stepfather, whom he detested. His adult life has been consumed by the search for love, affirmation, approval, affection. If he has hidden that from your internal psychological profilers, then you need to seek better ones.’

‘We don’t have access to his files.’

‘Ah, because he is the chief now.’ She shrugged. ‘I see your dilemma. Look, I am only going to tell you what you already know. Ian is clever – perhaps one of the cleverest men I have ever met. He has an uncanny knack of being several moves ahead of everyone else and accurately predicting how an individual, or an organization – or a country – is going to react. I thought he had a quite brilliant mind. And, when he wanted to be, he was immensely charming and funny. But that hunger for love undoes him, and it is why he will never really leave his wife, even if she boots him out. I wouldn’t bet on that remaining the status quo.’