Charles Cumming - A Foreign Country

Harper

An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.harpercollins.co.uk

First Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2012

Copyright © Charles Cumming 2012

Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015

Cover photographs © Josephine Pugh/Arcangel Images (cityscape); Henry Steadman (foreground and figure, right); SuperStock (bench, seated man); Shutterstock.com(all other images)

A Colder War extract © Charles Cumming 2013

Charles Cumming asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

Extract from The Spirit Level copyright © Seamus Heaney

Published in Great Britain by Faber and Faber 2001

Reproduced by permission of Faber and Faber

Extract from The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley © 1953 Hamish Hamilton reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd

Extract from Ashenden by W. Somerset Maugham © 1928 William Heinemann reproduced by kind permission of A P Watt on behalf of the Royal Literary Fund

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Ebook Edition © March 2012 ISBN: 9780007346448

Version: 2016-05-03

For Carolyn Hanbury

‘There’s just one thing I think you ought to know before you take on this job … If you do well you’ll get no thanks and if you get into trouble you’ll get no help. Does that suit you?’

‘Perfectly.’

‘Then I’ll wish you good afternoon.’

W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden

‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.’

L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between

Contents

Cover

Title Page CHARLES CUMMING A Foreign Country

Copyright Copyright Harper An imprint of HarperCollins Publishers 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF www.harpercollins.co.uk First Published by HarperCollins Publishers 2012 Copyright © Charles Cumming 2012 Cover layout design © HarperCollins Publishers Ltd 2015 Cover photographs © Josephine Pugh/Arcangel Images (cityscape); Henry Steadman (foreground and figure, right); SuperStock (bench, seated man); Shutterstock.com (all other images) A Colder War extract © Charles Cumming 2013 Charles Cumming asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work Extract from The Spirit Level copyright © Seamus Heaney Published in Great Britain by Faber and Faber 2001 Reproduced by permission of Faber and Faber Extract from The Go-Between by L.P. Hartley © 1953 Hamish Hamilton reproduced by permission of Penguin Books Ltd Extract from Ashenden by W. Somerset Maugham © 1928 William Heinemann reproduced by kind permission of A P Watt on behalf of the Royal Literary Fund A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books. Ebook Edition © March 2012 ISBN: 9780007346448 Version: 2016-05-03

Dedication Dedication For Carolyn Hanbury

Epigraph Epigraph ‘There’s just one thing I think you ought to know before you take on this job … If you do well you’ll get no thanks and if you get into trouble you’ll get no help. Does that suit you?’ ‘Perfectly.’ ‘Then I’ll wish you good afternoon.’ W. Somerset Maugham, Ashenden ‘The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.’ L.P. Hartley, The Go-Between

Tunisia, 1978 Tunisia, 1978

Chapter 1

The Present Day

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Chapter 49

Chapter 50

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53

Chapter 54

Chapter 55

Chapter 56

Chapter 57

Chapter 58

Chapter 59

Chapter 60

Chapter 61

Chapter 62

Chapter 63

Chapter 64

Chapter 65

Chapter 66

Chapter 67

Chapter 68

Chapter 69

Chapter 70

Chapter 71

Chapter 72

Chapter 73

Chapter 74

Chapter 75

Chapter 76

Chapter 77

Chapter 78

Chapter 79

Beaune, Three Weeks Later

Chapter 80

The Background to A Foreign Country

Acknowledgements

Keep Reading …

About the Author

By Charles Cumming

About the Publisher

Jean-Marc Daumal awoke to the din of the call to prayer and to the sound of his children weeping. It was just after seven o’clock on an airless Tunisian morning. For an instant, as he adjusted his eyes to the sunlight, Daumal was oblivious to the wretchedness of his situation; then the memory of it took him like a shortness of breath. He almost cried out in despair, staring up at the cracked, whitewashed ceiling, a married man of forty-one at the mercy of a broken heart.

Amelia Weldon had been gone for six days. Gone without warning, gone without reason, gone without leaving a note. One moment she had been caring for his children at the villa – preparing their supper, reading them a bedtime story – the next she had disappeared. At dawn on Saturday, Jean-Marc’s wife, Celine, had found the au pair’s bedroom stripped of its belongings, Amelia’s suitcases taken from the cupboard, her photographs and posters removed from the walls.