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By Root 1513 0

it for dinner, finishing off a bottle of red wine that I opened last night. I have to prepare now for Katharine; it needs to be just right. There are two crucial things to find out. Why did Fortner go to the United States at such short notice, and what happened down in Baku? It should be easy getting an answer to the first question: Katharine will most probably volunteer all the information we need. Whether she reveals that Fortner has gone to America will be a first signal: if she lies about that, we may have a problem. But finding out about Baku will be more difficult: she would never bring up 5F371 on an open land line, though it may be possible to ask a more general question about Andromeda which could lead to her revealing something about the present situation.

I also need to recapture something of my customary mood. The Alec they knew before the attack on Cohen was chirpy and biddable, untroubled by matters of conscience. It will be essential not to sound nervous or distant: nothing can seem out of the ordinary. This has to be just another phone call, just the two of us touching base after a break of six or seven days. There’s no hidden agenda. We’ll just be two old friends talking on the phone.

I wash up my plate, put it on the rack to dry, light a cigarette and go out into the hall to make the call.

Their number rings out, long enough for me to suspect that Katharine is not in. She usually picks up promptly and sure enough the answering machine kicks in after several seconds. This is frustrating: my mood was exactly right to handle the conversation. Not too tired, not too tense. Oddly calm, in fact.

The beep sounds.

‘Katharine, hi, it’s Alec. Just calling to -‘

There is a loud scraping crash on the line, as if the phone has been dropped on a hard wooden floor. Then a thud and a tap as Katharine picks up the receiver, her voice coming through.

‘Yes?’

‘You’re there.’

‘I’m here.’

‘Screening your calls?’

‘No. Just got in.’

‘From work?’

‘From work.’

She sounds immediately detached. I feel a rushing heat across my forehead and extinguish the cigarette.

‘Everything OK?’ I ask, trying to sound as easygoing as possible.

‘Oh, everything’s just fine,’ she says, a little archly.

She waits for me to respond and, when I do not, says:

‘So, what are you calling about?’

In any normal conversation between us there would be friendly enquiries after my mood, about Saul or Mum, my work at Abnex. Perhaps even a joke or a story. But nothing tonight, merely this odd reticence.

‘Just to see how you were. How things are going.’

I wish I could see her face.

‘I’m fine, thank you.’

‘And Fort?’

A fractional pause.

‘Oh, he’s fine, too.’

This is said with no feeling.

‘Katharine, are you OK?’

‘Sure,’ she says, lifting herself. ‘Why?’

‘You sound odd. Are you tired?’

‘That must be it.’

I should end the conversation here. She knows something, she must do. But is that simply paranoia? How could the Americans have any idea of the truth?

‘You should get an early night,’ I tell her.

‘I have to go out.’

‘For dinner?’

With a low hum she confirms this.

‘Who with?’

‘Just some friends.’

Where is the detail, the shading-in? She is being stubbornly, deliberately obtuse.

‘Anyone I know?’ I ask.

‘No.’

A longer pause now, so much so that I think she may be about to end the conversation. But finally she asks a question.

‘So what’ve you been up to these last few days?’

‘Not much,’ I reply.

‘Oh.’

Then I recall lying to Saul about Mum before dinner, a conversation which the Americans may have tapped and alerted her to.

‘There was one slight scare, but otherwise everything’s been fine.’

‘A scare? What kind of scare?’

For the first time she sounds interested by something I have said.

‘Mum thought she might have a skin cancer. But it turned out to be benign.’

‘That’s a relief,’ she says. ‘And how’s Kate?’

Nothing prepares me for the shock of this, a carefully weighted jab exactly timed for maximum impact.

I manage to say:

‘What are you talking about?’ although my voice cracks like an adolescent on the word ‘talking’.