10. London, Friday 31 January 2014

Tate Britain, Millbank, Westminster, 12:30

The weather had taken a turn for the worse again that morning with strong winds and heavy rain sweeping across the city from the west. In fact it was so foul that Ilya had sent a car to pick Jean up from the university and take her to the Tate Britain, where they were intending on going through the Late Turner exhibition as well as the entrants in annual Turner Prize. He himself caught a cab, arriving not long after she did and both of them ending up closer to wet than damp, a source of amusement as they greeted each other in the flesh for the first time since Tuesday. As usual they had both been flat out at work all week so the rest of today was meant to be an opportunity to catch up for. a few hours and enjoy themselves, or so Jean intended. Ilya wasn't so sure about that.

The weather worked in their favour in one way at least: the gallery was unusually quiet. After they had shaken off the worst of the rain and dropped their coats at the cloakroom it was straight to the Member's Room (to Jean's total lack of surprise by this stage Ilya was a member) for lunch before making their way out to the exhibits. If the Member's Room had been quiet then the galleries were almost sepulchral with only a few other attendees and the security guards who would appear and disappear in – mostly – ghostly silence. It was almost like a private viewing and they enjoyed it immensely. By the time they got through what they had come to see and were wandering through the rest of the displays they found themselves discussing plans to visit some of the other great galleries around the world: the Uffizi in Florence, the Guggenheim in Bilbao, the Tretyakov in Moscow and even one that he was keen on but that she had never heard of, MONA in far-away Tasmania. The conversation was almost more enjoyable than the exhibits, not least because it was about a shared future, but due to that very subject Ilya knew the time had come to say what he needed to and put their future in her hands. It probably wasn't the best of locations but it would have to do.

Taking her hand and kissing it he said gently,

"Jean, before we go on with this conversation there is something I need to tell you."

Oblivious and ridiculously happy she grinned at him,

"Well, judging on recent performances you're not gay, so it can't be that! If you're finally about to confess to being ex-KGB then don't worry because I worked that out a long time ago. However, if you're about to admit to having a woman back home in Moscow I'll be less than impressed!" She knew he didn't so was only teasing but the deadly serious expression in his eyes caused her flippancy to fade away.

"No, it is none of those. However, it is about my late wife."

What came next was delivered quietly and dispassionately as they continued to slowly wander the galleries and parts of it made her hair stand on end. Starting a fair way back in time to give her some setting the story that emerged was something akin to a modern horror movie of a woman who was a complete chimaera, a manipulative psychopath who, over a time span of decades, would literally stop at nothing, up to and including murder, to achieve her end, all the while seducing everyone around her with the apparent warmth and charm that completely masked her real self. Worst of all, and the thing Ilya had clearly never been able to come to terms with, was that she had used their son as part of her games. Jean was still trying to grasp the concept of his wife having honey-trapped the man who was now a close friend when Ilya dropped the news that part of the trap had been convincing Harry that Sasha was his son, not Ilya's, thereby using the child as a pawn even before he was born. The woman was monstrous and should have been certified for the protection of herself and everyone else but of course never had been, despite being the source of so much grief and, at the end, had attempted to start an international incident by turning to terrorism and almost succeeding in causing the British Government to bring down an innocent Russian airliner.

He had been resolute in detailing the story and she had absorbed it with the respect it was due. It was an ancient Greek tragedy, something soaked in enough blood to rival even the great playwright Aeschylus, and she knew, long before he arrived at the end of the tale, what that end would be. He was quite blunt: Elena had not committed suicide in shame at her actions. Ilya, driven by an implacable need for justice for his son, had killed her. The cold, pragmatic little voice that lived at the back of her mind snorted mildly. No. He put her down. That's what you do with mad dogs, isn't it? And Jean was fine with that. If even half of what he had said was true he had done the world a good deed.

It had taken everything he had for Ilya to remain calm on the surface while he was telling her. He had let go of her hand early, not wanting her to feel even remotely restrained if she wanted to walk away and not look back but she hadn't, was still here, listening to him. He had glanced at her occasionally as he spoke, watching her shoulders slowly stiffen and, he imagined, her soul harden towards him – them – at the same time. She must have been having quite a battle just to stay and hear him out, he thought despondently, but at least she had not walked, or not yet.

He was right about the internal battle but completely wrong about the subject of it. As she listened to his story Jean found herself reacting with horror and revulsion, as would anyone, but key was that those feelings were not directed at Ilya. They were aimed fairly and squarely at Elena. Even when he made the final admission that should have damned him in her eyes it didn't; instead, that cold, hard, reality-based objectivity that always lurked in her mind deemed that the woman had earned everything she got, in fact had probably got out of it easy, and her battle was with that, a side of her own psyche which had always made her uncomfortable. But, by God, she understood what had driven him. Thirty-odd years ago her own father and brothers had, finally and irrevocably, dealt with Erin's father, only just leaving him alive and she had greeted the news with the same icy objectivity she was feeling now. That man had never realised what a close escape he had had because she had made a quiet resolution, while gazing at her bruised and battered baby through a blackened eye, to find a way to kill him for what he had done. The man with her now would, she knew, have felt exactly the same and, unlike her at the time, had the wherewithal to act upon it.

Ilya had considered every likely response to this confession over the past couple of months and none of them were good but at least it was done now and all over. He glanced up at Jean to see her finally turning back towards him and steeled himself for rejection but whatever it was that he was expecting it wasn't what he got. There was an odd expression on her face as she met his eyes and gave a strange, remote smile.

"Well, if that's true it sounds like you did everyone a favour and she got what she deserved."

It didn't register for a moment. He had been strung as taut as a violin expecting a combination of revulsion and dismissal that getting any other reaction just did not make sense. The confusion was clear on his face as he looked at her and silence fell between them for a very long moment; unable to think of anything else he clutched at her words and finally responded,

"It is true. Please check with Erin and Dimitri. They were there also, had been involved since we arrived in London."

Jean's preternatural calm was rent asunder with that comment. Erin had been involved all the way through, knew it all, always had done- The spinning in her mind abruptly stopped as a very large penny clunked onto her metaphorical floor.

"Well, that explains a lot." Specifically, it explained why her daughter had been so against her having anything to do with this man, particularly if she had witnessed the final act. Reaching out almost blindly she took his hand and led them a few steps to one of the leather-covered banquettes in the room. "I think we had better sit down."

He couldn't agree more, following her obediently to the seat. She retained his hand once they were seated and her eyes were an unfamiliar shade of slate blue as she gazed at him.

"You know, Erin has always been against us being together but she would never say why. Now I understand."

Nodding once he responded bluntly,

"I have been trying to find a way to tell you for months but it was almost impossible. I had never thought to find someone else but once we got to know each other that changed and you had to be told – better coming from me than from Erin or Dimitri. It was not fair to put any of you in that position and we personally could not continue without you knowing."

"No, I understand that. And I have to say that I believe it just took some guts to make that confession to me." Silence descended again but there was still no sign of hostility in it, something he was having a very hard time understanding, as he had so convinced himself to get the exact opposite.

"You did not seem surprised," he ventured carefully, completely unsure of what she was really feeling.

"No, I wasn't, not by the end. There was only one way that story was really going to end, if there is anything in the concept of universal justice." She released his hand and straightened up a little; expecting her to stand up and walk away he was relieved when instead she put her arm around him and kissed him gently on the cheek. "Oh, my love, what a horror of a day that was. I can't even begin to comprehend what you must have gone through, having all of that revealed out of the blue."

His thin, bitter smile in response perfectly presaged what came next.

"That was not the end of the day. It got worse."

Her disbelief was palpable even before she said anything.

"How could it possibly have got worse?"

"It was also the day that Sasha had his breakdown." For the first time in some minutes they looked directly at each other: The slate shade was beginning to dissipate from her eyes, reverting to blueness, while she realised the toll the conversation was having on him, judging by how very, very tired he looked. "As if his mother's revelations were not enough he also witnessed what I did. That I will regret for the rest of my life." She nodded and availed herself of his hands again as he continued. "He snapped and went after Harry – incorrectly – but got someone else instead. By accident but she still died—" A young university student walked into the room and he stopped talking but, somehow sensing the atmosphere, she quickly scuttled out again, leaving them in peace once more. His comment had set off a sudden understanding in Jean and before he could go on she said quietly,

"Ruth. Her name was Ruth, wasn't it?" Erin had come home in a state that night, intensely distressed about the pointless death of her colleague and friend, and had then spent a large amount of the following couple of days at Harry's, on a non-stop rotating roster with some of her colleagues, including Dimitri, keeping an eye on their boss who was suffering a form of breakdown himself.

"Yes," Ilya ground out, hating that event almost more than anything else even though in the long run it had brought him something he had never expected, an unusual but firm and constant friendship with his former foe. "She was also the woman Harry loved. It was vengeance for her, and my revenge on those with whom my former wife was working, that brought Harry and I together as friends." He ran a hand over his face for a moment before clasping hers again tightly. "To end the story, Sasha took a bullet to the leg to stop him but it was too late for all of us. Too many people had needlessly died and we had all had out lives ripped apart, one way or another. If I had only recognised Elena for what she was years before perhaps I could have stopped it, or at least saved my son."

Her heart ached for the pain behind his simple words but she wasn't about to let him get away with that last part. It was understandable, in the context of survivor guilt, but under the circumstances it was never going to have been true. Gently, she challenged the statement and from there he opened up more, relieved to finally talk about it all. Without knowing any clinical details the conversation still led to a discussion of Elena's psychiatric state for although Jean had not dealt with many adult psychopaths in her practice she had come across the occasional juvenile who exhibited all the symptoms and had also seen enough of their impacts in the workplace to be able to fully comprehend the havoc they could wreak.

It turned out that the woman had been wreaking it, subliminally, almost from the start of their married life. He had put her mercurial moods early in the piece down to the crushing disappointment of her career-ending injury but looking back he realised she had just been manoeuvring him into the space where she wanted him and it had continued from there. There had been a question about whether she would have been any different had she not lost her career; Jean was at least able to reassure him that the answer was no, people with that condition tended to be born that way and that as a result her behaviour would have manifested itself in other ways, at least for a while, and most likely she would have targeted any professional rival to deadly effect.

The conversation morphed to Sasha and brought more revelations about his mother. She hadn't been keen to have children to start with but had relented when Ilya had returned from his imprisonment in Afghanistan; their first attempt hadn't made it past the fourteenth week, not long after they had relocated to Berlin on Ilya's first appointment with the KGB instead of the GRU, which had only made her more disinclined than ever to try again. Sasha had been a surprise development several months later; at first she had been open about not wanting to continue with the pregnancy until, out of the blue, she had changed her mind. He had accepted the decision with relief and happiness and hadn't questioned what had caused the turn-around but he knew better now. He was being matter-of-fact but there was a sadness in his dark eyes that broke her heart. She suspected he would have liked more than one child but clearly that option was never on the cards for the woman and then to realise, thirty years later, that she had only kept the one they had for her political games had to have been devastating as nothing else could be, for both him and the boy. No wonder it had ended the way it had for both of them.

When she said as much the small, bitter smile reappeared.

"Perhaps, although I will forever regret that he heard and saw what he did. It was too late to prevent him causing one death in her name but it is probable that the second one – Ruth – would not have happened if he had not witnessed what he did." Jean wasn't sure she had heard that one correctly and questioned him gently so he explained, equally quietly and feeling like he was digging himself and Sasha ever deeper into a grave as far as she was concerned as he did so, how his son had murdered his best friend in the mistaken belief that he was protecting his mother from being uncovered as a British spy and was now serving ten years in a high security psychiatric facility as a result.

Mind spinning again as she processed that all she felt was a huge wave of compassion for the man sitting next to her and the youngster she had never met. The more she heard the more she was certain that her gut instinct to stay with him, that he was no danger to her, was correct. Given the same revelations in the same circumstances she doubted whether anyone would have acted any differently.

His gaze had fallen to the floor again, giving him the appearance of studying it intensely although she knew he was doing no such thing. Sighing, she loosed her hands from his so she could put an arm around him and draw him into her side again and kiss him on the temple.

"My poor, poor love…"

His response, when it came, was very small.

"Am I? Is it possible that you can forgive me for what I have done and still find some room in your heart for us? That we can continue to love each other?"

Somehow her heart both broke and leapt at the same time. Leapt because it was the first time they were openly admitting that there something more than friendship between them; broke because of the desperate sadness of the circumstances and the desolation it had engendered in his eyes and voice. Unconsciously touching the Faberge swan that had not been off her throat since she had received it she replied gently,

"Of course. We've been talking about this for half an hour; if I was going to walk away I would have done it twenty five minutes ago but I find I cannot so easily turn off what my heart feels." Ilya had been wound up as tight as a drum until her words and in his relief could do nothing but lean into her embrace and let some of it go in a soundless sigh, the only other option being to crumple into an undignified heap. The full reaction would come later, on his own back in his hotel suite and no doubt a splitting headache would go with it but for the moment all he could do was bring his iron will to bear to dampen down his confused emotions and bring his attention back to the here and now. "As for forgiveness, you've done nothing to me that needs forgiveness and it is not my place to judge you on anything else. You were there. I wasn't. It really is that simple." Placing her hand on either side of his face to make him look at her she added, "I think you need to forgive yourself, though, although whether it's for putting her out of her misery before she had a chance to kill anyone else or for some self-imposed belief that you failed to protect your son, or both, I'm not quite sure."

Her words were true and he nodded, once, in acknowledgment but didn't have a chance to say anything before she kissed him gently on the lips.

"Tell me, have you ever grieved for what you lost? The woman you thought you were married to who turned out to not exist. The family and life that you also thought you had that also turned out to be a phantom? If you haven't, you need to, just as you need to forgive yourself and I can and will help you through that. That's what love is about."

He was entirely speechless from both surprise and relief that she apparently did understand and even so more incredibly wanted to remain with him. Her gaze was steady, warm and accepting and it was almost more than he could stand. It was certainly more than he deserved, he was well aware of that, but he was going to accept her offer before she changed her mind. But first, to answer her question.

"Yes. Eventually: it took some time…"

The truth was he hadn't really coped with it, not at first and not for a long time, but he had grieved. To start with he had kept himself insanely busy, starting with the final rites for Elena: quietly cremated as soon as they had returned to Russian soil, no-one had attended, then or when he had arranged to have her ashes interred in the grave of her parents, commemorated with a single line consisting of her maiden name and dates. Then there was Sasha: physically damaged, psychologically broken, desperately in need of help, his bodily injuries were easy to fix, those of the mind were not. Extracting vengeance in tandem with Harry and his team had filled in most of the remaining time with running himself into oblivion every day taking the rest. There had been precious little sleep in those first few weeks and he had run marathons almost every day for week upon week, once he had had to return to looking after his business, and even now his sleeping patterns remained shattered, with no sign of a return to normality.

Although he had appeared outwardly unmoved, internally he had been raging against Elena, against RussiaFirst, against his own self-perceived shortcomings, against his loss, against the world. Harry, being in much the same condition, was about the only person who realized but the subject was far too tender for either to consider discussing then, or even now. He continued to literally run himself into the ground, both as a way to avoid thinking too deeply and as a method of inducing what little sleep he did get. Gradually he settled into an uneasy equanimity, externally still untouched. It took almost six months for the grief to bring him undone. When it did, it was quietly and without fanfare, at what was his family's annual get-together at his eldest brother's small lakeside farm outside Krasnodar. Attending on his own for the first time in decades, three days into his stay the wife of his elder brother had found him seated by an ancient tree on the edge of the lake, knees clutched to his chest and tears streaming silently down his cheeks. In the end he stayed not a week but a month with both brothers and their wives remaining with him, until the first intimations of winter saw them packing up the farm and returning to their respective city homes and lives.

Jean could see the turmoil in the shimmering brown-gold depths of his eyes as he answered and, just for a moment, wondered if she had misjudged by being so direct and that he was going to walk – she had seen it happen enough in her practice when people were confronted – but to her relief he suddenly buried his face in her neck and clung to her tightly for a long moment. Another couple of escapees from the weather walked into the room; older than the previous student they took in the seated pair with little interest before turning their attention to the paintings on the wall.

"Ilya," she murmured into his ear, "I think we should go and have a cup of tea, or at least go for a walk around the galleries again, clear our heads a little."

They walked first, ending up peering outside through the front doors to where the rain still resembled a horizontal sheet of water in the howling wind down before going to the café for the tea. Once he had recovered his voice they continued to talk and she heard more details of the nightmare reality that had been revealed after the curtain covering it had been ripped from its mountings on that dismal day in 2011. One of the biggest horrors had been his realisation that her activities in London that year were just the last of a long line of similar behaviours over the twenty years since the fall of the Soviet Union although admittedly confined to the extents of the new Russia. He had received information initially from the CIA, of all places, by way of Harry and had followed it up with his usual tenacity, looking for every scrap of information he could find to bring down the political party for which she had been working, and it hadn't taken long to uncover not only that but his former wife's part in it. Although there was never any blood directly on her own elegant hands it became obvious fairly quickly that not only had she been in a number of cities when many medium and high profile assassinations had taken place; it seemed she had been the one on the ground co-ordinating the activity, something that had started as part of her job as the highest-ranking asset the disreputable organ of the KGB she had been part of, even before he had himself transferred to the KGB from the GRU, had ever had. That she had done so, for so long and all completely unknown to himself, had been another discovery that had left him demoralised.

There were further mentions of deaths, by design or as collateral damage, and attempted deaths but by this stage the café was beginning to pack up so they both decided independently it was time to have a break. Ilya called for the car and while they hovered just inside the front door asked quietly,

"Can I drop you home or would you prefer to go on your own? I can call a taxi."

"Don't be ridiculous. Of course I want you to drop me home!"

The relief he felt was slightly disproportionate to the response but proved to him just how tense he had been about the whole thing and how glad he was that it was now all over. As a result the journey back to Stamford Brook was companionable although quiet, Jean tucked into his side as she usually was on these trips now and the pair of them watching the rain-drenched streets sweep by while they considered what had been said. When the roads became more familiar Jean asked the question that had been niggling her for a while, a response to something tugging at her memory.

"Who shot Sasha?"

The answer was plain and simple.

"Dimitri. My son had to be stopped and that was the only way. It was a good shot," he ruminated quietly, having heard her slowly draw a breathe, "because it achieved its intent but has left no permanent damage. I told him as much at Harry's wedding, although he seemed surprised that I would think such a thing."

"So would most people, my love. You really are a very unusual man."

He kissed the top of her head.

"Old fashioned, perhaps but that is how I was raised and it included acknowledging the truth, no matter what the circumstances."

"As I said, very unusual, for the present day anyway." The car eased to a stop in front of her house and she reluctantly straightened up. "Well I don't think we can say this has been the most enjoyable afternoon we've ever spent but I do think it was both necessary and very valuable. I knew there was something holding you back but would have never guessed what it was. So now I thank you for being so honest and admire you the more for it: most people would not have admitted such a thing."

"There was no option if we were – are – to go on. You needed to know the truth."

"Yes. And yes, we are to go on." She kissed him again, long and languid, and this time he allowed himself to respond without the self-imposed restraint that had previously been present. "Mmm, we are most definitely going on if that was any indication!" Her blue eyes were dancing again as she gazed at him, noting a corresponding golden shimmer in his own. "Now, tell me you are not going back to work at this hour of the day."

"No, I have a meeting with my local security advisor after which we would normally go out for a drink but perhaps not in this weather so I think it may just be a quiet night at home tonight."

"Not going out for a run?" She was well aware by now of his morning routine and occasionally ribbed him about it so he just gave one of his rare, shining smiles and replied,

"No, I have already been out in the rain this morning while you were no doubt still asleep! I think my body guards would not appreciate being obliged to go out into the weather again and I am not so cruel as to make them so I may go to the gym instead."

"If I didn't have a stack of major assignments to mark I'd almost join you, or suggest we do dinner instead, but never mind. I'm about to get my exercise bolting for the front door and no, you are not going to be a gentleman and get yourself drenched again by coming with me this time. You don't need to turn up at your next appointment looking like a drowned rat."

They kissed again, farewell for the evening this time, but just as she moved to open the door he rested a hand on her arm to detain her for a moment longer.

"Jean, promise me you will spend the next few hours thinking through what we have discussed. And then if you wish to change your decision I will accept it without demur."

The sadness was back in his eyes but she understood what was driving him – a need for reassurance combined with difficulty believing her acceptance – so bit back the slightly flippant remark she was going to make and instead lifted his hand and kissed it.

"I will. I'm not changing my mind but I will do as you wish." She wasn't entirely sanguine about everything that had been said, that was true, but again it wasn't Ilya's part in the story that concerned her. Coming to terms with the fact that people like Elena existed, weren't just something dreamed up by story-tellers to terrorise their readers or case studies for the latest version of the DSM, was going to challenge her for a while, she knew that, despite having professional experience with the juvenile form of the problem. Even more challenging would be wrapping her mind around the woman's treatment of her son: Jean had come across some truly perverted souls in the early days of her clinical practice and even still with some of the young offenders she was occasionally called to consult upon but they were as nothing compared to the woman. "I'll call you later. Now you really should get going, dear heart, before you're late for your appointment."

She kissed him again and then was gone, dashing through the pouring rain and through her front door with a final wave. Feeling lighter in heart and mind than he had for months Ilya relaxed against the seat as the car moved off, taking him back towards the city, and allowed himself to wonder about the future again.

The Grid, Millbank, Westminster. 16:55

Erin was ploughing her way through her own pile of paperwork and quietly wondering if her single-minded focus over the past few years of climbing to the top of the corporate tree was actually worth it – after the last week of quiet office work because all the usual and unusual subjects were hiding out from the weather she was almost champing at the bit to get back out in the field for a break – when the pods whooshed and Harry returned from his enforced visit down stairs. One look at his gloomy face told her that he hadn't enjoyed the experience of checking out where their new digs were taking shape: the news delivered from on high just after the dawn of the new year that they were being moved en-masse to a new, 'more secure', floor had been greeted with dismay and something akin to uproar by everyone, including the Section Head who, much though he had always loathed the red wall and fishbowl effect of his office, also did not want to leave the area that contained so many memories of so many people who were no longer around. The design presented to them had appalled every one: mutterings of 'sardine can', 'stock-market floor', 'down-market NASA mission control' and 'cold, gloomy looking sweat-shop' had rippled around the room at the time and no-one had seen any reason to change their mind since. His expression suggested things still hadn't improved.

She was about the only one left on the floor of this, the inner sanctum, at this hour of the night. Waleed Yassine was long gone, having an unwell daughter at home; Calum had only just left, not having said much but Erin suspected to spend too long alone in the pub before continuing, also alone, back to his tiny flat, where he didn't even have a goldfish to keep him company (he had worried her of late: having never returned to his former self after what happened on the Estuary shores he had started to go downhill again after splitting with his on-off girlfriend a few months ago and was now a mere shadow of the man she had first met almost a decade before); Dimitri was chasing down an asset somewhere out on the eastern fringe of the city with Will and the junior staff had departed just before Harry returned. So far only one of the night shift had arrived – June Keaton, young, keen as mustard, she had transferred into Section D from Erin's old stamping ground, Section A, three days before – and there were still a couple of techies beavering away in their dimly-lit suite but that was it.

Harry took it all in with a single glance, including his Section Chief looking wan and tired at her desk and decided to take the chance offered by the quiet to have a conversation he thought was probably getting over-due. Stopping by her desk he asked quietly,

"Drink?"

She glanced up and sighed gratefully.

"Yes, please."

He had the whiskey in the glasses by the time she joined him and she downed half of it in one go as she flopped onto one of the leather chairs.

"Hard day?"

"No, not really. Just tedious, stuck inside. How are the renovations downstairs going?"

He scowled briefly and took some of his own drink.

"Grim. We're going to feel like we're in a nuclear bunker somewhere up in the Arctic. I thought I hated this red walled aquarium but their bright idea of interior design is going to make this place look palatial." She gave a brief smile in return but didn't say anything so after another moment he added, "How are things going at home, Erin?"

That got her attention.

"Fine. Why?"

"Are you sure about that? You've been distracted lately, to the extent that I'm getting concerned. Is there anything you want to talk about?"

She just stared at him, grey-blue eyes wide but veiled and wondering what was coming next before the penny dropped. Of course he knew, he's a friend of Gavrik. But how much did he know? Maybe he knows more than I do… To her horror, she felt her eyes fill momentarily at the warmth in his tone.

"I think you already know the answer to that."

He nodded slowly.

"Your mother and Ilya."

"Yes."

He let her settle her composure before going on.

"Anything in particular? Or just a general disquiet?"

She had been thinking about that, on and off, for weeks now and had drawn a few conclusions, one or two of which she didn't particularly like, but she was willing to admit to them in the hope that articulating them to Harry might help to dispel them. She had tried with Dimitri but he was no help, his pragmatism and somewhat phlegmatic approach to anything resembling a drama having helped him survive years in the SBS but in civilian life meaning he had something of a live and let live attitude with a distinct focus on the present. It was an attitude she secretly admired but it also drove her mad sometimes and the subject of the Minister was one of the latter. Taking a slower sip of the whiskey she focussed on the swirling liquid as she replied,

"Both. The specific should be easy enough to work out: my mother is getting ever more deeply involved with a man who murdered his wife. In front of me and Dimitri."

That was no surprise although if ever there were extenuating circumstances Ilya had them.

"That is true but you also admitted at the time and since that he was perfectly justified in his actions. At least it was as quick and as clean as he could manage under the circumstances and that was far better than she deserved."

"I know, I know." She drained the glass and he immediately leaned forward to splash more of the amber fluid in. "Tell me I'm irrational but I really can't get rid of the image or the worry that it might happen again."

"Very well. You are irrational. But also not. It would be extremely unusual for anyone in your position to think otherwise than you do, given the events." He topped up his own drink and relaxed back into his seat. "However, looked at rationally, do you really think your mother is ever likely to push him as hard as Elena did?"

She finally looked at him again.

"No, of course not. She was a one-off and not in a good way, we all know that, you better than most."

They contemplated that particular truth in silence for a little while as the alcohol worked its warming magic. Watching her, Harry could see the battle going on in her mind but he had no doubt which way it would go: when it came down to it, she was getting more and more pragmatic with every passing year and she also would not deny the obvious truth in what he had said.

"So all you have to do, every time the image arises, is to remember everything that led to it. If it's any consolation I've got to know a lot about Ilya over the past three decades or so and he has never otherwise raised a hand to any woman or child. That is not his way."

"Well, that's something I suppose."

"It's quite a lot, as a matter of fact!" She gave a wry smile of agreement and began to feel a little better about the situation. He wasn't saying much that she didn't already know but it was still comforting, coming from someone who had known the other man for as long as he had. "If that's the 'particular' dealt with, what about the general?"

Her grimace suggested this may be an area that she was less keen to discuss but while they were on the subject she figured she might as well, even though it was likely to be an uncomfortable conversation.

"There are a number of those. Where would you like to start?"

"Wherever you would, or wherever is easier."

The expression on her fine-boned face changed to something rather sheepish.

"They're all silly."

"I doubt it, if they're genuinely concerning you."

"Then I'll start with the easy, less personal one. Is this whole thing a conflict of interest of some sort? Me, in my position living with Dimitri, in his position, and my mother who is personally involved with an FSB Lieutenant-General who is starting to spend time with us in the family home?"

Harry's mind immediately returned to the very similar conversation he'd had with Ilya whilst walking along the Embankment in the middle of the night not so very long ago. Maybe they were more on the same page than either of them presumably thought…

"No. It's retired Lieutenant-General Gavrik – Ilya hasn't held a position with the FSB since 2010 – and in any case it's your mother he's spending time with so unless you're giving her detailed briefings on our operations then there's nothing to worry about. If or when he and Jean get very serious then I don't think he would hesitate to sign the Act if that would ease your mind – he's offered to do so often enough to me. So that is one off the list. What else?"

This wasn't going to be easy. Ever since her brief, early morning conversation with Dimitri about the motivations behind her illogical reaction to her mother's new relationship she hadn't been able to leave it alone for any length of time, instead finding herself worrying away at it from all angles. However, the results were always the same and she still didn't entirely like them so admitting it to Harry was going to take some effort.

When she didn't immediately respond the man took a punt to prompt her.

"Do you dislike him?"

She'd thought about that one, too.

"I honestly don't know. No, I don't think so but then I hardly know him. Before you say it I know that's something I need to remedy. My mother loves him, my daughter adores him, Dimitri gets on with him like a house on fire, as do you and Hope so I must be missing something."

"You don't have to like him. You just need to get on with him enough to keep everyone, including yourself, happy." He had picked up a subtle change of tone in her voice at one point so honed in on it. "You're uneasy about him and Rosie, aren't you."

How the Hell did he do it? Even after almost three years of working with him and experiencing his freakish, almost psychic ability to pick what people were thinking or accurately pin their motivations she still wasn't used to it. Sighing, she was the one who reached for the whiskey to top up their glasses this time.

"Yes, but not for any obvious reason. Mum has explained what it's about and I believe her but… I'm slightly ashamed to admit this but I'm a little jealous of the attention Rosie pays him whenever she gets the chance. When he's around none of the rest of us get a look-in with her and that includes me."

"I don't know that there's any reason for shame. You're having to share her more and more the older she gets – that's normal but not comfortable. However, it's highly likely that the more time she spends with Ilya the more the novelty will wear off for her and the more you will get used to it. It might even come in handy in a few years time, to have someone else to palm her off on when she starts getting difficult!"

"Maybe. And perhaps it will get easier if I can get to actually know him."

"I think so. Now for the real issue. I would hazard a guess and say that it's not Ilya at all, or not completely. It's Jean finding what I suspect is her first serious relationship since your father died."

God, there he goes again. No wonder the entirety of the Home Office, as well as Legoland and probably the KGB in its day, were quietly terrified of him. She flushed pink, momentarily feeling like a school-girl caught out in a fib by the headmaster. That was the revelation she had liked least: as a grown woman, a mother herself, she felt she should have been able to be happy that Jean was moving on, had found someone who was making her happy and intellectually she was but there was that nagging, recalcitrant, inner thirteen year old who was constantly on the edge of throwing a tantrum because…because of what? She didn't like the man? [No. Refer comments above about not actually knowing him.] She hadn't been asked, let alone given her approval? [That's more like it, stupid though it was.] Because she had some strange teenage idea that it was more 'romantic' that her mother should spend the rest of her life alone and mourning her step-father rather than find someone else? [Cringe-worthy but she had, indeed, at that age held such a patently foolish belief.] Or, worst of all, that she was deeply uncomfortable with the prospect of her mother entering an intimate relationship with anyone other than Gerald Watts? [Ahhh…..hmm.] Harry, echoing Dee, had hit the nail on the head and she really didn't want to admit it to herself, let alone anyone else. Quietly, she finally responded in a very small voice.

"Yes. That may well be it. Now I'm going to call myself irrational so that you don't have to."

Harry gave that rare, warm, sunny smile which tended to make everyone either forgive him anything or just simply fall completely under his spell for however long he wanted them to and shook his head.

"Again, no, I don't think so. My first reactions were much the same when my father introduced Merleen, who became our step-mother, to my brother and I, three years after our mother had died. It wasn't easy but we got used to it. We never called her 'mother' and she never treated us like children: we came to an unspoken agreement to just respect each other and treat each other as friends and that worked. Perhaps you could try the same, if it gets that far."

"I think it's already got that far, Harry, although she hasn't disappeared with him for the night yet but that can't be far off." Swallowing the last of her drink she finally smiled back at him, feeling a little lighter. "And, when it does, perhaps I will."

A tap on the door heralded Dimitri and Will returned from the field so the personal meeting broke up in favour of a short debrief – nothing major but the name Adem Qasim had turned up again – before everyone packed up and made off for their various homes, Erin with a quiet 'thank you' to her boss. She wasn't sure she was going to be able to implement his suggestions immediately but she would certainly do so very soon.

Stamford Brook, 19:25

Interesting odours were wafting from the kitchen, tantalising Jean's taste-buds as she made her way downstairs while ringing Ilya. The newish Israeli au-pair, the latest in an on-and-off list since Rosie had arrived, that she had hired to help with the girl had proved to be a boon in more ways than one, not only taking to the child immediately (and vice-versa) but introducing the family to the delights of her cuisine on the nights when she cooked dinner. The meal was later than normal tonight as they had been waiting for Erin and Dimitri to come home but no sooner had that pair arrived fifteen minutes beforehand than a red flash had called them back to work after the briefest of conversations so now the food and the child could wait no longer.

At the sound of the deep voice greeting her she smiled and made her way out through the kitchen, waving at Mical on the way past, to the dining area at the end of the large, open plan space. It was dark but the wind and rain were still making their presence felt, the former whistling around every corner and the latter splattering wet bullets against the glass wall that separated the room from the small garden but just listening to him made her feel warm. After some small talk she said,

"Well, my dear, I've done what you requested and thought about everything and I'm afraid I still can't find it in my heart to hate you for what you did. There was no option other than to excise the cancer because if you hadn't she would have acted as a focal point to other radicals, no matter where you hid her. In any case, some people just don't deserve to carry on living. Call me unnatural if you will but that's just the way I see it. And that's all there is to say, really."

It was a truthful distillation of everything she had wrestled – or attempted to wrestle – with. There was no hiding from the fact that his actions were, under normal circumstances, beyond the pale but the circumstances had been so far removed from normal that none of the usual rules could be applied, in fact had been turned on their head. No matter how she looked at it, the issue had always come back to one thing: the treatment of Sasha as nothing more than a political pawn from before he was born until the very end, when Elena was quite prepared to let Harry Pearce shoot the young man in the head, a totally unfathomable mind-set. And there was something else: Ilya had only been able to do what he did because he had been given the key to the locked room holding Elena by another woman. Ruth Evershed, from all reports no slouch at her job but rather shy and reticent when it came to interacting with people, had been so horrified by the treatment of the young man by his mother that, knowing perfectly well what Ilya would, she had still enabled him to do it. With Harry's tacit permission but she, Ruth, had still been the instrument and for some reason Jean found that, if not comforting, at least supportive: that a woman who had apparently been something of a moral compass at times for her workmates realised that the tiny world within that bunker was so topsy-turvy that there was only one way for it to be rectified and only one person who really had the right to do it.

At the other end of the line Ilya still couldn't quite believe that she could see those events with such clarity but he was immensely relieved to hear her words. His meeting with Malcolm had diverted him for a small while – the watch technology was working almost flawlessly but there were a couple of software fixes that the man had done while they were in the office – and they had considered going out for a drink but the weather had indeed proven to be a major disincentive so had gone their separate ways, Malcolm home to Angharad and Ilya back to the hotel. A trip to the gym had killed a bit more time and, as usual, exorcised a few worries but he had still ended up on tenter-hooks, waiting for her call. As it happened he had just got out of the shower when the phone finally went off and, at her words, sat heavily on the bed, awash with relief. Leaning back against the bed-head and closing his eyes he murmured,

"I would never call you unnatural. Extraordinary is perhaps a better word and one for which I will be eternally grateful. You are unique, solnishko moyo, to be able to understand such a situation."

"It's not so hard when you have been where I was thirty years ago, as you know. I have never forgotten that—" He heard a piping voice in the background as Rosie entered the room from somewhere, immediately guessing who was on the phone to her grandmother. "Dinner is being served so I need to go but I do have one question that's rather important."

"For you, anything."

"Are we still on for lunch on Monday?"

He laughed.

"Of course."

Jean's Diary:

I found out what the problem is today. We went out to the Tate for lunch and were walking through the galleries afterwards, talking, and got onto the subject of our future and how we both want there to be one, together. To cut a long story short he said he had something to tell me that I had to know before we made any decisions; it was what had happened a couple of years ago. He gave me all the background and then admitted that his late wife hadn't taken her own life. He killed her, because of what she was and what she had done to their son and the only thing he regrets is that Sasha was there and saw it happen. What came next shocked me. I wasn't horrified. Or repulsed. Or anything else. I actually understood, perfectly, why he had done what he'd done. And, in his position, I would have done the same thing.

When I looked at him he was totally devastated, waiting for the axe to fall, just about in tears and my heart broke. He's been through so much and is still paying for that creature he married, as is Sasha. All I could do was hold him, kiss him, tell him that I understood and that it was okay and that I love him anyway. He couldn't believe it; I've never seen anyone so stunned in my life. It took a while to convince him that I meant it but, once I did, he lit up like the sun. And he loves me as well.

Eventually we had to part - he had a business meeting and I needed to get home. We weren't going to have a chance to catch up for a couple of days and decided it probably wouldn't hurt to have a breather after that conversation anyway but we've just been on the phone so there is nothing different there. We've just hung up the phone and definitely haven't changed our minds. We love each other and that's all that matters – now it's better, if anything, because it's all out in the open, including knowing what we really feel for each other. At least now I understand what Erin's been worried about but God only knows how she'll react when she find out that I know but it changes nothing. Despite Elena, he's a good man.

Erin's Diary:

I don't know what happened today but something did. Mum is an odd mix of subdued and radiant. I know she went out for lunch with the Minister but they won't be seeing each other again until Monday. Something's not making sense here although I didn't get a chance to ask earlier and won't until the current crisis at work is dealt with. I spoke to Harry about it today – well, he spoke to me, he knew something was wrong – and all he said that, to his fairly certain knowledge, Ilya had, with the exception of Elena, never raised a hand against any woman or child. As if that's going to make it any better. I'm still going to have to tell her.

Ilya's Journal:

I told her and it makes no difference. She actually understood. And she loves me. As I love her. I feel I deserve none of this but I am so happy. I cried tonight, for the first time in two years, after we'd spoken again on the phone. She is amazing. I do not deserve any of this but will accept it and will treasure her, always. I just hope our children understand.