The Trinity Six Part 5

'It means exactly what you think it means. It means that it was only a matter of time before somebody started scratching around. You chaps couldn't keep a secret like that for ever.'

'We've done a pretty good job of keeping it secret for the past fifty years.'

When Neame did not respond, Brennan decided to take a risk. 'So, are you helping him scratch around? Are you throwing light on Eddie's past for some reason? I'm sorry, but it's my duty to ask.' He was surprised that he had landed the accusation so directly.

'Don't be b.l.o.o.d.y ridiculous. Every part of my body aches. I need help getting into the bath. If I walk down the corridor, a nurse has to hold my hand. I can barely remember my own name.' The words sounded heartfelt, but when it came to Thomas Neame, Brennan didn't know what to believe. 'You know I've always taken a vow of silence about Eddie. If anybody came knocking on my door, I'd know what to do. And if this Gaddis chap, by some miracle, manages to a.s.sociate me with him, believe me, I have ways and means of putting him off the scent.'

That, at least, was true. 'Well, that's good to hear.'

'Was that all, Douglas?'

'That was all.'

'Good. Then I will thank you to leave me in peace.'

Brennan was, both by nature and by the definition of his chosen trade, a resourceful man, clear-sighted and unflappable. He would not allow the abruptness of Neame's mood to unsettle him. Three floors below there was an open-plan office awash with thumb-twiddling spooks: fast-stream wunderkinds wunderkinds eagerly awaiting their first postings overseas, as well as older hands whose idealism had long ago been broken by one too many stints in the G.o.dforsaken outposts of a vanished empire. As he replaced the receiver, he realized that he would need an attractive woman. There was no way around this, no denying the implications of gender, no means of avoiding the ancient human truth that bachelor academics are as vulnerable to attractive women as they are to a pay rise. Brennan already knew that Gaddis was divorced. He also knew from a cursory glance at his Internet and telephone traffic that he had recently been seeing a woman named Holly Levette, who was almost half his age. Given a choice between spending an evening with a charming, intelligent man, and a charming, intelligent woman, Dr Samuel Gaddis was almost certainly going to opt for the latter. eagerly awaiting their first postings overseas, as well as older hands whose idealism had long ago been broken by one too many stints in the G.o.dforsaken outposts of a vanished empire. As he replaced the receiver, he realized that he would need an attractive woman. There was no way around this, no denying the implications of gender, no means of avoiding the ancient human truth that bachelor academics are as vulnerable to attractive women as they are to a pay rise. Brennan already knew that Gaddis was divorced. He also knew from a cursory glance at his Internet and telephone traffic that he had recently been seeing a woman named Holly Levette, who was almost half his age. Given a choice between spending an evening with a charming, intelligent man, and a charming, intelligent woman, Dr Samuel Gaddis was almost certainly going to opt for the latter.

One name sprang to mind immediately. Having spent two years as a graduate student at LSE prior to joining the Service, Tanya Acocella could speak the language of academia. She was fluent in Russian and had proved a vital, imaginative member of SIS Station in Tehran, playing a crucial role in the recent defection of a senior figure in the Iranian military. Since returning to London, Tanya had become engaged to her long-term boyfriend, much to the frustration of several fast-stream alpha males, and was scheduled to take a four-month sabbatical after her wedding in the summer. Matching her wits with an intellectual of Gaddis's calibre would be just the sort of challenge she would relish.

He put a call down to her desk. Three minutes later, Acocella was in the mirrored lift to the fifth floor. It was a measure of her self-confidence that she felt no need to check her appearance in the panelled gla.s.s.

'Tanya, do come in. Have a seat.'

They exchanged pleasantries for no more than a few seconds; an officer of Acocella's pedigree did not need to be put at her ease.

'I want you to put CHESAPEAKE to one side for a few weeks.' CHESAPEAKE was an operation against a Russian diplomat in Was.h.i.+ngton whom SIS were sizing up for recruitment. Tanya was running the London end in conjunction with a junior colleague. 'I've found something else to exercise your talents.'

She nodded. 'Of course.'

Brennan stood up and paced in the direction of a bookshelf. He was aware that staff members who came into his office were often on their best behaviour. It was one of the drawbacks of his position: an excess of polite rigidity. Still, he stopped short of offering her a drink. A little hierarchical posturing never hurt anybody.

'Long ago,' he began, 'I learned that spying isn't about strengths in human nature ideological conviction, duty, loyalty to one's country. Spying is about weaknesses the l.u.s.t for money, for status, for s.e.x. This is the guilty secret of our secret trade.'

Tanya felt that she was expected to agree with this thesis, so she said: 'Right' and stared at Brennan's tie. He had a reputation in the Office for pompous longueurs.

'I'd like you to find out everything you can about a man named Samuel Gaddis. He's a doctor of Russian History at UCL, Department of Slavonic and East European Studies. Get close to him, befriend him, earn his trust. Gaddis has been digging around in a Cold War secret that the Office is rather keen to suppress.'

'What sort of secret?'

There were other questions she wanted to ask. How close? Befriend in what way? Is Doctor Gaddis married? But she knew the nature of such operations. She would not be asked, nor would she be expected to do anything that would compromise her relations.h.i.+p with her fiance.

'Long ago, the Service took into its employment a gentleman by the name of Edward Crane, who subsequently operated in various different guises.' Brennan, now standing beside the bookshelf, drew a finger along the spine of a volume by Sir Winston Churchill. He did not attempt to keep an edge of the sensational from what he was about to say. 'Crane was a graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge in the 1930s.' He looked into Tanya's eyes and waited for the penny to drop. 'He was known to Messrs Blunt and Philby, Messrs Burgess and Maclean. He was an a.s.sociate of John Cairncross. Do you follow?'

Tanya felt a lurch of shock which quickly warped into a feeling of profound satisfaction. How many people knew what she had just been told? The ident.i.ty of the sixth man was the most carefully guarded secret of the Cold War.

'Crane's operational codename was ATTILA. He's managed to remain anonymous, largely because we've managed to keep people off his scent and largely because there was no record of ATTILA's activities in Mitrokhin.' Tanya had a sense, even as Brennan was talking to her, that he was holding back a vital piece of information. 'The finger was pointed at Victor Rothschild, the finger was pointed at Tom Driberg. Christ, at one point they even suspected Roger b.l.o.o.d.y Hollis. But n.o.body has ever identified Crane. Until now.' Brennan pivoted away towards a broad, sunless window in the north corner of the office. 'Doctor Gaddis is on the trail of a gentleman by the name of Thomas Neame, a ninety-one-year-old currently resident at a nursing home near Winchester. Neame, for reasons that I am not yet in a position to divulge, knows more or less all there is to know about Crane's work for the Russians. I've put some basic information in this file.' He pa.s.sed a slim manila envelope to Acocella, which she secured in her lap. 'It goes without saying that this is a sealed operation. You will report solely and directly to me. I have given you the name of an officer at GCHQ Cheltenham who will a.s.sist you with any communications information you may require.' Both of them took a beat to absorb the euphemism. 'I don't have the manpower to spare on surveillance, so you'll be operating alone unless there are exceptional circ.u.mstances. Any questions?'

Tanya was experienced enough to send that one back over the net. It was better to say: 'I think perhaps I should read the file first, sir,' so that Brennan could be a.s.sured of her professionalism.

'Good.' He seemed pleased. 'Have a look at it, come up with a plan of attack.'

She stood up, the file under her arm. 'There was just one thing, sir.'

Brennan was planning to open the door for her, but stopped mid-carpet. 'Yes?'

'What did you mean when you referred to status, to s.e.x, to the l.u.s.t for money? Are you implying that these are particular weaknesses in the Gaddis character?'

Brennan reached for the door handle. 'Well, who knows?' he said. 'That will be for you to find out.'

Chapter 12.

Some things are so obvious that they can embarra.s.s you with their simplicity.

Gaddis had been working at home over the weekend preparing a lecture for the new term at UCL, fixing a leaking pipe in his leaking bathroom when he needed to boot up an old laptop in his office in order to find an email sent to him by a colleague several years earlier. As he was scrolling through the cluttered inbox, he saw a cl.u.s.ter of emails sent to him by Charlotte from a hotmail address that Paul had known nothing about: [email protected] com [email protected] com. Charlotte had set up the account during a difficult period in her marriage in order to communicate privately with three of her closest friends, Gaddis among them. It was a eureka moment, a solution that had been staring him in the face. More than a week had pa.s.sed since Gaddis had spent the fruitless day in Hampstead searching through Charlotte's office. It had never occurred to him that she might have used the hotmail to communicate with Thomas Neame.

He needed a pa.s.sword, of course, but that was easy. Gaddis simply had to type Charlotte's mother's maiden name into a security check, give her date of birth, and the details were forwarded instantly to her Outlook inbox. Gaddis could access this via webmail and within five minutes was staring at the messages.

It was like a sequence of lights illuminating a darkened highway. Before his eyes was a list of every main player in the St Mary's cover-up. There were emails from Benedict Meisner, messages with the subject heading 'Lucy Forman', as well as frequent exchanges with Calvin Somers. Gaddis had surely stumbled upon the key which would unlock the door of Charlotte's research. It was all here, everything he would need to find Neame.

He began with the Meisner correspondence, but quickly realized that it was a legal and factual dead end. Now working as a homeopathic doctor in Berlin, Meisner denied ever having met Calvin Somers or playing any role in faking the death of Edward Crane.

As I have repeatedly pointed out to you, any suggestion that I was involved in gross professional misconduct of the sort you describe is as absurd as it is defamatory. Should you continue to pursue this matter, I would have no hesitation in instructing my lawyers to instigate proceedings against you, and against any newspaper or publication which chooses to publish these bizarre allegations.

Gaddis turned to the message with the subject heading 'Lucy Forman'. The email was from Forman's sister. It transpired that Forman had died in a car accident in December 2001. In a second email, the sister confirmed that Forman had indeed been working in London in February 1992, the winter of Crane's supposed death.

As Gaddis was finis.h.i.+ng Charlotte's correspondence with Somers most of which related to arrangements for various meetings in West Hyde and Chorleywood he noticed a new message in the Hotmail inbox, addressed to [email protected] mail.com from 'Tom Gandalf' with the subject heading 'Wednesday'. It could have been spam, but he clicked it.

[email protected] has sent you a secure email using Hushmail. To read it please visit the following web page . . .

A weblink was listed below. For a moment, Gaddis was concerned that it would download a virus into his computer. But the coincidence of the Christian name 'Tom', added to the clandestine nature of the message, convinced him that the email had originated with Neame. He clicked the link and was taken to the website for an email encryption service.

Your message has been protected using a question and answer which was created by the sender. You must correctly answer this question, word for word, to retrieve your message. You will be limited to five incorrect responses.Question: Who was in the photograph that I showed you at our last meeting?

Gaddis typed 'Crane', then 'Edward Crane' into the response box, but his guesses were rejected. What had Neame shown Charlotte? A photograph of Sir John Brennan? A picture of Maclean or Philby? Christ, for all he knew, it could have been a shot of the Loch Ness Monster swimming to Fort William and clambering up Ben Nevis before breakfast. Without an answer to the question, he was no closer to Neame, no closer to Crane. All of his initial enthusiasm over the hotmail account had evaporated inside an hour: Forman was dead, Somers had spilled his guts and Meisner would doubtless slam the door in his face if he hopped on a plane to Berlin.

It was square one again. Gaddis Redux. Charlotte had been carrying around the entire story in her head. He looked at his desk, where he had scribbled down the cost of a cheap flight to Sheremetyevo on the back of a bank statement. His only hope now was a miracle in Moscow.

Chapter 13.

Miracles come in many different guises. This one came late on Sunday night, while Holly Levette was cooking supper at her flat in t.i.te Street. Gaddis was lying back on the sofa, reading the papers and drinking a gla.s.s of red wine. Holly's laptop was open on a low table in front of him and he called out to her in the kitchen.

'Mind if I check my emails?'

'Be my guest.'

Gla.s.s of wine in hand, Gaddis logged into his UCL account and clicked through his messages. There was one from Natasha in Spain, another from a colleague in Was.h.i.+ngton, and a round robin from a distant relative in Virginia trying to persuade friends and family to buy the paperback of his latest book. Gaddis checked the Spam folder 'Be a Master of the Universe with a Huge Broadsword in your Pants' and within the ma.s.s of junk offering him tertiary education courses and v.i.a.g.r.a, he spotted a message that he could scarcely believe: [email protected] has sent you a secure email using Hushmail. To read it please visit the following web page The same weblink that he had seen on Charlotte's Hotmail account was listed below. Gaddis looked up at the kitchen door, expecting Holly to walk into the room with two steaming bowls of spaghetti. He clicked the link and was again taken to the Hushmail website: Your message has been protected using a question and answer which was created by the sender. You must correctly answer this question, word for word, to retrieve your message. You will be limited to five incorrect responses.Question: Who was the doctor at St Mary's Hospital, Paddington, in 1992?

Gaddis quickly typed in the answer.

Benedict Meisner It was wrong. He had only four responses left.

He tried 'Ben Meisner' and swore when the answer was again rejected. Third time lucky, gulping wine, Gaddis typed in 'Dr Benedict Meisner', whispering 'Come on, come on' under his breath as he hit 'Return'.

Like the click of a lock on a safe, the door swinging open, he was taken to a private message: Dear Dr GaddisI knew Eddie Crane very well. Indeed, he was my closest friend for more than fifty years. For reasons that will become obvious to you, this is not the sort of information that I tend to make public.If you would like to contact me, I suggest that you present yourself at the branch of Waterstone's bookshop in Winchester High Street at 11 a.m. on Monday. If this is inconvenient for you, do not not reply to this email directly. Instead, please send a reply to this email directly. Instead, please send a blank blank email with the subject heading 'Book' to the following address: [email protected] If you are able to make the journey to Winchester, please carry a copy of the email with the subject heading 'Book' to the following address: If you are able to make the journey to Winchester, please carry a copy of the International Herald Tribune International Herald Tribune with you and, having entered the bookshop, make your way upstairs. This is so that I might more easily recognize you. Eddie taught me a trick or two about tradecraft. with you and, having entered the bookshop, make your way upstairs. This is so that I might more easily recognize you. Eddie taught me a trick or two about tradecraft.Sincerely,Thomas Neame Gaddis was flabbergasted. How did Neame know that he was investigating Crane's death? Holly called out 'Food's ready!' and her voice made him lurch half out of his seat in surprise. He quickly scanned the text a second time. He was aware that he should probably remove evidence of the correspondence from her computer, yet Gaddis had no idea how to clear the history quickly from an Internet browser.

He heard the strike of a match in the kitchen. Holly was lighting candles. Unsure of what to do, he simply signed out of his email account and shut off the computer. Holly put her head round the door just as he was closing the lid.

'I was planning to eat the spaghetti tonight tonight,' she said.

'Sure.' Gaddis stood up. He had a head full of questions and an empty gla.s.s in his hand. 'What do you know about Winchester?'

Chapter 14.

Winchester was just as Holly had described: a well-scrubbed, moneyed cathedral city an hour south of London with a clogged-up one-way system and memorials, seemingly at every corner, of Alfred the Great.

Gaddis arrived an hour early. He had not slept well and left Holly's flat at eight o'clock for fear of being stuck in traffic or, worse, of his superannuated Volkswagen Golf breaking down on the M3. He bought a copy of the Herald Tribune Herald Tribune on the Fulham Road, knowing that it would be difficult to find one at any newsagent in Winchester, and drove, too fast, with a take-away cappuccino wedged between his legs and on the Fulham Road, knowing that it would be difficult to find one at any newsagent in Winchester, and drove, too fast, with a take-away cappuccino wedged between his legs and Blonde on Blonde Blonde on Blonde on the CD player. In Winchester he ate a breakfast of scrambled eggs at a faux-French cafe in the centre of town, having established that Waterstone's was not yet open. He had the latest issue of on the CD player. In Winchester he ate a breakfast of scrambled eggs at a faux-French cafe in the centre of town, having established that Waterstone's was not yet open. He had the latest issue of Private Eye Private Eye and a photocopied and a photocopied Prospect Prospect article about Moscow to read, but found that he could concentrate on neither. The article about Moscow to read, but found that he could concentrate on neither. The Herald Tribune Herald Tribune lay untouched in a leather satchel at his feet. His waitress, a bottle-blonde Hungarian, was pretty and bored, stopping to chat to him in fractured English about a course she was taking in design and technology. Gaddis was grateful for the distraction. lay untouched in a leather satchel at his feet. His waitress, a bottle-blonde Hungarian, was pretty and bored, stopping to chat to him in fractured English about a course she was taking in design and technology. Gaddis was grateful for the distraction.

At half-past ten, the morning moving with a tectonic slowness, he made his way to the entrance of the bookshop, drifting about on the ground floor with no discernible purpose other than to look up at every customer who walked through the entrance, hoping to see a ninety-one-year-old man. By force of habit, he searched for traces of his own work and found a single hardback copy of Tsars Tsars, nestled alphabetically in the History section. Ordinarily, Gaddis would have introduced himself to a member of staff and offered to sign it, but it seemed important to maintain a degree of anonymity.

At five to eleven, he walked upstairs. To his surprise, the first floor was not a large, open-plan area, comparable in scale to the ground floor, but instead a small, brightly lit room, no larger than the open-plan kitchen in his house, enclosed on all sides by shelves of travel guides and self-help manuals. There was one other customer present, a dreadlocked, tie-dyed girl of perhaps eighteen or nineteen who was working her way through a copy of South-East Asia on a Shoestring South-East Asia on a Shoestring. Cross-legged on the floor, she looked up at Gaddis when he appeared at the top of the stairs, her mouth forming an acknowledging smile. Gaddis nodded back and took his copy of the Herald Tribune Herald Tribune out of the satchel, preparing to make the signal. He tucked it under his arm, making sure that the banner was visible; the act of doing this felt both awkward and embarra.s.sing and he drew a book at random from the shelves in front of him in an effort to make his behaviour appear less self-conscious. out of the satchel, preparing to make the signal. He tucked it under his arm, making sure that the banner was visible; the act of doing this felt both awkward and embarra.s.sing and he drew a book at random from the shelves in front of him in an effort to make his behaviour appear less self-conscious.

It was a copy of Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. Gaddis felt the dreadlocked girl staring at him as he tried to pin the newspaper under his left elbow while at the same time flicking backwards through the pages. A minute pa.s.sed. Two. His arm began to ache and his face was flushed with an involuntary embarra.s.sment. What would Neame make of him for reading such a book? He put it back on the shelf and transferred the newspaper to his right hand, feeling as though he was standing in the middle of some vast stage, overlooked by a crowd of thousands. Would Neame approach him in the presence of the girl? Would he make himself known with a nod of the head and expect Gaddis to follow? It was like performing in a play that he had never rehea.r.s.ed.

At precisely eleven o'clock, a second customer, a shaven-headed man in his mid-twenties, appeared at the top of the stairs. What excitement Gaddis had felt at the sound of his approach quickly dissipated. He was wearing torn denim jeans, white Adidas trainers and a blue Chelsea football s.h.i.+rt with the name 'LAMPARD' printed across the back. Hardly likely to be an a.s.sociate of Neame's. Without making eye contact, the man moved past Gaddis and headed straight for a stack of cut-price paperbacks at the far end of the room. Gaddis felt that he should still be seen to be browsing and picked up a second book from the Self-Help section, again pinning the Herald Tribune Herald Tribune under his elbow. This one was called under his elbow. This one was called Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life Who Moved My Cheese?: An Amazing Way to Deal with Change in Your Work and in Your Life and Gaddis quickly replaced it with another day-glo paperback, this one ent.i.tled and Gaddis quickly replaced it with another day-glo paperback, this one ent.i.tled The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need The Last Self-Help Book You'll Ever Need, which at least brought a smile to his face.

What had happened to Neame? He looked back at the staircase but could see only promotional posters, a swaying light and a beige carpet worn by years of use. Five long minutes later, the dreadlocked girl finally stood up from the floor, put her guide to Asia back on the shelf, and went downstairs. Lampard was now his only companion.

Things happened quickly. As soon as the woman had gone, Lampard turned and walked directly towards Gaddis. Gaddis prepared to move to one side to allow the man to pa.s.s, but saw, to his consternation, that he was taking a piece of paper from his back pocket and attempting to pa.s.s it to him.

'You dropped this, mate,' he muttered, in a thick c.o.c.kney accent. Gaddis took the paper in a state of bewildered euphoria. Before he had a chance to respond, Lampard was halfway down the stairs, leaving only a cloud of BO behind him and a memory of his pale, undernourished face.

Gaddis unfolded the piece of paper. There was a short message, handwritten in a spidery scrawl: GO TO THE CATHEDRAL. TURN RIGHT OUT OF WATERSTONES, LEFT INTO SOUTHGATE STREET. AT THE EXCHANGE PUB TURN LEFT INTO ST CLEMENT STREET. LEFT AGAIN AT BLINKERS. TURN RIGHT INTO THE HIGH STREET. GO AS FAR AS THE MEMORIAL AND TURN RIGHT AGAIN.AT THE PASTIE SHOP, DRINK AN ESPRESSO AT CAFe MONDE. DO NOT SIT IN THE WINDOW OR AT ANY OF THE OUTSIDE TABLES. WHEN YOU LEAVE, TAKE THE AVENUE TO THE CATHEDRAL. SIT ON THE RIGHT-HAND SIDE OF THE NAVE, HALFWAY UP.

Gaddis read the instructions a second time. He had seen enough spy movies to realize that Neame wanted to ensure that he was not followed from Waterstone's to the cathedral. Lampard was obviously a hired hand, a facilitator. An old man of ninety-one would not be capable of carrying out counter-surveillance of any kind; nor would he wish to expose himself in public without first being able to ascertain that Gaddis was bona fide bona fide. All of this seemed logical and straightforward, yet he felt a strange sense of unease, akin to a fear of the law, as he made his way to the exit, turning right into the pedestrianized high street. On Southgate Street, he checked the message a second time, unfolding it in a manner that he felt was certain to draw attention. He tried to make a mental note of its contents, but was forced to check them again at Blinkers, which turned out to be a small hairdressing boutique on a narrow road where sparrows hopped on the pavement and a young mother was pus.h.i.+ng a pram. As he emerged from St Clement Street, Gaddis saw the entrance to Waterstone's a few metres away and realized, with a dumb embarra.s.sment, that Lampard's directions had taken him in a simple clockwise loop.

He continued to walk downhill, as instructed, wondering how many eyes were watching him. He saw a narrow stone monument, about four metres high, on the right-hand side of the street. There was a shop selling pasties beside it and he concluded that this was the memorial mentioned in the note. Outside the pastie shop a drifting smell of mince and curry powder Gaddis found himself in a low, narrow alley which opened into a smaller, still pedestrianized street. The gla.s.s-fronted Cafe Monde was clearly visible a few metres to his left. He had no need for coffee he'd drunk four cups in as many hours but ordered an espresso all the same and took a seat at the back of the cafe, wondering how long he should take to drink it. He felt restless and pushed around, but was prepared to honour the tradecraft of Lampard's note because it would surely guarantee a meeting with Neame.

After a minute of waiting, he drank the espresso, paid for it, and went outside. He had glimpsed the cathedral on his way into the cafe and now walked through the gates of a small park bisected by a tree-lined avenue, making his way towards the southern facade. Clumps of teenagers French exchange students, anoraked Americans were milling around outside, buffeted by an unruly wind. Gaddis was drawn into a short queue and paid five pounds to enter the cathedral. Whispers echoed off the vast vaulted ceiling as he walked between several rows of wooden chairs and took a seat on the right-hand side of the nave. He put his satchel on the ground, set his phone to mute, and looked around for Neame. There was an old, free-standing radiator next to his seat and he tapped his fingers against the scuffed iron as he waited. It was almost half-past eleven.

He had been seated for no more than a minute when he heard a noise behind him, the sound of a walking stick clicking briskly on stone. Gaddis turned to see an elderly man in a tweed suit moving towards him along the nave, his eyes catching a source of light as he looked up to greet him. The man was so close to Charlotte's description of Thomas Neame as to remove all doubt about his ident.i.ty. Gaddis began to stand, as a gesture of respect, but the old man made a brisk, sweeping movement with the base of the walking stick which had the effect of pus.h.i.+ng him back into his seat.

Neame shuffled along the pew and settled beside Gaddis. He did so without apparent physical discomfort but was slightly breathless as he sat down. He did not offer to shake Gaddis's hand, nor did he look him in the eye. Instead, he stared directly ahead, as if preparing to pray.

'You're not one of these Marxist academics, are you?'

Gaddis caught the ghost of a smile in Neame's stately profile.

'Born and bred,' he replied.

'What a pity.' The old man moved a hand in front of his face, distracted by something in his field of vision. His back was stooped, the skin on his face and neck dark and loose, but he looked remarkably robust for a man of ninety-one. 'Sorry about all the scurrying around,' he said. The voice was imperially upper-cla.s.s. 'As you can probably understand, I need to be very careful who I'm seen to be talking to.'

'Of course, Mr Neame.'

'Call me Tom.'

Neame laid the walking stick across the three seats adjacent to his own. Gaddis looked at his hands. He was moving them constantly, as if squeezing a small exercise ball in the palm to strengthen the wrists. The near-transparent skin across his knuckles was as taut as parchment.

'I don't think I was followed here,' Gaddis said. 'Your colleague's instructions were very clear.'

Neame frowned. 'My what what?' He had not yet turned to face him.

'Your friend from the bookshop. Your colleague, Lampard. The one wearing a Chelsea s.h.i.+rt.'

Neame generated a small but infinitely condescending silence before responding.

'I see,' he said. Now he turned, slowly, like a statue with a cricked neck, and Gaddis saw concern within the folds and lines of the old man's face. It was as if he was worried that he had overestimated Gaddis's intelligence. 'My friend's name is Peter,' he said.

'Is he a relative of yours? A grandson?'

Gaddis had no idea why he had asked the question; he wasn't particularly interested in the answer.

'He is not.' Somebody, somewhere was dragging a steel trolley across a stone floor in the cathedral, the sound of the wheels squealing in the echo chamber of the nave. 'You followed his instructions as requested.'

Gaddis couldn't work out if Neame wanted an answer. He decided to change the subject.

'As you can imagine, I have a lot of questions I'd like to ask.'

'And I you,' Neame replied. He turned to face the distant altar. There was already a tension between them, a fractiousness which Gaddis had not antic.i.p.ated. He felt the gap in their respective ages as a chasm which he would struggle to cross, almost as if he was a small boy again in the presence of his grandfather. Neame was still exercising his hands, the counter to an apparent arthritis. 'How did you come to hear about Eddie?' he asked.

'From Charlotte. She was one of my closest friends.'