Central Otago
New Zealand
Chapter 32
It was a love letter. My darling Katya This is the last of the material I promised to send to you. If you look carefully, perhaps you will find something that catches the public’s attention. Keep your eye on Platov. He is the prize. I cannot say any more than that. Life on the property is much the same. I walk, I read, I feel a very long way from home. Mostly I do not mind that feeling. I see Rachel all the time, because she lives just a few hours away, and she has given me two wonderful grandchildren. I don’t even seem to mind Rachel’s husband as much as I once did — perhaps I am mellowing with age. But I miss Catherine and I miss you, my darling. I think of you constantly. I am not a sentimental man. You know this about me. But sometimes I cannot stand to think that I will never hold you again, that you will never sleep in my arms, that we will be forever apart. I have made so many mistakes and now it feels almost too late. I regret so much, not least choosing a career over the possibility of a greater happiness with you. But you have heard all this from me so many times before. What use are regrets? I only ask that you give some thought, one last time, to the possibility of coming here, to New Zealand, even if it is just for a week or two. I promise that you will like it. Good luck with the book, Katty. I have tried to help you and only wish that I could have done more. With all my love, as always Robert x
At the end of their first weekend together, Holly had mentioned to Gaddis that her mother had once had a boyfriend in MI6 who had leaked material to her about the KGB. This was surely him. Wilkinson was the source of the archive. The letter was dated 5 May 2000. But what had he meant by the lines in the first paragraph? ‘Keep your eye on Platov. He is the prize.’
It was almost half-past four in the morning. Gaddis read the letter again, trying to work out the precise nature of the relationship between Wilkinson and Katya Levette. Had they been married? Christ, was he Holly’s father? Only Holly would be able to provide the answers, but he could hardly wake her in the middle of the night. His questions would have to wait until morning.
‘What are you doing?’
She was standing on the far side of the room with scrunched eyes and sleep-twisted hair, a section of it stuck to her face. He was startled by the sound of her voice and put the letter on the table, as if he had been caught reading Holly’s private correspondence. She was wearing his dressing-gown, the cord hanging loose at the side.
‘Did I wake you?’
‘No. I just needed a glass of water. You weren’t there. I wondered what had happened to you.’ Her eyes were squinting against the light. ‘What are you doing up? What time is it?’
Gaddis looked beyond her, at the handbag on the floor, and felt a pang of remorse. ‘About half-four,’ he said. He was wide awake again, the soporific effects of the wine and the paracetamol long since worn off. ‘Who’s Robert Wilkinson?’
‘ What? ’
Her head had fallen to one side. She looked startled.
‘So you know him?’
‘Bob? Of course I know him. He was Mum’s boyfriend. How did his name come up?’
‘I found a letter.’ Gaddis held it up in his hand, inviting her to read it. But she was still half asleep and said: ‘Can’t I see it in the morning?’
He shook his head. ‘No. It’s important. Did he give your mum this stuff?’
He indicated the files on the table. It was surely too much of a coincidence that a letter from Robert Wilkinson should have been hiding all that time in a shoebox in the boot of her car. Why had she brought it over today, of all days? Holly was frowning, her half-open eyes still resisting the bright light of the kitchen.
‘Sam, it’s the middle of the fucking night. You’ve had this stuff for weeks.’
‘Not this.’ He tapped the letter with the print of his index finger. ‘This came today.’
‘Come back to bed,’ she said. ‘Bob was just in love with Mum. Obsessed by her. I’ll tell you about him in the morning.’
‘What do you mean, “obsessed”?’
She walked forward and grabbed his arm. ‘In the morning.’
‘No. Please.’ He had one hand on her waist, holding her. He caught the sudden sharp smell of her sex and thought of Tanya’s betrayal. ‘I need to know. You have to tell me. You have to wake up. Can I make you some tea? Some coffee?’
‘This is ridiculous.’ She allowed him to pull her into a chair. ‘If I tell you, will you promise to let me sleep?’
‘I promise to let you sleep.’
‘Fine.’ She leaned her elbows on the kitchen table, eyes closed, head bowed, as if in the early stages of prayer. ‘Bob Wilkinson,’ she muttered to herself. She was plainly having difficulty remembering the details. ‘Mum’s last boyfriend before Dad. Possibly first love. Can’t remember.’
‘And you’ve met him?’
‘Sure.’
‘What’s he like?’
She looked up and stared at Gaddis in irritation, as if a character sketch was far beyond her remit at half-past four in the morning.
He backed off. ‘OK, fine. Then tell me when they were involved.’
He had stood up as he asked the question and switched on a small digital radio in the corner of the kitchen. He didn’t want the conversation to be overheard. Classical music began to pour into the room. Holly frowned, but she was too tired to question his bizarre behaviour. ‘Oh, I don’t know, Sam. Early seventies, probably.’ She curled a strand of hair behind her ear. ‘Mum would have been about my age. They almost got engaged but Bob was sent abroad by the Foreign Office or something and they had to break up.’
Gaddis didn’t like that. ‘Foreign Office or something.’ It sounded as though she was overcompensating for a lie.
‘He chose his career over your mother?’
‘Well, that’s one way of looking at it.’ She laughed. ‘Mum was actually relieved. She’d met my father, they got married soon after, they had me. And we all lived happily ever after.’ She began to play with the lid on one of the shoeboxes. ‘Only Bob never forgot about her. Got married, got divorced, always stayed in touch with Mum, then helped her a lot with her career after Dad died.’
Gaddis saw that she was frowning.
‘Why are you looking like that?’
Holly shook her head. ‘I think they may have had an affair, a rekindled thing, about ten years ago.’ She turned towards the radio. ‘Why the fuck have you turned on Classic FM?’
‘Give me some credit. It’s Radio 3.’
Holly stood up. She poured herself a glass of water from a bottle in the fridge then turned down the volume on the radio. Gaddis wanted to object but understood the absurdity of his behaviour; he could not afford to alienate her with a paranoid rant about audio surveillance. Instead, he watched as she drank the water — the entire glass, like a cure for a hangover — before returning to her chair.
‘Mum wrote about political issues, geo-politics, espionage.’ Holly dropped into a stage whisper, putting a finger to her lips. She was beginning to enjoy herself. ‘Bob was a huge spy. Iron Curtain. Cold War. Is that why you’re worried about being bugged?’ She looked as though she was about to burst out laughing. ‘Are you using Mum’s stuff to write a book about MI6?’
He gestured at her to keep talking.
‘Far as I know, Bob would feed Mum titbits of information all the time. Spy gossip, rumours from Washington and Westminster.’ She tapped the table with her knuckles. ‘He probably gave her fifty per cent of this stuff. It was his way of expressing his affection. Either that, or a way of assuaging his guilt for running off to Moscow. He said he
