in an effort to reach me. Taking most of my weight on his shoulders he then leads me into the bathroom and sets me down on the edge of the bath. He is surprisingly strong. I say that I am embarrassed by the sweat that has soaked through my shirt onto his arms.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ he says. ‘Don’t worry.’
But I feel dizzy and take a towel down from a rack above the bath, wiping my neck and face. Only after a couple of minutes do I ask what he meant about the girl.
‘What girl?’
‘You said there was another woman, a new problem. With somebody other than Rosalia.’
‘Oh yes.’ He looks directly at me. ‘Buscon left a package at the Hotel Carta this morning.’
‘Buscon is back in Madrid?’
‘Was. Checked out at eight. A woman came to pick it up about an hour later. Somebody we didn’t recognize. You sure you’re all right, Alec?’
‘I’m fine.’
He goes back into the bedroom and I hear him searching around in his jacket. I am still hot and out of breath, but the pain has mostly passed. ‘Careful,’ he says as he passes me what looks like a photograph that has been colour-photocopied onto a sheet of A4. ‘I had surveillance in the lobby and security faxed this through. Do you recognize her?’
I turn the paper over and it falls limp in my hand. I cannot believe what I am seeing.
‘I’ll take that as a yes,’ he says, registering my reaction. ‘So you know her?’
‘I know her.’
The woman in the photograph is Sofia.
32. Black Widow
‘Sofia Church? Your boss’s wife?’
A nod.
‘You want to tell me more?’
I did not think it was possible to feel angrier and more unsettled than I already do, but Sofia’s treachery is an all-new humiliation. I feel utterly bereft and strung out, as if my heart has been broken and left for years to grieve. Kitson is watching me all the time and I know, at the very least, that we cannot hold this conversation while I am sitting in the bathroom. I ask him to assist me and we walk slowly back into the bedroom. I have to stretch out flat on the nearer of the two beds and prop up my head with a pillow. It must be a pathetic sight. I do not even have the strength to lie about this.
‘She’s Spanish,’ I tell him, as if that’s a start. ‘They’ve been married for five years. That’s all I have, Richard. That’s everything.’
‘You’re sure?’
‘I’m sure.’
He knows. It’s obvious. All about the affair with Sofia, all about Julian, all about the whole damn thing. They saw us together at the Prado. Kitson’s eyes are telling me to come clean before there’s a breach of trust. Don’t let me down. Don’t keep making the same mistake.
‘Look, switch off the tape.’
‘What?’
‘Just do it.’
He walks over to the table, sits down and appears to shut off the mechanism. I do not have the guts to ask if I can double check this.
‘Sofia and I have been seeing each other for a while. We’ve been having an affair.’
‘OK.’
In the bathroom, a tap drips.
‘Are you married, Richard?’
‘I’m married.’
‘Children?’
‘Two.’
‘What does your wife do?’
‘She does everything.’
I like this answer. I am envious of it.
‘It’s not something that I’m particularly proud of.’
‘It’s not something that I’m particularly here to judge.’ There is a beat of understanding between us. ‘And now you think that she might have played you?’
It is the spy’s deepest fear; to be betrayed by those closest to him. Kitson’s question is in itself a slight; an officer of his calibre would never have allowed himself to be so blatantly manipulated. I am trying to understand what the hell Sofia might have been doing at the Carta picking up an envelope left by Luis Buscon, but all I can think is that she has been using me all this time. It must have something to do with Julian’s past in Colombia, with Nicole. Are they part of the dirty war? Sofia hates ETA, but no more or less than most Spaniards. She disapproved of Arenaza, but not enough to have him killed. Christ, I tasted her, I made her come; there were times when we seemed to vanish into one another, so intense were the feelings between us. If all that was just a game to her, a woman’s ploy, I do not know what I will do. To lie within human intimacy is the greatest sin of all.
‘Maybe it’s not her in the picture,’ Kitson suggests, as if sensing my shame. It is embarrassing to hear him try to comfort me. ‘Maybe your eyes were playing tricks on you.’
‘Can I see it again?’
But it’s her. The image is blurred and shows only the back of a woman’s head, but the figure, the height and posture are exactly Sofia’s. She’s even wearing clothes that I recognize: a knee-length tweed skirt, high-heeled leather boots. I am consumed by rage.
‘Jesus Christ, what an idiot.’
‘You don’t know that. There might be another explanation.’
‘Can you think of one?’
Kitson struggles to reply. He can’t answer without knowing the facts. So, for the second time in a matter of hours, I have to strip myself of all obfuscation and tell him, in humiliating detail, all about my relationship with Sofia: the initial meetings; the endless lies to Julian; the stolen afternoons and the rows. God knows how I come across. And all the time I am trying to put the pieces together, trying to work out their long-term strategy. Why did they lure me in? Why would Buscon and ETA, Dieste, Julian and Sofia, target an Englishman abroad if not to set him up as a patsy? But why me? Why Alec Milius? I tell Kitson about Nicole and Julian’s life in Colombia, asking him to check their file, but can only conclude that this is an American operation, orchestrated by Katharine and Fortner as revenge for JUSTIFY. At the same time, it is impossible to see more of the trap which has been set for me. In spite of everything that I now know, I still can’t sense what they might have in store.
33. Reina Victoria
I go back to Calle Princesa. Perhaps it would have been best to pack everything up, to find a new apartment in Madrid, even to move to a different city, but that would have felt too much like defeat. I would rather suffer the final humiliation of witnessing the plot’s success, of seeing the look of triumph in Katharine’s eyes, than give up now. It is more important to me to do my best for Kitson, to see this thing through, than to cut and run. In any case, he has said that he still needs me, and with our knowledge of Sofia’s involvement in the conspiracy we now have a crucial advantage. We can turn the tables. I can start using her.
‘See her, sleep with her, habla con ella, ’ Kitson advised. ‘Act like nothing has changed. You haven’t seen the photograph, you haven’t any knowledge of any dirty war. And don’t for God’s sake start telling her about Patxo
