‘Well, you did, so don’t fret anymore, and the lid is firmly closed.’ Anne looked deeply into Nicky’s eyes, and added in a loving voice, ‘You always were very special to me, Nicky, like the daughter I never had… and you’ve brought me such enormous comfort today, helped me to draw on my inner strength again.’ A smile touched her mouth. ‘You’ve put me back on the track, so to speak.’
Nicky smiled back at her. ‘That makes me feel good, Anne, it really does. I was so worried about you yesterday, and I could feel your pain. I knew what you were going through.’ There was a slight hesitation on Nicky’s part, and then she said slowly, ‘Two weeks ago at Pullenbrook, you begged me to put Charles to rest again… I have, and I hope you can do the same.’
‘I think so… now. Yes, I’m sure I can, darling.’
Nicky said, ‘Anne, I have some great news. Yoyo, the young Chinese student we met in Beijing, has managed to escape. He showed up in Paris last Thursday, and Clee and I had dinner with him on Friday. He’s in terrific spirits, looks wonderful.’
‘I’m thrilled he escaped, that he’s safe,’ Anne exclaimed, her face lighting up, growing animated for the first time in days. ‘Do tell me about him.’
Nicky did so, and she was just finishing recounting the details about Yoyo’s journey to Hong Kong, their celebration dinner at the Ritz with him and Mr and Mrs Loong, when the doorbell rang.
‘Oh, that must be Philip,’ Anne said, rising, crossing the floor. She paused half way, and turned her head. ‘I was rather surprised when he called at eleven and asked if he could join us. He usually lunches at his club. Then I realized he wanted to see you. He’s so very fond of you, Nicky.’
‘I’m glad he’s having lunch with us. I’m fond of him, too,’ Nicky said, genuinely meaning this. ‘He’s a lovely man.’ As she spoke she put down her glass of white wine and stood up, wandered over to the fireplace, hovered in front of it.
A moment later Philip Rawlings was striding into the room, embracing first Anne, then Nicky. ‘I thought you were supposed to be in Provence,’ he said, eyeing Nicky curiously.
‘We were,’ she answered. ‘But Clee has problems at the office. Two of his partners are out, one because of a death in the family, the other with a slipped disc. So he had to pitch in for a few days. But we hope to leave sometime next week.’
‘Nice time of year, down there,’ Philip murmured, and went to a tray of drinks on a chest. He proceeded to mix himself one. He usually did not drink at lunch during the week, and today was an exception. In fact, this was not his first scotch and soda. On his way here he had done something he had not done in years—stopped off at a pub. He had gone to the Grenadier, which was the only pub he remembered in the Belgravia area, and downed a quick one, before walking over to Eaton Square.
False courage, he thought, as he dropped a piece of ice into his crystal tumbler, and turned around to face Anne and Nicky. The latter was lowering herself into a chair next to the sofa where Anne was already seated.
He lifted his glass to his mouth, said, ‘Down the hatch,’ and took a long swallow. No use putting it off, he thought, and taking a deep breath, bracing himself, he went over to the window area, sat down next to Anne.
‘I’m afraid it’s not a very fancy lunch, Philip,’ Anne remarked. ‘I left Pilar and Inez in the country when I came up to town this morning. So I stopped off at Harrod’s and picked up a few cold meats, and I made a salad.’
‘Don’t worry about it, I’m not very hungry,’ he said.
‘I’m feeling so much better, darling,’ Anne continued, smiling at him. ‘Being with Nicky, talking to her, has been a wonderful tonic.’
‘I can see that.’
‘I’m really all right now, Philip. Truly.’
‘Yes,’ he said.
‘I was just telling Anne about Yoyo,’ Nicky volunteered. ‘You know, the Chinese student who was so helpful in Beijing. He managed to get to Hong Kong, and finally to Paris, and we saw him this past week.’
‘One of the lucky ones.’ Philip shook his head. ‘Sadly, quite a few of the students who were involved in the democracy movement, and who escaped, were sent back to China by the Hong Kong Government. God knows what their fate has been.’
‘How terrible!’ Anne exclaimed. ‘How could we do a thing like that!’
Philip did not answer. He took another long swallow of his drink, almost gulping it down, and then he put the glass on the antique lacquered table in front of him. Again steeling himself, he said, ‘Anne, I have something to tell you, and I’m glad Nicky is with us. She has a right to hear this too.’
Both women looked at him swiftly, noting his serious tone, the grim expression settling on his face.
‘It’s about Charles—’
‘What about him?’ Anne interrupted, her voice rising.
Nicky stiffened in the chair, and apprehension unexpectedly stabbed at her.
‘This morning some information came across my desk at the Foreign Office. It’s restricted, classified information, but I felt, under the circumstances, that I was morally obliged to take both of you into my confidence. However, because it is a privileged communication, is top secret, actually, I must warn you that what I tell you must never be repeated. It cannot go beyond these walls. I count on your confidentiality. I must have your word on this, Anne. And yours, Nicky.’
‘You know I would never discuss anything you told me about the office, confidential or otherwise,’ Anne said, looking at him slightly askance.
‘I give you my word,’ Nicky murmured. She was worried, wondering what this was about, what Philip was going to tell them.
Philip nodded, and then he reached for Anne’s hand. ‘When Nicky came to see us at Pullenbrook in August, she was correct in everything she said, Anne. It was Charles on that ATN newscast from Rome. He had faked his death three years ago.’
Anne gasped. Her eyes were wide with shock. She was speechless for a moment, and then she exclaimed, ‘Are you saying he’s alive? Is my son alive?’
Philip did not immediately answer.
Nicky held herself perfectly still, clasping her hands together in her lap. She knew she must be careful in her reactions, that she must not betray anything.
Anne repeated, ‘Is he alive? Philip, please answer me! Is Charles alive?’
Philip took a deep breath, and very gently he said, ‘No, Anne, he’s not. Charles is dead.’
‘I don’t understand!’ she cried, her agitation increasing. ‘You just said Nicky was right, that Charles did fake his own death, and was alive. Now you’re saying that he’s dead. How can that be? Are you sure?’
‘I’m positive.’
Nicky, who was as shocked as Anne, was doing her level best to control herself. Now she said in the steadiest voice she could muster, ‘But how do you know Charles is dead, Philip?’
‘My friend Frank Littleton told me this morning. Frank and I were at Harrow together, and Cambridge, and we’ve been close friends since those days, for donkey’s years. Frank’s with the Secret Intelligence Service—MI6—but he’s not an agent out in the field. He has a desk job. He sent me a note this morning, asking me to come and see him. I did, and he told me that Anne’s son had been killed.’
‘Oh God, what are you saying?’ Anne looked at him frantically. ‘MI6. Agents. Intelligence. Was Charles involved in something dangerous?’
‘Frank didn’t go into too many details,’ Philip responded quietly, wondering how he was going to help her get through this new ordeal.
‘You just said killed. Nicky stared at Philip. ‘So he didn’t die of natural causes. Nor in an accident, presumably. Are you saying he was murdered?’
Philip nodded. He put his arm around Anne as she let out a strangled cry. She began to tremble.
‘When was Charles killed?’ Nicky demanded.
‘Late last week,’ Philip said.
‘Where?’ Nicky clasped her hands tighter, hardly breathing.
‘In Madrid. He was in a plane tha
t blew up at Madrid airport, a small private plane, a Falcon.’
‘Oh my God!’ Anne pressed her hands to her mouth. ‘My son! Charles!’ She turned to Philip, pleaded, ‘Please tell me what this is all about, Philip. Please tell me. I don’t understand.’
Nicky cut in, ‘Was his body recovered?’
‘No, it wasn’t.’ Philip paused, then added in a low voice, ‘It was a very bad explosion.’
Anne was sobbing quietly, leaning against Philip’s shoulder. He held her closer, tried to comfort her without much success.
‘You said the information came to you through your old friend with MI6,’ Nicky continued. ‘That implies Charles was an operative, working in the covert world of intelligence. And if he was, then he was probably killed by foreign agents. Is that the case?’
‘I think so, Nicky.’
‘You’re not sure?’
‘Frank gave me the barest details. He’s not supposed to tell me anything. But he knows Anne, is aware we’re going to be married, and he wanted me to have the information. He stuck his neck out for me. But he certainly wasn’t going to breach security. That’s more than his job’s worth.’
Leaning forward, Nicky said, ‘But didn’t he give you any clue at all about the killer, or killers?’
Philip hesitated. ‘I got the impression they might have been Israeli agents.’
‘Mossad!’ Nicky was startled. ‘Why would Mossad want to kill Charles Devereaux? From what you’ve just told us, it sounds as if he was a British agent. The British and the Israelis don’t bump each other off. They’re on the same side.’
Philip said nothing.
‘He was working for British Intelligence, wasn’t he?’ Nicky probed, all of her journalistic training coming out.
Philip shook his head. ‘Perhaps not. Frank told me—’ He broke off and, changing his mind, he finished, ‘I think that perhaps I ought not to say anything else. Not that I know much more than I’ve already told you.’
‘Just one thing,’ Nicky pressed. ‘If Charles wasn’t working for the British, he must have been working for someone else. Who?’
‘Frank didn’t actually say, Nicky. However, he implied Charles was involved with an organization based in the Middle East.’
Nicky gaped at him. ‘A terrorist organization? Is that what you’re saying?’
Philip nodded.
‘Do you mean he was a terrorist?’
‘It’s possible,’ Philip said.
‘Did he work for the PLO? Abu Nidal? The PFLPGC? Who?’
‘Frank didn’t mention any of those groups. But he did indicate that Charles was working for the Palestinians.’
‘I don’t believe it!’ Nicky exclaimed incredulously. ‘I don’t!’
‘The Palestinians,’ Anne repeated, suddenly pulling away from Philip, sitting up straighter on the sofa. She looked from Philip to Nicky and back to Philip, as if bewildered. ‘Did you say Charles was working for the Palestinians?’
‘That is what Frank implied, yes.’
Anne’s face went as white as chalk. Her eyes glazed over, were suddenly devoid of all expression. She sat staring ahead, appeared to be gazing into some far distant place; it was as if she saw something Nicky and Philip could not see. There was an extraordinary remoteness about her; she was utterly still, silent, as if she had fallen into a trance.
Philip glanced at Nicky worriedly.
Nicky nodded, then looked across at Anne. Drawing on the information she had been given by Charles in Madrid, she said slowly, ‘Perhaps Charles wasn’t a traitor to the British. Maybe he was a mole. A British agent who had assumed a new identity and gone undercover.’
‘I don’t know,’ Philip replied. ‘But it’s possible, of course. Sometimes these things are done at a very high level. Often others in an agency don’t even know, for security reasons. Maybe Frank doesn’t have all the information.’
‘Exactly,’ Nicky exclaimed. ‘And if Charles was a mole, that would make him a counterfeit traitor, wouldn’t it?’
‘Yes,’ Philip agreed, and glanced at Anne, hoping she had heard what Nicky had just said. It was a possibility. A very strong possibility. Certainly Nicky’s theory made more sense.
Nicky sat back in the chair, rapidly turning over all the facts. Charles is not dead, she suddenly thought. He has faked his own death for a second time. He just didn’t trust me not to betray him. He thought I would put him in jeopardy. Yes, that’s got to be it. Somehow he faked his death in order to continue working as a mole for the British. Then her heart tightened. Or is he really dead this time? If he is, then Mossad killed the wrong man. They assassinated a British agent.
***
There was no noise in Clee’s apartment. Everything was perfectly still. Not even the ticking of a clock disturbed the silence. It was late, almost midnight. Nicky was alone; Clee was still in Brussels on assignment for Paris Match. She had spoken to him on the phone earlier, and had managed to avoid too much discussion about her day in London, and he had not seemed to think that odd at all.
Now she sat in the living room, finishing a bowl of canned tomato soup and crackers, reflecting on the events of the day.
Philip’s extraordinary revelations had not startled her as much as they had Anne—for obvious reasons. After all, she had seen Charles ten days ago, had heard his story, and it was a story she fully believed. She also believed he was alive. The Charles Devereaux she had known, been engaged to, had always been excessively clever, a brilliant man. And so it was reasonable to assume that he was a superlative agent, and the best mole in the business. Therefore, he had not been sitting in that plane at the airport in Madrid. Yet somehow he had managed to make it look as though he had, because he wanted her, and everyone else, to think he was dead. But another man had been in the Falcon in his place, she was certain.
And whether he was alive, or dead, she was positive that he had not worked for the Palestinian cause; he had simply infiltrated a terrorist organization as a mole.
Deep within herself she wished she could have told Anne what she knew, if only to make her feel better about her son. But she had not dared to do this for Charles’s sake, just in case he was alive, as she believed.
Eventually Anne had roused herself from her trance-like state, and Nicky had had the opportunity to repeat her theory that Charles was a counterfeit traitor, a double agent, a mole. And she had expounded on the idea that Frank Littleton, Philip’s friend, did not have all of the facts at his disposal.
All of this had seemed to give Anne a measure of comfort, and after a while she had excused herself and retired to her bedroom, explaining that she needed to be alone.
She and Philip had talked for another hour, before she had left for Heathrow and her plane back to Paris. At one moment he had started to worry out loud that he had made a terrible mistake. ‘Perhaps I shouldn’t have told Anne anything at all, Nicky,’ he had said. ‘I ought to have kept it to myself, don’t you think?’
Nicky had reassured him that he had done the right thing, and he had appeared to be heartened when he heard this. Then he had confided, ‘I love her very much, Nicky, I’ve loved her for years. I couldn’t believe my good fortune when she finally agreed to marry me. And I told her about Charles because I respect her, and because there’s never been anything but honesty and truth between us. She and I have never dealt in lies. Anne’s a mature, intelligent woman, and I thought she was entitled to know absolutely everything that I knew about her son, to know what Frank had told me out of friendship. And I thought you should know the truth, too, Nicky.’
If it’s really the truth, Nicky had thought at the time, but she had said: ‘Yes, you’re right, Philip, and you really did do the best thing. No woman wants to be treated as a second-class citizen by a man.’
***
Marie Thérèse said, ‘Ah, Nicky, ma petite, you are being evasive. How can you say you don’t know if you are going to marry this Clee of yours… you must have some idea what you intend to do.’
/> ‘But I don’t,’ Nicky protested. ‘He only asked me on Sunday morning—’
‘But it’s Thursday today!’ Marie Thérèse exclaimed, laughing. ‘You should know how you feel by now. Anyway, I think he will expect an answer when he returns to Paris tomorrow. N’est-ce pas? In my opinion, you must say yes, chérie. What else is there to say?’
Nicky smiled at the Frenchwoman, her dear old friend from childhood. ‘Ah, Marie Thérèse, you are an incurable romantic. I could say no, you know.’
‘Mmmm, that’s true. On the other hand, why would you want to do that when you are so very much in love with your Clee?’
‘And what makes you say that?’
‘I see it in your eyes, ma petite, and when you speak about him your face glows with love.’
Nicky sighed. ‘We’ll see. I guess I’ll make up my mind in Provence… I haven’t had time to think straight in the last few days.’ Glancing at her watch, Nicky exclaimed, ‘I’ve got to go! I promised Yoyo I would have dinner with him tonight, and I’ve so much to do this afternoon. Thanks for another delicious lunch. Hopefully, you’ll have your cast off by the time I get back from Provence, and then I’ll take you for that fancy lunch at the Relais Plaza.’
‘With Clee, I hope.’
Nicky nodded. ‘With Clee.’
‘And if we can’t have lunch, you will phone me before you go back to the States at the end of September, won’t you, Nicky?’
‘Of course I will… but don’t worry, we’ll be having our lunch, I promise.’ Bending forward, Nicky kissed Marie Thérèse on the cheek. ‘Don’t get up, I can let myself out.’
‘Au revoir, chérie.’
‘Au revoir, and take care.’
Nicky closed the door of the apartment behind her and ran down the steep flight of stairs. Dashing out of the front door and into the street, she turned right, hoping she would not have trouble finding a taxi. As she did so she ran into a group of men leaving the restaurant next door to Marie Thérèse’s apartment building.
‘Oh, pardon!’ she exclaimed as she bumped into one of them.
‘De rien, mademoiselle,’ the man said, and swung around, smiling.