‘It must have been disappointing for you that he changed his mind, then,’ said Emma, calmly.
Lothar paused. ‘Kay told you that, I suppose.’
Emma didn’t answer. ‘When he told you he wouldn’t spy for Russia any more, it wasn’t just a lost opportunity, was it?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘He was going to talk to the British secret service.’
Lothar remained silent. He waited.
‘And if he had talked, he would have told them about you. And about the fellow Cambridge students you had recruited.’
No answer.
‘So you had him killed.’ It was a statement, not a question.
The words hung heavy in the room.
‘A few years ago, I would have denied it,’ said Lothar. ‘But now? We are both old. You have a right to know. For what it’s worth, I am sorry. He was a good man. At the time I believed that helping the cause was everything. Actually, I still do believe that. The Soviets let down the cause of international communism as much as Hugh was planning to.
‘I’m sorry, Emma,’ he repeated.
‘Who did kill him?’ Emma asked.
‘A policeman. One of your bobbies. We had quite a few agents in the Metropolitan Police in those days, did you know that? Recruited them in the nineteen twenties after the police strike. This man used to do the occasional difficult job for me.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Does it matter? He’s long dead.’
‘In that case, maybe it doesn’t matter.’
Emma thought for a moment, and then reached down for the handbag by her feet and placed it on her lap. She opened it.
And pulled out a gun.
A gun Phil recognized: the revolver that he thought she had slung into the woods above Lake Annecy.
She got to her feet, cocking it and pointing it at Lothar.
‘What is this?’ said Lothar. ‘Revenge?’
‘Justice,’ said Emma. ‘For Hugh. Before I die. I’m sorry you have to see this, Philip.’
So was Phil. Then it occurred to him that if Lothar died, so would the identity of Swann’s mole.
‘Lothar,’ he said.
Lothar switched his glance to Phil. As did Emma.
‘One of the agents you recruited is still working, isn’t he? Deep in the heart of the British secret service. That’s why the Russians are after you. Who is he?’
‘Philip!’ Emma was clearly unhappy with Phil’s interruption.
‘I won’t tell you anything about anyone I recruited,’ said Lothar.
‘Where did you get that idea from, Philip?’ demanded Emma. ‘Who has been talking to you?’
Phil ignored her. He needed Lothar’s answer. ‘If you don’t tell us, Lothar, Emma will shoot you.’
‘Emma is going to shoot me anyway, Philip. Aren’t you, Emma?’
Emma nodded.
Lothar took a deep drag of his cigarette. ‘It was always going to happen some time. I have cheated death for forty years. I’m an old man now. And I am glad it’s you and not some KGB hit man in the middle of the night.’ He raised his hand. ‘But before you do it, let me repeat. Your brother was a good man. I am sorry he is dead.’
Emma stared. There wasn’t hatred in her expression, or even anger. But there was determination.
And Phil knew his grandmother well enough to know that when she was determined to do something, she did it.
She pulled the trigger. And then she pulled it again, and again.
Fifty-Seven
Heike heard the three shots, as did the startled pigeons perching in the trees on the hillside, who took to the air in a flurry of beating wings and rustling branches.
She and Rozhkov had stationed themselves a few metres above the road, looking down on the villa. They had hidden the BMW behind the wall of an empty construction site between the TR6 and the villa, having managed to keep tabs on Emma’s car all the way from Bavaria, maintaining at least two kilometres’ distance. They hadn’t had much sleep on the way; they had had to spell each other keeping watch over the hotels in France and Valencia where their targets had spent the night, in case they decided on another departure in the early hours.
‘Who shot who?’ said Rozhkov.
‘Maybe she’s killed Lothar,’ said Heike. ‘Sounded like three shots from the same gun.’
‘Or maybe he shot the two of them.’
‘Has anyone heard it?’ The nearest neighbouring house was fifty metres down the hill, but that looked shut tight as a drum. The gunshots had been fired within the building, which had muffled them somewhat.
‘We have to assume someone will call the police,’ said Rozhkov. ‘Let’s get down there. If they come out of the front door, shoot them.’
Heike followed the KGB agent down to the road, her gun hanging by her side, so it couldn’t be seen from anyone at a distance.
Still no sound of an alarm being raised, or sign of a curious neighbour. But all it needed was for one person to pick up the phone and call the police.
They opened the gate, and crouched behind a bush, waiting for someone to emerge. From there they couldn’t see clearly into the villa through the windows, although Heike thought she spotted something move inside.
‘Did you see that?’ she whispered.
Rozhkov nodded. ‘All right. We’re going in. Shoot to kill. Let’s make it fast.’
‘Jesus!’ said Phil, his ears ringing from the gunshots in a confined space as he watched the blood pour from Lothar’s chest.
His grandmother had just shot someone. Again. That’s not what grannies were supposed to do.
And with Lothar had gone all hope of finding Swann’s mole.
Emma slumped back into the armchair, still holding the gun.
‘What now?’ said Phil, leaping to his feet.
‘Leave me here,’ said Emma. ‘I’ve done what I came to do. I’ll explain that you had nothing to do with it.’
‘No,’ said Phil. ‘No. We’re going to get out of this like we did in Talloires. Get up, Grams!’
She didn’t move.
‘Up!’ He hauled her to her feet.
Phil scanned the room. ‘I think we’ve barely touched anything since we’ve been here.’ Lothar had opened the front door for them, and the living-room door had been open. He hadn’t given them anything to drink. All they would have touched was the fabric of the sofa and the chair Emma was sitting in. Phil wasn’t sure, but he thought fingerprints needed hard surfaces to come out clearly.
‘Someone might have reported the shots. We need to get going before the police come.’
‘Don’t worry about it, Philip,’ said Emma.
Phil ignored her and moved through to the hallway, where there was a window looking up to the road. He saw two figures, a man and a woman, running across the road, guns hanging down by their sides.
He recognized the woman.
Heike.
He dashed back into the living room. ‘KGB!’ he said. ‘Come on, Grams! They’ve got guns. You might be happy to die, but I’m not.’
He knew that would snap her out of it.
‘There may be a way out of the back garden,’ she said. She moved over to a window. ‘Yes — there’s a gate.’
‘Let’s go!’
They found the back door and hurried through it, across the garden and out of the gate at the back. They scrambled down the path into the woods.
Rozhkov went first, flinging the front door open and storming into the villa, Heike following, her gun raised. Adrenaline was pumping in her system. There were armed foreign agents in there; if one of them turned out to be Phil, she would shoot him, if Rozhkov didn’t shoot him first. Their orders were clear. Phil, Emma and Lothar all had to die. The KGB’s agent in Britain had to be protected at all costs.