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Prologue
Today. April.
The Cruelest Month.
There were three new headstones rising out of the springy turf to the west of the tiny chapel, which sat, ancient and faithful, in the grounds of the glass house. Each marker had been made of granite, which had seemed fitting to those who had commissioned them. Granite—the hardest of all things: that which endured. The words on the stones had been carved with care and much thought had gone into them.
For these three, they had to be just right after all.
Inside the little white building, the funeral service was just coming to an end. It had been sombre, strange, almost otherworldly. Clearly, some of those attending had still not accepted what was happening.
They had all gathered, of course. The family. They were an eclectic bunch when all was said and done. Like the man who had selected them and moulded them into this tightly knit group: his will, his design.
Babushka was taking it the worst. Outwardly anyway. Her sobs and wails had dominated the service, her exclamations of woe, although lost in her own language, nevertheless left her emotions painfully clear. After all, as she had exclaimed more than once, she had known all three of them best. Although this had been challenged by the others, she held steadfast to her belief. One had saved her granddaughter. One, she contended, had been the reason she had given up her life in Russia to come here. Why she’d stayed. The third? Could she not just weep for the loss of something that had been unwanted and unloved yet precious in her heart? So, all three, now gone.
Phoebe Mailer, one of the most recent recruits to this odd little family, made a study in contrasts to Babushka. She sat pale and silent as if stunned into uncharacteristic uncertainty by recent events. Perhaps entirely drained now of hopes she always vehemently denied, but had once held.
Most of the others present at the short ritual also remained silent in grief, or perhaps confusion, it was hard to tell. Complete denial at a funeral service was not wholly unexpected, after all.
Martin led the sacraments, as befitted his role.Godhad known them all equally, he claimed, although, again, this pronouncement only added to the disorientation of some of those present. Despite the young man’s odd certainty, he had appeared to find a suitable eulogy very difficult to write. Who would not? How could anyone sum up lives such as these in mere words?
He glanced frequently for support, possibly inspiration, to his sister, Sarah, as she sat with a dark-haired girl on her lap. The child, given her age perhaps, seemed to have no awareness at all of the gravitas of this occasion. She sang quietly to herself and, occasionally, grabbing the lead of the large young dog which lay morosely alone at her feet, attempted a bid for freedom to the unwelcoming April showers outside.
One or two of the adults sitting quietly in the small chapel looked as if they wished they could join her in a breakout, but otherwise kept their thoughts entirely veiled.
They all knew their presence here for this ceremony was obligatory. They were as punctuation in the books of lives which had now closed—to which they were bidding farewell.These three liveshad giventheirsmeaning.
Once outside again, the rain clouds menacing but parting for a brief burst of intense sun which made the ground steam, the group began to meander slowly over to the sun-dappled spot which had been chosen with such care for the final resting places, the lone dog, in contrast, charging ahead of them, now full of youth and the joys of spring. Molly wanted to be put down, and she knelt on the damp grass by the smallest grave which had been sited to catch the first rays of morning—still tight in with the other two, never separate, but where its occupant would always have warm earth, and know that he was loved. She had flowers in her hand, which she dug with care into this soft soil, apparently unaware that flowers cut could not take root and regrow.
No one wanted to point this out to her.
Three stones.
Three graves.
Three lives finally surrendered to the warm embrace of the Dartmoor peat.
***
Chapter 1
Fourteen Years Ago
Aleksey Primakov was disturbed from his idle lunchtime reverie by the red light blinking on his phone. Line 1—No. 10. He really ought to answer it, but he’d been debating whether to obey his summons to Barton Combe to attend one of Philipa’s obligatory dinner parties, or to proceed with his own plans for a very different kind of entertainment at a new club he’d recently begun frequenting. A call from HQ Dhimmi-1 was excessively annoying, therefore, and might, he knew, derail both of these activities.
He swung his chair around a little to admire the view of the river, bright midday sun glinting off the windows of the tall, glass buildings opposite. London was bathed in a deceptive mellow glow. It didn’t match his mood as the blinking summons continued.
He picked up the handset but didn’t speak, forcing his caller to ask, slightly anxiously, if he was actually there. Pecking order nicely established, he listened to a long outpouring of terribly well spoken, vacuous inanity about national security, until there was a pause. He mentally reviewed the monologue: threat, necessity, untenable, Guantanamo, Hereford tonight, report, COBRA meeting. He had the distinct impression he’d just been ordered, ever so politely and if it wasn’t terribly inconvenient, to be in Wales by six p.m.…
He swung his feet off his desk, curling his lip. He was tempted to point out that it was Friday and that he had better things to do than travel to the arsehole of the fucking civilised world to research the UK’s torture protocols. Even the prospect awaiting him in Devon was better than that, and he’d often likened chatting to the heir to the throne about sentient vegetables very akin to torture. ButWalesfor fuck’s sake. He didn’t even know the word forWalesin Russian…
* * *
It was particularly galling, therefore, two hours later to be watching the signs for the southwest recede as the car sped due west. He was of a mind to tell the driver to take the next exit, spend the weekend pleasantly ensconced and waited on hand and foot at Barton, and then just make up the report for the COBRA committee. After all, it wasn’t as if he didn’t know a great deal about the esoteric art of torture already. But, he reflected wryly,Sir Nikolas Mikkelsenwouldn’t…
Not for the first time, as they crossed the long span of the bridge across the River Severn, Aleksey wondered if it wasn’t time to gracefully bow out of the public arena, take the very successful cover he’d created on the back of Philipa’s connections, and retire somewhere where he could spend his money and indulge his more peculiar tastes. After all, he had no reason whatsoever to continue with the pretence of being a pallid civil servant. He was thirty-seven. How many Friday nights would he have left to enjoy? Exactly—too few to spend one sitting in the back of an armoured Daimler being whisked through a country where the road signs were translated into a language that had ceased to be used before roads were fucking invented. How the hell had they come up with a term for kilometres in Welsh? It defied belief.
* * *
