keep you with me. Anything. You knew how much I loved you. You should have helped me, shown me how to talk and listen to you.’
‘You can’t tell a man this. Either he knows or he doesn’t know. You don’t, Bobby. That’s why I stopped loving you.’ She paused to consider this. ‘No, that’s not true. I didn’t stop loving you. There are many parts of you that are wonderful; it was just that my love for you was not deep enough to tolerate the way you were ignoring me.’
The self-evident truth of this stung Harland. That was exactly why she had left. She hadn’t told him because she had been hurt and resented him.
‘Christ, I’m sorry,’ he said. ‘Really, I don’t know how to make it-’
‘It’s no use. You are what you are. I know why you’re like this. You went through a lot when you were tortured, and with your cancer. That’s why you’re so bad at talking. You should have seen someone at the time. It’s gone so deep.’
‘I did. But that wasn’t the reason I was so bad with you. I didn’t know what to say. You erected a pretty impenetrable wall. You know that.’
‘Yes,’ she said, her head nodding in agreement. ‘I know.’
They drank in silence, then he asked about her mother.
‘She has cancer. It moves very slowly, but each day she is reduced in some way. The doctors are very good and we have two nurses who stay at the apartment, so I can leave when it’s necessary. They have been good to…’ She stopped when her voice cracked.
‘It’s very distressing – your only living relative.’
‘I find that the strangest part,’ she said, moving her head from side to side so that the sea breeze reached her neck.
Harland nodded. ‘Well, you have my sympathy. I do understand what she means to you.’
She nodded thanks, lit a cigarette and looked at him more softly. ‘Why are you in the Middle East?’
‘Trying to hook up with Jaidi. They were due here yesterday but they aren’t leaving Damascus until tomorrow.’
‘Teckman called me before you. Did you know that?’
‘So you wouldn’t be caught on the hop,’ he said. ‘That was the right thing to do.’
‘But this is not the first time you’ve been in the Middle East this year, is it? We heard that the UN talked to Hamas three months ago. Was that you?’
He shrugged. ‘If I was talking to Hamas, I couldn’t tell you about it, Eva.’
‘I didn’t say talking – present tense. I said talked.’
‘My answer is the same.’
‘I’ll take it as a yes then.’
After that exchange he couldn’t help but press her. ‘They picked you up at Heathrow and followed you to the safe house in Kensington on the day Norquist was killed. They went over the security film for the day and found you.’
She didn’t react to this but said, ‘Look, if we’re going to have this conversation, we should go down to the pool or the beach.’
They went down one floor, slipped through the fire exit and walked towards the beach where they removed their shoes and made for a line of parasols.
‘You were waiting in line with Vice-Admiral Norquist at Immigration,’ he started. ‘He became suspicious after you dropped your stuff a couple of times. He knew you were trying to strike up a conversation with him and told our people to follow you.’
‘Is that so?’ she said indifferently.
‘They realised your flight arrived several hours before his and that you only went to the Immigration desk when his flight from Reykjavik was disembarking. You were timing it. Were you going to trail him to the hotel? Pick him up… that kind of thing?’ No answer came. ‘I guess Norquist was a big prize for you. To know what he was saying to the British government? ’
‘Teckman told you all this,’ she said huskily and then cleared her throat. ‘Are you still working for British Intelligence, Bobby?’
‘Nope,’ he said.
‘They don’t just give out information like that. What did you do for them?’
They were fencing again. He wondered how much this game had been part of their attraction. ‘They owed me,’ he said. ‘They wanted me to keep an eye on someone and I did. In exchange I got your number.’ He thought for a moment and decided to take a chance. ‘A lot else went on at Heathrow that day.’
Her expression became animated.
‘A dozen or more terrorist suspects passed through Terminal Three and exchanged identities at precisely the moment you arrived.’
She said nothing.
‘What were you doing there?’ he asked.
‘It’s complicated.’
‘Surely you can answer that. It doesn’t affect you or your security. Also it’s important. There has to be a connection between the arrival of Norquist at Heathrow and the identity switch of the terrorists. The current theory is that the Norquist killing was a diversion.’
‘See! You’re talking like you’re still working for SIS.’
‘That’s because I can’t avoid the conclusion that your movements that day could provide a clue. If you knew of Norquist’s arrangements, it follows someone else could.’
She looked out into the dark towards the waterline, where the waves caught the light as they reared before breaking on the sand. ‘Tell me more about the switch,’ she said.
‘No, you tell me something, Eva.’
‘My name is Irina. It always has been.’
‘You were Eva when I fell in love with you in Rome. You were Eva in New York.’
‘But I am Irina,’ she said with quiet defiance. ‘That is my name, Bobby.’
‘Look at us! We’re still at it. Fencing with each other over some bloody secret. Why? Why’re we still doing it?’
‘Because that’s our work. That’s what we’re good at.’
‘Look, if there’s anything you can tell me, please do. I’m instructed to tell you that you’ll receive no hassle when you pass through London again on your regular trips. Everything will remain as it is.’
‘There won’t be any more.’ The breeze lifted her hair at the front and for a moment he saw Tomas, standing in the cold outside his apartment in Brooklyn on that first night when he learned that he had a son.
He shook himself. ‘How did you know when to follow Norquist?’
She said nothing.
‘We know you were booked into the St James’s Hotel, as Norquist was. We don’t understand why you went to the safe house first, but we assume you were going to make your way to the hotel later, maybe make a pass at him?’
She shook her head despairingly.
‘Well… what was the plan then? You do realise that SIS can blow your cover and render you useless to Mossad?’
‘I need the money. I need their help in Tel Aviv. Don’t threaten me. After all you have done… don’t threaten me.’
‘How did you know when to fly?’ He demanded. ‘Norquist’s schedule was secret.’
She put her hand to her cheek. ‘It was easy. Norquist started life as a naval helicopter pilot in Vietnam. His aircraft was hit and he crushed several vertebrae when it crash-landed. Every time Norquist was planning a long flight somewhere, he got treatment for his back problem in New York.’
Harland stiffened but said nothing about Sammi Loz. ‘And?’
‘We are interested in the man who treated him. It seems their relationship went beyond the normal doctor- patient thing. They did business together. That’s all I can say without jeopardising my position. Please think of me and my mother.’
‘What kind of business?’
