There was a gilded mirror above one of the dressers, folded regimental flags crossed above it. Owain saw that his face looked gaunt, his cheeks sunken. He’d made himself stop at a canteen on the way: porridge laced with currants, followed by a slab of forces-issue fruitcake that sat fermenting in his stomach.
Giselle Vigoroux appeared in full uniform, wheeling a chair in which a withered man sat, grey and trembling. In his initial glimpse, Owain had imagined it was Sir Gruffydd, malevolently wasted away to a wraith in a matter of days. But it was Giselle’s husband, Phillipe. He’d been infected with enhanced-measles virus when insurgents detonated a car-bomb at the Alliance headquarters in Prague ten years before. His head was twisted up, skewed eyes raised to the ceiling, mouth lolling open. Brain-damaged. Quadriplegic. A mangled puppet of himself.
Giselle wiped his chin with a handkerchief and kissed him on the forehead. A young nurse appeared and wheeled him away.
“Good morning, major,” Giselle said to him.
“How is he?”
“Comme ci, comme ça.”
He realised that she was talking about her husband. She’d brought him with her when she was transferred to London, had a special room with all the necessary medical equipment. Shifts of nurses attending him night and day. He remembered her saying, in mixed company, that she had once tried to end his misery by suffocating him with a pillow but had been unable to carry it through.
“I meant the field marshal,” Owain said.
“Ah. There is cause for optimism.”
“He’s still sick?”
“On the mend. At his age, such things take time.”
“He’s not dying, is he?”
She was mildly amused. “Nothing so dramatic. But stomach pumps and purgatives are scarcely tender on the older constitution. Not to mention its dignity.”
“I thought—” Owain faltered. “I hadn’t heard anything.”
“There was nothing pressing to bring to your attention. No point in burdening you unnecessarily.”
“I need to talk to him.”
“He’s not receiving visitors at present.”
“It’s urgent.”
“Not even family. The doctor’s prescribed sedatives. He’s sleeping.”
This wasn’t what Owain wanted to hear. Though he was holding himself under firm control, I could sense his anxiety. There was looming danger, he was certain. Things were happening in the shadows, allegiances were uncertain, too much was unclear.
“What is it?” Giselle said.
“Did you know my brother was in town?”
Her husband’s nurse appeared again from a side room. She approached Giselle and murmured something in her ear in French. Owain didn’t catch it.
“Give him a blanket bath,” Giselle said, speaking clearly in English. “He also needs a shave.”
The nurse went off. As she re-entered the room, Owain caught a glimpse of two male figures in conversation. One of them was Tyler, the other a taller man in a dark suit standing with his back to Owain. The door closed.
“Did you know?” Owain said again to Giselle.
“Of course,” she replied. “It was only a temporary posting to Switzerland. I’m
sure he spoke of it when we met in Paris.”
Owain didn’t contradict her. Perhaps she imagined he and Rhys had had a proper conversation rather than a series of verbal skirmishes.
“He came to see me last night,” he said.
“Oh? A social call?”
Was she being sarcastic? Often he found it difficult to tell. Not that he saw it as anything more than affectionate. It was as if she was an indulgent aunt, amusedly tolerant of his social awkwardness. She felt he needed looking after. Perhaps that was why she was prepared to facilitate his meetings with Marisa.
“What he had to say to me was highly disturbing,” Owain told her.
“Indeed?”
“It’s vital I talk to the field marshal.”
He expected her to ask him to elucidate, but she did not.
“He must rest, Owain,” she insisted. “There’s nothing I can do.”
“Perhaps you can help me.”
“Of course. In whatever way I can. Though I think we should find another place for our discussions, yes?”
He knew what she meant. Privacy was impossible here. Every room, corridor and alcove would be planted with surveillance equipment.
“I have to go out,” she told him. “To Northolt. Would you care to accompany me?”
I wandered in from the garden. My clothes were damp. I’d been inspecting the unkempt flowerbeds, absurdly thinking I should weed them. I used to do the same in the garden of my own house, letting Sara and Bethany “help” me, supplying them with plastic trowels so that they could dig holes and emphatically flatten anything green.
I was smiling at the memory. Why had I let Lyneth take them to Australia? What could I have done to make this possible? And why on earth was I outside in the rain?
I’d not been able to find the front-door keys, so I’d unbolted the back garden gate and gone wandering down the overgrown lane at the rear of the house. But I knew I couldn’t leave the place unattended, the conservatory doors open. Duty—and the fact that it was raining—had overcome my urge to explore.
But something else had brought me in from the garden. I couldn’t think what. I stood motionless in the kitchen, the silence of the house somehow eloquent, like a pause in a conversation.
There was a packaged meal sitting on the worktop next to the chrome toaster. Macaroni cheese, still frozen. It wouldn’t have been my choice. When had Owain taken it out of the freezer?
There was no other evidence that he’d been up to anything else. Perhaps it was me after all. Or perhaps Geoff had come back. I went through into the hallway and listened, looking up the stairs.
“Geoff?” I called somewhat tentatively. “Are you there?”
Silence. I waited, listening again for the merest hint of movement somewhere in the house. I could hear only the muted pneumatic thrumming of the central heating system. There was no one at home but me.
The phone gave a little peep. It was mounted in the hallway next to the living room door. I stared at it, finally realising that someone had probably just left a message. The phone must have switched to the answer service before I could get there.
I lifted the handset and tapped out 1571.
One message, I was informed, received a minute before. I let it play.
There was a pause before a querulous elderly male voice said: “Hello? Is anyone there?” A longer pause, and now the voice saying at reduced volume: “He’s not there. Shall I say who’s calling?” A further silence before the voice spoke directly into the receiver once more: “It’s me. Are you out? They didn’t tell me you were going anywhere.” Yet another long pause. Finally: “Goodbye.”
Throughout all this his tone had veered between the quizzical and the perplexed, his voice sounding fractured with age.
My father. It felt like decades since I had last heard him speak. Before I was fully aware of it I had pressed 3 to delete.
The helicopter was a diminutive de Havilland Sprite. Owain sat next to Giselle as she took off, banking away from the landing pad on the War Office roof.
Despite many helicopter rides, Owain had never flown up front before, let alone in a light craft whose bubble canopy gave him an intimate identification with the vast grey spaces beyond it. Giselle was already radioing ahead, confirming clearance for landing. No problem, she was told by another female voice. We’re expecting you. There was no other low-altitude traffic en route.
They followed the line of Western Avenue, flying below five hundred feet, overtaking a convoy of supply trucks. Giselle handled the craft with a minimum of fuss, maintaining a steady speed and altitude. Encased in her pilot’s helmet, she looked born to it.