Omega

No doubt Adrian had been eager to see me. I’d always envied his energy, and it was entirely typical that he should focus on practical matters relating to our work. But I was battling to shut out other intrusions, intermittent but persistent. A vehicle door slammed, someone spat, there were snatches of male laughter, the smell of warm engine oil—all from afar. Tanya lingered in the background, monitoring everything, looking wonderful. My protector or my warden?

Eventually Adrian and Rachel got up and departed. I heard them talking in the hallway, voices muted, confidential. The murmuring grew in volume, became a clearer conversation, though of a different sort.

TWENTY-ONE

A small dining able was set for dinner. Field Marshal Maredudd shepherded someone into the room.

Owain’s brother, Rhys.

I could feel Owain stiffen at the sight of him.

Rhys looked fleshier and considerably more prosperous than my own brother. He was dressed in a navy cashmere overcoat with a paisley silk scarf rucked in at his neck. He eyed Owain rather guardedly as he tugged off his leather gloves.

“Well,” Sir Gruffydd said, “aren’t you going to say hello to one another?”

Owain stepped forward and absurdly offered his hand.

Rhys looked at it. Awkwardly he shook, dropping a glove.

“Well, well,” Owain said with a distinct absence of feeling. “This is a surprise.”

“Not an unpleasant one, I hope,” his brother replied tentatively.

His grip was flaccid, the flesh of his hands soft, a thick ring on one finger. He smelt of expensive aftershave.

Owain released his hand and turned away while his brother retrieved his glove. Giselle Vigoroux was also present, standing with her back to an open fire.

Sir Gruffydd introduced Rhys to her. Or rather, re-introduced her: they had obviously met before. Owain had gone rigid with tension. He hadn’t seen his brother in over a year.

Rhys removed his overcoat and handed it to one of the housemaids. He wore tailored herringbone trousers and a burgundy roll-neck sweater that looked as if it was cashmere. Owain noted this with a feeling of angry disgust.

His feelings towards his brother were starkly different from mine towards Rees. Though the atmosphere was tense, I decided not to try to escape. I would lie low and just observe until I had a better understanding of the family dynamics at work here.

The dining table was just big enough to accommodate the four of them. They were in a private house in a Parisian suburb, a walled garden visible in the twilight beyond the window. A maid brought out a savoury tart scattered with rosemary leaves. She cut it into quarters, set it on their plates. A dark-complexioned woman, possibly Greek. Giselle opened a dusty bottle of red wine and filled their glasses.

“To families,” the field marshal said, raising his. “In the end, they’re all we have.”

The wine was good; the best Owain had tasted in many years. Though he’d forsworn alcohol for some years, he let it linger in his mouth until Rhys made a point of identifying it as a rare French claret.

Even Owain knew that the bottle had to be at least twenty years o The French wine industry had been ruined by biowar and climate shift. When Rhys began boasting that he had recently drunk some excellent reds from the Moroccan and Algerian provinces, Owain felt nothing but contempt.

“Rhys has been in Geneva,” the field marshal informed Owain in an obvious attempt to draw him into the conversation.

“That a fact?” said Owain. “Sanatorium?”

No response to this apart from a reluctant, wary smile.

“Your brother was asking after you, weren’t you, Owain? So I thought we’d dig you out of hiding.”

Nothing could have been further from the truth. Rhys was a boffin, a backroom boy who had done stints in Scandinavia and continental Europe but had been chiefly based at ASPIC, the Alliance Signals Priority Intelligence Centre in Dungeness. Five years ago the site had been obliterated when an old nuclear missile buried in the marshes was accidentally set off during redevelopment work. Luckily for Rhys he had been on convalescent leave at the time. There were hints that he had suffered some sort of nervous collapse. To Owain, who was serving in the east, this was final confirmation of his brother’s lack of backbone. Ever since there had been minimal communication and they avoided seeing one another.

“So,” Owain said, determined to draw him out, “they’ve sent you into the thick of it, have they?”

Rhys looked puzzled. “Sorry?”

“Geneva. Big SIGINT centre, isn’t there? Right in the heart of things.”

“Just for a month,” Rhys replied self-consciously. “I’m based in East Anglia.”

Orford Ness. Owain knew as much already from Sir Gruffydd. It was where the ASPIC operations had been relocated following the loss of the Dungeness facility. A dedicated railway line had meant that Rhys was able to visit London more frequently. Since his own relocation, Owain had felt a certain sense of relish in continuing to ignore his brother’s existence.