Omega

They probably had several going off in all directions, just to confuse things. Maybe the cars were populated with doubles of his uncle and other senior commanders. The Russians had a word for it: Maskirovka. Deception.

“Who’s looking after your husband?” he persisted.

“He’s being taken care of.”

She switched off the device and put it in her pocket. Resolutely refused to give him a glance.

“Any news about Marisa?”

This made her face him. But she wasn’t going to say anything. It couldn’t have been possible to get more contempt into a single look.

FORTY-ONE

“How did he sound?” I asked, meaning Rees.

“The usual. Frustrated we’re not where he expects us to be. You’re sure you didn’t arrange to meet him there?”

“Honest to God. I’m not exactly up for hobnobbing with my father.”

We were on the A3, Tanya scrupulously observing the fifty-mile-an-hour speed limit; there were cameras at regular intervals. She knew the route well, had friends in Guildford.

“How did he get there?” I asked.

“He didn’t say. Drove, I imagine.”

Rees had an old Astra that he seldom used, and when he did so he drove like an octogenarian. I could imagine him pootling at thirty miles an hour down this stretch, impatient Surrey speed merchants piling up behind him.

“I wonder if he’ll wait,” Tanya remarked.

“Probably not. I just hope he doesn’t get the old man agitated.”

“We should have phoned and warned them.”

“Too late for that now.”

“We could still ring.” Tanya indicated her mobile.

I shook my head. Part of me didn’t want to know what he was up to.

“Do you want me to do it?”

“No,” I said firmly. “Let’s just get there.”

Seconds later there was a flash of blinding light. At first I thought we’d had an accident before I realised I was somewhere else entirely. Walking through the glass doors of a hotel into the suffocating heat. I was in shorts, T-shirt and sandals, carrying two drinks out to the pool.

Tanya sat at one of the tables in the shade of a palm, wearing a black vest top and a patterned sarong tied at her waist. The paleness of her skin contrasted with my tan. I’d been here a fortnight, combining location work with a holiday. Cairo, the pyramids visible from the window of my hotel room. Only yesterday I’d come back from a visit to Tobruk. Tanya had arrived that very morning.

I set the drinks down and took a seat opposite her. Hers was an orange and soda, mine a vodka and tonic.

“So what did he say?” I heard myself asking, and I knew I meant Geoff. This was last summer, when Tanya had finally told him about our clandestine meetings.

Abruptly I was back in the Yaris. Tanya hadn’t noticed anything. It was she who’d brought matters to a head after telling me she couldn’t pretend any more. She had told Geoff she was moving out, intended to live alone; but he’d persuaded her to stay,n if they were no longer to share a bed.

He had guessed that she had been seeing me periodically. He’d even accepted her assurances that we weren’t having an affair. It had all been reasonably amicable given the circumstances. He’d always suspected that she and I were still drawn to one another. Lyneth had too. They’d talked about it occasionally on the telephone.

I went cold on hearing this. Tanya hadn’t expected any equivalent action from me, particularly since I had children. But I knew that Lyneth would find out and be far less accommodating than Geoff. So I phoned her from the hotel that evening. There was no answer. When I finally got through next day Lyneth informed me that she’d already made arrangements to fly herself and the girls to Australia. Nothing I could say would dissuade her. They were going to stay for a year. Her sister would help her place the girls in local schools. She had told them I would be away filming.

Tanya and I flew back from Egypt together. We had stayed in separate rooms at the hotel, been more scrupulous than ever in our friendship. But by the time I arrived home Lyneth and the girls were already gone.

Air traffic had thickened overhead, helicopters and fat Behemoth transporter planes orbiting. The sky was coated with a wash of high altitude cloud, the sun just a silvery smear. The weather forecast had predicted no precipitation for the next few days, with light winds and good visibility.

Owain had never visited the Mildenhall-Lakenheath complex. It was extensive, with a network of tunnels and overpasses that converged on roundabouts before forking again, bypassing angular clusters of buildings with squat towers and a panoply of aerial instrumentation. Mobile security units patrolled the hard shoulders of approach roads, armoured cars and riot wagons were parked outside main entrances, missile batteries and little phalanxes of Citadel tanks guarded runaway perimeters.

All roadblocks were opened up long before we reached them. A small formation of Buzzard scout helicopters was flying ahead as though guiding us in.