Stella Rimington - Breaking Cover

‘Of course.’ It had been the stuff of Hollywood – over half a dozen Russians who had been living as Americans in the United States, some for many years, undetected.

‘In fact, it turned out he was talking about the UK – and France. I was about to arrange a meeting with you all at Thames House but you beat me to it.’

Peggy said nothing, wanting to believe him. Everyone knew the Americans were forthcoming when it suited their interests, silent when it didn’t. Peggy was not alone in thinking the Special Relationship was only special on one side of the Atlantic.

Brookhaven went on, ‘I’m due to go meet this source later this month. When I get back, why don’t I come over to Thames House and brief you and Liz?’

‘Terrific,’ said Peggy. She couldn’t resist adding, ‘I’ll make sure she’s not in Cheltenham that day.’

‘Hi, Jasminder, any chance of dinner tonight? I was thinking we could meet at La Sambuca?’

She was surprised to hear Laurenz Hansen on the phone. She’d enjoyed their second meeting, a few weeks ago, for dinner in Primrose Hill, though she had been a bit taken aback when afterwards he had seen her into a taxi outside the restaurant with only a chaste peck on the cheek for goodbye and no mention of a future meeting. He’d said rather vaguely that he’d ring her, but she had more or less decided that nothing was going to come of the relationship.

It wasn’t surprising he was reluctant to get involved. From the sound of it, his divorce was enough to put anyone off relationships. He and his wife had separated almost two years before and it was only now the divorce was coming through – and that after months of such acrimony that they were only communicating through lawyers.

Jasminder usually found the details of other people’s divorces too tedious to bother with, but she had asked Laurenz why his had become so unpleasant. ‘Money,’ he’d replied. ‘I made some successful investments when I was working in Bermuda and I’d previously worked in Venezuela for a couple of years and have holdings there as well. I declared everything to the court months ago but she doesn’t believe me. She’s hired private detectives to try and find the fortune I’m meant to have hidden away.’

In spite of herself Jasminder had found his candour attractive and she thought that perhaps the divorce proceedings explained some things about him that had puzzled her. If he had private investigators on his tail it was not surprising he hadn’t wanted to call the police after her mugging the other week. And maybe the fact that he’d given her his office number rather than a mobile or a home number had the same explanation.

Now here he was on the phone again, just when Jasminder had more or less given up on him. She hesitated, tempted by his invitation – and the restaurant he was proposing was conveniently close to her flat. But this would be her second night out this week – she’d had dinner with her friend Emma in Covent Garden two evenings before – and there were student essays to mark and a long brief to review for an urgent political asylum case. It wasn’t as if she had a lot of time on her hands.

Laurenz Hansen seemed to pick up that she was wavering. ‘I’ll tell you what,’ he said. ‘Why don’t we scratch the restaurant idea? Let me come over and cook while you get on with your work. We can talk over supper. You do have to eat, you know.’

And eventually she accepted, telling herself that he was right; she could do her work and still make time to see him. She couldn’t remember a moment, not even in early childhood, when she hadn’t felt she had too much to do, and too little time to do it. From primary-school days she had always been busy and hard-working, and it had paid off. She’d won a full fees-paid scholarship to Leicester Girls’ High School and had gone on to Durham. There she’d got a first, then a distinction in her supplementary year at law college in London. She’d had her choice between four firms of solicitors who were vying for her services. All this before she’d turned twenty-three.

Looking back now, she supposed this urgency must have come from her parents, who like so many immigrants to the UK were desperately eager for their children to succeed. Her father had been a successful pharmacist in Kampala, until Idi Amin had suddenly decided that Uganda didn’t need its Asian community any more and had thrown them all out. Arriving in England with hardly any possessions, her father had discovered that his professional qualifications didn’t transfer to the UK. Settling in Leicester, where so many Indian arrivals were living, he had managed with the help of a cousin to buy a tiny corner shop, selling cigarettes and newspapers and, at first, not much else.

Virtually as soon as Jasminder could count, she worked in the shop with her elder brothers, stacking shelves and sweeping the floor, and throughout her school years she had taken money from customers with one hand while doing her homework with the other. By the time her father had died a few years ago, the tiny shop had become a small chain of grocery stores in the city, which her brothers now ran very successfully.

Unlike her brothers, though, there had never been any question of Jasminder joining the business. She had been a bright girl and the apple of her father’s eye – unable to resume his own profession, he had been determined that his youngest child would break through the barriers he had found in Great Britain. The day she’d received the acceptance letter from Durham, her father had spent the afternoon announcing the news proudly to every customer who’d come into the shop.

She’d felt guilty from time to time for disappointing her parents. Her father hadn’t been able to understand why she had chosen to become an academic lawyer and work for civil liberties charities rather than making a lot of money in a City firm. Her mother had been mystified by her failure to get married and provide them with more grandchildren. Jasminder herself wasn’t sure about having children. She liked kids, and was a loving aunt to her brothers’ offspring, especially little Ali, a doe-eyed girl who had just turned seven and was both clever and full of energy. But she was also well aware that being a mother and having a high-powered career was difficult; too often both roles could suffer.

Yet Jasminder knew her parents’ disappointment was minor compared to their pride in her. Even now, years after her mother had moved to India following her husband’s death, she still kept a close watch on her daughter’s career from a distance. When Jasminder had recently made her debut on Question Time , her mother had alerted half the Kapoor clan in the Punjab to watch her famous daughter on the BBC.

As she put away the vacuum cleaner, Jasminder reflected that she hadn’t actually saved herself any time by agreeing to Laurenz cooking dinner at her flat, rather than going out with him to a restaurant. As soon as she’d got home she’d realised that the place was even more of a bombsite than usual. It had taken her over an hour to make it presentable and she hoped he wouldn’t notice the stacks of papers she had hidden behind the sofa, or open the door to the hall cupboard where she had stuffed two bags of recycling that she had forgotten to put out for collection.

But her anxiety about the state of her place dissolved as soon as Laurenz arrived, with a large carrier bag in one hand and a bunch of early daffodils in the other. After she’d found a vase, he calmly ordered her to go and get on with her work, and by the time he summoned her to the kitchen, she’d marked six essays. He’d made mushroom omelettes with a green salad, and there was a lemon tart and a bowl of berries for dessert, and as she sat down at the table he poured her a glass of Sancerre from the fridge. The conversation flowed easily as they ate and she was glad he kept off the subject of his divorce.