A Foreign Country

46

That two funerals had been arranged for Philippe and Jeannine Malot confirmed to Kell that Amelia had been the victim of an elaborate DGSE sting. The emails Christophe had received from François (‘Frankie is not sentimental like this. It’s as if he’s joined a cult or something’) had almost certainly been written by an impostor. Kell checked out of his hotel and prepared to return to London, where he would confront Amelia with the wretched truth of what had been done to her.

In the early years of his career, coming home had always given Kell a buzz. He might have been returning from a meeting in Vienna or Bonn, or from a longer operation overseas, but always there was the same slightly elevated sense of his own importance as he touched down on British soil. Passing through Heathrow or Gatwick, he would feel like a superior being among a rabble of lesser mortals, gliding invisibly through passport control on Her Majesty’s secret service. Such arrogance, such hubris, had long since ceased to form a part of Kell’s make-up. He no longer felt anointed or conferred with particular status; he was conscious only of being different to all the rest. Towards the end of his time with SIS, he had envied the uncomplicated lives of the men and women of his own generation with whom he came into contact. What would it be like, he wondered, a life without lies, an existence free of the double-think and second-guess that was a permanent feature of his clandestine trade? Kell had been recruited for his charm and cunning; he knew that. He had risen to the heights as a direct consequence of his imagination and flair for deceit. But the ceaseless demands of the work — the need to stay one step ahead of the competition — not to mention the increasingly burdensome bureaucratic dimension of spying in the post-9/11 environment, were exhausting. Sometimes Kell wondered if what had happened to him in Kabul had been a blessing. The scandal had forced him out just at the point at which he was getting ready to jump. In this sense, a forty-two-year-old spy was no different to a forty-two-year-old chef or accountant. Men reached a certain point in their lives and felt the need for change, to make their mark on the landscape, to bank some serious money before it was all too late. So the chef bought himself a restaurant; the banker started his own hedge fund. And the spy? The drop-out rate from SIS after forty-five was as alarming as it was unstoppable. The cream of the crop, like Amelia, stayed on, in the hope of making ‘C’; the rest grew observably tired of the game and diverted their energies to the private sector, finding lucrative jobs in finance and oil, or opening up their contacts books to the grateful directors of boutique corporate espion-age outfits which attended, at colossal expense, to the whims and schemes of oligarchs and plutocrats the world over.

Yet, while queuing for the Paddington Express at Heathrow, Kell was visited by a thought that had been troubling him throughout his journey across Tunisia and France: I was wasting my time before this. Thoughts of writing a book, thoughts of starting his own business. Why had he tried to deceive himself? He could no more function in the world beyond SIS than he could imagine becoming a father. He was like one of the grey, institutionalized men who had taught French or mathematics at his school, teachers who were still plying their trade in exactly the same fashion at exactly the same place more than twenty-five years later. There was no escape.

He had spoken to Amelia from a France Telecom booth in the Gare du Nord, using the télécarte purchased in Marseille.

‘Tom! How lovely to hear from you.’

She had been in her office at Vauxhall Cross. He tried to keep the conversation brief, because you never knew who was listening in.

‘I need to see you,’ he told her. ‘Are you free tonight?’

‘Tonight? It’s a bit late notice.’ It felt like making a date with a girl who had six better offers. ‘Giles has tickets for the National.’

‘Can he go alone?’

Amelia had detected Kell’s anxiety, something more than a bullish desire to get his own way.

‘Why, what’s happened? Is it Claire? Is everything all right?’

Kell had looked out at the bustle and thrust of the Gare du Nord and allowed himself a momentary pause for reflection. No, nothing was all right with Claire. She’s putting me through the ringer. She’s drinking Pinot Noir with Dick the Wonder Schlong in Napa. He would gladly have talked to Amelia about his marriage for hours on end.

‘Nothing to do with Claire,’ he said. ‘Everything is as it was on that front. This is work stuff. Professional.’

Amelia misunderstood. ‘Tom, I can’t talk about Yassin until I take over next month. Then we can sit down and we work out how to clear your—’

‘This is not about Yassin. I’m not worried about Kabul.’ He realized that he had not formally congratulated her on becoming Chief. He would do it later, if and when the opportunity arose. ‘It’s about you. We need to meet and we need to do it tonight.’

‘Fine.’ Her voice was suddenly slightly hostile. Amelia Levene, in common with most driven and successful people of Kell’s acquaintance, didn’t like being pushed around. ‘Where do you suggest?’

Kell would have liked to meet outdoors, but it had begun to rain. He needed a place where they could talk at length without risk of being overheard. Amelia’s house and his own bachelor bedsit were out of the question, because any number of interested parties could have wired them for sight and sound. They might have gone to one of the private members clubs in Pall Mall to which he had access, if such places opened their doors to women. They could even have taken a room at a London hotel, if Kell had not been worried that Amelia would misread his intentions. In the end, she suggested an office in Bayswater to which SIS kept a set of keys.

‘It’s just behind the Whiteleys shopping centre,’ she said. ‘We use it from time to time. Nobody in the building after six o’clock except the odd cleaner. Will that do?’

‘That will do.’

She arrived on foot and on time, wearing her habitual Office uniform: a skirt with matching jacket, a cream blouse, black shoes and a simple gold necklace. Kell had come straight from Paddington and was standing outside the building on Redan Place, his suitcase and shoulder bag set down on the steps behind him.

‘Going somewhere?’ Amelia asked, kissing him on both cheeks.

‘Just got back,’ he said.