Wittingcombe snoozed gently in its valley, bathed in soft evening sunlight. Ancient timbers supported the crooked bricks of the cottages that lined the road, as red, yellow and pink roses crept up the walls towards roofs that buckled and bowed. The Three Castles stood at the far end of the village, as it had done for centuries, at the point where the village high street became a country lane lined with high hedges and tangles of Queen Anne’s lace.
Phil ordered himself a pint of Brakspear at the bar, and settled at his favourite table between the dartboard and the jukebox. Although school hadn’t technically broken up yet, now exams were over the pupils didn’t have to show up, so Phil had been surprised and a little flattered when his French teacher, Mr Parsons, had rung him to suggest they meet for a drink.
He had no idea why.
Phil sipped his pint. He was grateful for his grandmother’s offer, but he was still angry with his dad that he had had to abandon his hitch-hiking plans. It wasn’t as if travelling around Europe with Grams was going to be that great anyway. One of the things he had been looking forward to was chatting up girls with Mike around the bars of Europe. They probably wouldn’t have had much success, but it would have been fun trying. Hard to do that with your grandmother.
Especially if your grandmother was a little weird. And it was hard to escape the fact that Phil’s grandmother was more than a little weird.
He wished he had hesitated just for a moment at that turning to double-check the road when the woman had beckoned him to go forward. She looked like one of his friends’ mums — he had just done what she had told him without questioning it. What an idiot!
‘Hello, Phil.’
Phil recognized the voice of his French teacher and scrambled to his feet. Mr Parsons was a prematurely wizened sixty-year-old with a clipped, very English accent and a deep love of French literature, which over the previous two years he had managed to pass on to Phil and the rest of his A-level class. There was not much Phil wouldn’t do for Mr Parsons.
Standing just behind him was a man a little older than the French master, bald with fluffs of grey hair sticking out above his large ears. Phil would have pegged him as another teacher, except he didn’t recognize him, and he was wearing a suit. Apart from the headmaster, teachers at Phil’s school stuck to old sports jackets and rumpled trousers. ‘Hello, sir.’
‘Sadly, Phil, I am no longer “sir” to you. And not even really “Mr Parsons”. Call me Eustace.’
Naturally, Mr Parsons’ pupils had gleefully been calling him ‘Eustace’ behind his back ever since they had discovered that was his first name, but Phil felt honoured to be permitted to call him that to his face.
‘This is Charles Swann,’ said Mr Parsons. ‘Phil Dewar, one of my pupils. Former pupils. Going to Edinburgh in September.’
‘Provided I get the grades.’
‘As I said, going to Edinburgh in September.’ Mr Parsons grinned with confidence. ‘What will you have, Charles?’
‘Oh, a pint of bitter, please.’
‘Can I get you another, Phil?’
‘Thank you, sir. I mean, Eustace. A pint of Brakspear’s.’
The bald man sat down opposite Phil and pulled out a packet of cigarettes, offered Phil one, which he declined, and lit up. ‘Nice pub,’ he said, taking a puff. ‘Your local?’
‘My house is on the other side of the village. Do you live around here? I haven’t seen you about.’
‘Oh no. I live in Surrey. Woking.’
‘Are you a teacher too?’
Swann grinned. ‘Sometimes I wish I was. No, a civil servant.’ He leaned back in his chair, examining Phil. ‘Eustace tells me your exams are all finished now. Have you got any plans for the summer?’
‘I was supposed to be spending a month hitch-hiking around Europe, but it looks like that’s fallen through. I crashed my father’s car last week, and now I can’t afford to go.’
‘My commiserations,’ said Swann. ‘I had a bad smash when I was your age. Lucky to get out alive. All my fault.’
‘I suppose this one was mine,’ said Phil.
Mr Parsons reappeared, clasping two pints. ‘Here you are, Phil. I have to go, I’m afraid. I’ll leave you here with Charles.’
Phil accepted the pint and put it down next to his existing glass. He looked at his teacher in confusion.
‘Charles will explain. This is the first time I’ve met him. But he is a very good friend of a very good friend of mine. He is who he says he is.’ Mr Parsons looked straight into Phil’s eyes as he spoke.
‘All right,’ said Phil, confusion morphing into interest. ‘Thanks for the pint.’
He turned to Swann, who was still watching him carefully as he smoked his cigarette. The man’s gaze was shrewd, with a hint of steel. Definitely not a schoolteacher. ‘What are you planning to do instead?’ Swann asked. ‘Now you can’t go hitch-hiking.’
‘My grandmother has offered to take me around Europe. I’m supposed to drive her. Technically it’s a job, but actually she bailed me out.’
‘That’s decent of her,’ said Swann.
‘She’s a decent woman,’ said Phil. ‘A little odd sometimes, but she has always been good to me.’ He sipped the smaller of his two pints. ‘What do you want? You said you worked for the civil service?’
‘I do. I’m semi-retired now.’
‘Which department?’
‘I couldn’t say.’ Swann looked at Phil levelly.
Phil had read enough spy novels to know what Mr Swann was saying. A thought occurred to him. ‘Is that Swann as in À la recherche du temps perdu?’
‘It is, actually. Eustace thought you would appreciate it.’
Phil couldn’t help grinning. Mr Parsons had overreached himself with inflicting Proust as an off-syllabus novel on his class the previous autumn term.
‘So Swann is not your real name?’
‘Obviously not,’ said Swann. ‘But it will do us for now.’
‘OK.’ Phil sipped his pint. His heart started beating faster. He was going to study languages at university and he had fantasized about how one day he would be approached by the secret service in exactly this way. Was it happening already? Phil knew that Mr Parsons liked him, respected him even. Would MI5 or MI6 or whomever Swann was with want him to learn Russian? Phil had always fancied the idea of learning Russian.
He decided to take the initiative. He had no idea whether he would agree to be a spy, but he knew he wanted to be asked. ‘Are you recruiting me?’
‘No,’ Swann replied, with a smile revealing chaotic yellow teeth. ‘Or not exactly. There is something that we would like you to do for your government. For your country. But before we talk about that, I want your word that you won’t discuss what I am about to say with anyone. Not your family. Not your friends. Certainly not your grandmother.’ The grin had gone.
Phil didn’t want to keep this a secret. In particular, he wanted to tell his mates from school all about Mr Parsons’ friend. But if he didn’t promise he would never find out what ‘this’ was. Mr Parsons had trusted him.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘I won’t tell anyone.’ And he meant it. He would keep his word and justify Mr Parsons’ trust.
‘Good man,’ said Swann. ‘This is what I would like you to do, if you are willing...’
Three
The train pulled into St Austell. Phil closed his hefty volume of War and Peace, which he had long planned to take with him on his European trip, since it was a book big enough to last him five weeks: 130 pages done, 1,270 to go. He grabbed his bulging green rucksack and dropped down on to the platform. He had one five-pound note in his pocket, borrowed from his mother, to pay for the taxi to Mevagissey, the fishing village near which Grams lived.