'If he's from Minsk they'd had to have had a heat-wave there through this winter.'
'Soaped and flannelled, as you say. I'm very sorry, very sorry about your girl.'
Holt went to the window, showed his back to the security officer.
On Sunday morning a Royal Air Force VC-10 was diverted from its Cyprus to Brize Norton flight run to drop down at Simferopol.
The coffins containing the bodies of Sir Sylvester Armitage and Jane Canning were carried to the cargo doors by a bearer party of Soviet Marines. The coffins were taken past an honour guard of officer cadets from the military academy who stood sternly to attention, heads down and rifles in reverse.
The sight of the coffins, and the presence among them of young Holt and the counsellor and the security officer, was sufficient to subdue a company of para-troopers returning to the United Kingdom from a month's exercises.
5
'It was good of you to come. We appreciate it.'
She was a small woman, brightly dressed, and with heavy make-up that he presumed was to hide the ravage of her bereavement. She stood in the front doorway and the rain lashed down onto the head and shoulders of young Holt. Strange, really, that in all the time he had known Jane he had never been asked to her parents' home in South London. He saw the water dribbling down from the black mock-Tudor beams and down the whitewashed stucco. He hadn't a hat and so his head was soaked.
Gently he said, 'Do you think I could come in, Mrs Canning?'
Her hand jerked to her mouth, and she was all movement, embarrassment.
'Whatever'll you be thinking of me? Of course come in… Father, it's Mr Holt here.'
Jane's father took his coat off to the kitchen, and Jane's mother led him into the front room. A friendly room full of the furniture that dated back to the beginning of a marriage. Worn armrests on the sofa and the chairs, a burn mark in the carpet by the fire, plants that needed cutting back. On the mantelpiece was a photograph of his girl, a posed portrait that was all shoulder and profile. He stood with his back to the fire, with his back to the photograph of Jane, and his damp trouser legs steamed. He wondered what it was like for them to meet the man who loved their daughter and who had slept with their daughter. Around the room he counted four more photographs of her, of his girl. Jane's mother had sat down in her chair, the most used chair, and she had her knitting bag on her lap and was routing for needles and wool. She could see each one of the five photographs from her chair. She asked him to sit, and he said that he had been in the train a long time and that he preferred to stand. He reckoned that her clothes were a brave gesture, a Post-Office-red skirt and a white blouse and a vivid scarf knotted at her throat. He admired a woman who would dress like that for her daughter's funeral. Jane's father came into the room wiping the raincoat's damp off his hands onto a handkerchief. He wore his best suit and a starched white shirt and a tie that was either dark navy or black. Jane's father seemed exhausted, as if the strain of the past ten days had sapped him.
'Nice of you to come, young man – she never told us your proper name, you were always just called Holt by her,' Jane's father said.
'That's what I am, really, what everyone calls me.
Please just call me that… It means a lot to me that I can be with you today.'
He meant it sincerely. He had been two days in London, telling his story. He had spent a long weekend at his parents' home, walking alone on the soaked wilderness of Exmoor. He wanted to be with Jane's mother and father on the day of the funeral. Jane's father asked him if he would like coffee and he said no, he was fine, and he asked him if he wanted to sit, and again he declined, and Mrs Canning knitted and Mr Canning searched for flaws on his finger nails.
'I wanted to be with you today because quite soon, I think Jane and I would have told you that we were going to become engaged to be married…'
She didn't look up. Her husband still explored the tips of his fingers.
'I loved her, and I like to think that she loved me.'
'You've got to put it all behind you,' Jane's mother said.
'When I arrived in Moscow and found her waiting for me at the airport I don't think that I've ever felt such happiness.'
'Jane's gone, Mr Holt, and you're a young man and you've a life ahead of you.'
'Right now I don't see it that way.'
'You will, and the sooner the better. Life's for living.'
Holt saw her bite at her lower lip.
Jane's father's head rose. His mouth was moving as if he were rehearsing a question, unsure of the form of words. The question when it came was little more than a whisper. 'Was she hurt?'
Eight high velocity shots fired at a range of less than ten paces, that's what the post mortem had said. He could feel the lifeless hand, he could see the table-tennis-ball-sized exit wounds.
'She wasn't hurt, there was no pain. What did they tell you, Foreign and Commonwealth?'
'Just that it was a grubby little business. This man was a heroin addict and an army deserter – they told us what was in the newspapers – that he had gone to the hotel to rob it. They said it was just a one in a million chance that he should have chosen that particular moment for his robbery, when our Jane and the ambassador and yourself were coming out of the hotel.
They said the Soviet authorities were very sympathetic.
They told us that the man was shot dead while trying to escape.'
He saw the sallow face of the man with the windcheater and the rifle and the crow's foot scar on his cheek.
Holt said, 'There's probably not much more that anyone can tell you.'
Jane's mother stared at her knitting, her face puckered in concentration. 'We were so proud, both of us, when Jane joined the Service, began to work for her country.
It isn't easy for a girl to get a good position in it, and I think they thought she was outstanding. I'm not saying she told us much about it, a very discreet little soul, but we knew she was working in Intelligence. She probably told you more.'
He remembered the photography over Charkov. He remembered his remark about the camera. He remembered the last words he had heard her speak.'Don't be childish, Holt.'
'She was very much admired by all her colleagues.'
Jane's father pushed himself up from the chair. 'Like Mother said, you've your life ahead of you. It was good of you to come today, but we shan't expect to see you again.'
Holt saw the black car outside. He saw Jane's mother putting her knitting and her needles back into the embroidered bag. He saw Jane's father straighten his tie.
'I loved her, Mr Canning. We were going to be married.'
He saw the trace of impatience.
'Get on with your career, get on with the living of your life.. . Pity it's raining, Mother.'
Holt followed Jane's mother fast down the short path and through the front gate to the car. Jane's father carefully locked the door behind him. He sat with them in the back as they were driven to the crematorium that was away to the west, close to the river. They didn't talk on the journey, and Holt wondered whether they held their peace because of him or because of the driver.
As soon as they had arrived at the crematorium, Holt removed himself from their side. There were cameras there, television and press photographers, and he felt that by hanging back he drew away from them the attention of lenses and the clicking shutters. Holt was good raw meat for the cameras. It had been leaked that they were close, that he had seen the killings. He tried to keep his head up, his chin jutting. He walked past the sprays of flowers and the wreaths. He saw the signature of the Foreign Secretary, and of the head of the Soviet Desk at FCO and there were four bundles of flowers which were simply signed with Christian names.
Inside the porch of the chapel Holt saw a tall, austere man shaking the hands of Jane's mother and
