‘Yes,’ said Phil. ‘We met him in Paris. He knew her before the war.’
‘And he’s staying with her now?’
‘Yes. I saw him last week.’
‘And you didn’t tell me?’
Phil didn’t answer.
‘He says she had a brain tumour and that she knew about it. Did she tell you?’
‘Not at first,’ said Phil. ‘But eventually. When we were driving through France.’
‘And you didn’t tell me that, either?’
‘She made me promise not to.’ He looked at his mother, whose face was crumpling in front of him. He felt guilty and he felt angry. Guilty that he had kept his promise to his grandmother, and angry that she had made him do it. ‘Sorry, Mum.’
‘Phil!’ The tears were streaming down his mother’s face now. ‘Phil, she was my mother. I had a right to know. I should be down there looking after her, not this dick.’ She spat out the last word in all its penile ambiguity.
Phil’s father emerged from the sitting room; he must have come home early from work. He put his arms around his wife and glared at his son.
Phil stumped upstairs, and sat on his bed in his jeans, filthy with dust from the building site. His eyes roamed around his room and settled on his copy of the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide lying on the floor.
He thought of his grandmother beside her brother’s grave at Chaddington; sitting beside him in the TR6 lecturing him on Plastic Bertrand; showing him that church with the amazing windows in Paris; crammed in the back of the tiny taxi travelling through East Berlin. He imagined her as a young diplomat’s wife confounding all who met her, diplomats and spymasters, throughout Europe.
He smiled. And then a blackness seeped inside him, spreading from somewhere in his chest throughout his whole body, filling every empty cranny with a darker emptiness.
He blinked and felt a hot trail wriggle down his cheek.
There was a knock at his bedroom door.
He didn’t answer.
The door opened. His mum appeared, hesitated, and then walked into the room and sat down next to him on the bed. Slowly, she put her arm around his shoulders, and he leaned into her as she hugged him tight.
He felt her lips in his hair.
Phil had had enough of keeping promises to his grandmother.
While his parents were sipping gin and tonics before supper in the sitting room, he made a murmured phone call to a London number, reversing the charges. It took a while for him to be put through to Mr Swann, or Mr Heaton-Smith, or whatever his name was.
‘My grandmother just died,’ he said.
‘I’m sorry,’ said Swann. ‘I know you expected it, but it must be a blow.’
‘I have some things I need to tell you. I know who the mole is.’
‘Who is it?’
‘I need to tell you face to face.’ Phil and Emma’s proof wasn’t cast iron; he wanted to have a proper chance to explain it to Swann.
‘All right. I’m abroad at the moment. But I can see you at one o’clock, Sunday. Same place.’
Phil heard a car pull up in the little driveway outside their house. It was Saturday afternoon, and his parents were at the garden centre. Mel was in her room practising her guitar, and he was learning Gaelic vocabulary.
He found it strangely calming. It both distracted him from his grandmother’s death and reminded him of her at the same time.
He looked out of his bedroom window to see the familiar shape of the TR6, top down. And Dick at the wheel.
Christ!
Dick rang the doorbell.
Play it cool, Phil thought. Not too cool, though. It would be natural for him to seem upset, agitated even.
‘Hello, Dick,’ he said as he opened the door, opting for a downbeat tone.
‘Hello.’ Dick flashed one of those kind smiles that had so captivated Emma. ‘I’m so sorry, Philip. I know how fond you were of her. And she was of you.’
‘Thanks,’ said Phil. ‘What are you doing here?’
‘I came to deliver the car,’ Dick said. ‘Emma was very keen you should have it. And you and I need to have a little chat.’
Uh-oh. ‘Come in,’ said Phil.
‘Look, it’s a lovely afternoon. Why don’t we take her out for a spin?’
Phil couldn’t think of an answer why not. ‘OK,’ he said. ‘One moment. I just need to tell my sister where I’m going.’
‘I’ll wait in the car.’
Phil ran up to Mel’s room.
‘Who’s that?’ said Mel, looking up from her guitar.
‘It’s Dick, Grams’s friend. He’s taking me out for a drive.’
‘Have fun.’
‘Mel. I’m dead serious about this. Listen closely.’ Phil looked around her room, grabbed a biro and ripped off a sheet from a pad of paper on her desk. He scribbled down a number.
‘If I’m not back in an hour, ring this number and ask for Mr Swann. Tell him Dick Loxton took me for a drive and I haven’t come back yet. Dick Loxton. Have you got that?’
‘Are you serious?’ His sister’s expression was somewhere between bemused and scornful.
‘Dead serious,’ said Phil.
‘I knew something was up,’ she said. ‘Now you’ve got me scared.’
‘I am scared,’ said Phil. ‘Bye, Mel.’ And he bent down and kissed her quickly on the cheek.
‘Wow,’ she said. He never kissed her on the cheek. ‘Bye, Phil.’
He left the house to find Dick waiting for him in the passenger seat.
‘Where are we going?’ Phil asked.
‘Is there anywhere we can go for a decent walk around here? There must be; the countryside is beautiful.’
‘I know somewhere,’ said Phil, and drove off towards one of those small valleys that cut into the Chiltern Hills.
Dick was talking about Emma’s last few days, something about how she had been comfortable until the very end when she had complained of a severe headache and then lost consciousness.
Phil was listening with half an ear.
Dick was going to kill him. Take him to some remote spot and kill him.
Phil had no idea how. He probably had a gun.
Phil needed a plan.
The walk was Phil’s best hope. Dick was an inch or two taller than Phil, and quite a bit heavier. Phil wasn’t sure he could overpower him, especially if Dick had a gun.
But he could outrun him.
So the plan was, wait till they were close to some woods, but don’t wait too long.
And then make a run for it, into the trees.
They were driving along a quiet road and parked in a layby near a footpath, which led up through a field to a wood.
They got out of the car.
‘Emma said you and she had had a conversation when you came down last week,’ Dick said. ‘About me.’
‘We did,’ said Phil, avoiding Dick’s gaze.
‘She said you had both decided that I was some kind of spy.’
They had crossed a stile and were climbing a low hill beside a hedge, watched by a clutch of bullocks. Behind them, a tiny village dozed in the Buckinghamshire sunshine. The field was exposed to the view of anyone looking out of the windows of their cottage. Not a great place to shoot someone undetected. Dick would have to wait for his chance.
Phil stopped. ‘I promised her not to tell anyone, and I haven’t.’
Dick grinned. ‘I’m sure you haven’t. You are the epitome of a loyal grandson.’
‘You can trust me not to tell them now,’ Phil said. And at that moment he was willing to stick by that promise if Dick could think of a way of enforcing it without killing him.
He was scared, but he was doing his best not to show it.
Dick laughed. ‘Don’t worry, Philip,’ he said. ‘I’m not a “mole” as she says you call it. It’s not me.’