Fiona came in and set the tray down on the table where Bernard had been resting his feet. Then she knelt on the carpet to pour the tea. 'Are you both sure…?' she said. She had arranged cups and saucers for all three of them, and a sugar bowl because her father-in-law took sugar in his tea.

'No thank you, darling,' said Bernard.

She looked at Bernard. She loved him very much. The hurried assignment to Berlin had not been wonderful for either of them but it had given her a chance to break away from the foolish relationship with Kennedy. These brushes with Samson senior were upsetting, but he was old, and in fact she'd found that the more she disliked the old man, the more she came to appreciate Bernard. He was always the peacemaker but never showed weakness either to her or to his father. Bernard, what a wonderful man she'd found. Now she'd had a chance to see things in perspective, she knew that he was the only man for her. The perilous relationship with Harry Kennedy was behind her. She still didn't comprehend how that frenzied affair could have happened except that it disclosed some alarming sexual vulnerability of which she'd never been aware.

Even so, she couldn't help but wonder why he hadn't sent the postcard. One was forwarded here every week: a coloured advertising card from a 'hair and beauty salon' off Sloane Street. Some friend of his owned it: a woman friend no doubt.

'No mail?' she asked as she measured milk into her tea and stirred it to see the colour of it.

'Only that same crimpers,' said Bernard.

'Where did you put it?'

'You didn't want it, did you?'

'If I take the card they said I could get a price reduction,' said Fiona.

'It's in the waste bin. Sorry.'

She could see it now. From where she knelt on the floor she could almost have reached it. It was in the basket together with an empty Schweppes tonic bottle and a crumpled Players cigarette packet that must have been Brian's. The postcard was torn into small pieces, almost as if Bernard had sensed the danger it held. Fiona resolved not to touch it, although her first impulse was to go and get it and piece it together.

'Anyway,' added Bernard, 'you won't be in London for a bit, will you?'

'No, that's right.' She sat back on her heels and sipped her tea as if unconcerned. 'I was forgetting that.'

'I told Dad that you are going out tonight. He wants me to go to some little farewell party at the Club and have dinner with him afterwards. Is that okay?'

She could have laughed. After all the trouble she'd gone to to arrange the secret meeting with Bret Rensselaer this evening, she now found that her husband was completely uninterested in her movements. She told him anyway. 'I'm at a familiarization briefing. Someone is coming from London.'

Bernard was hardly listening to her. To his father he said, 'If Frank will be there, I'll return some books I borrowed from him.'

'Frank will be there,' said his father. 'Frank loves parties.'

'Too bad you're not free, darling,' Bernard told his wife.

'Farewell parties are usually more fun without wives,' said Fiona knowingly.

'Another drink, Dad?' said Bernard and got to his feet.

His father shook his head.

'Where will you have dinner?' she asked.

'Tante Lisl's,' announced Bernard with great pleasure. 'She is cooking venison specially for us.' Tante Lisl owned a hotel that had once been her home. Brian Samson, and his family, had been billeted upon her when the war ended. It had become a sort of second home for Bernard, and old Tante Lisl a surrogate mother. Bernard's undisguised delight in the old house sometimes gave Fiona a feeling of insecurity. She felt that now.

Bernard came over and gave her a kiss on the top of her head. 'Goodbye, love. I might be late.' As he went out with his father he said, as if to himself. 'I mustn't forget to take those flowers for Lisl. She loves flowers.'

As she heard the front door close behind the two men Fiona closed her eyes and rested her head back in the armchair. Of course the flowers were not for her: how could she have imagined they were? The flowers were for that dreadful old woman against whom Bernard would hear no word said.

Bernard could sometimes be the archetypal selfish male. He took her for granted. He was delighted at the prospect of spending an evening with his father and his cronies, drinking and telling their stories. Stories of secret agents and daring deeds, exaggerated in the course of time and in the course of the evening's drinking.

It said a great deal about their relationship that Bernard would have been uncomfortable with her at such a gathering. Bernard respected her, but if he really loved her he would have wanted her with him whatever the company he was in. Secretly she lived for the day when he would be forced to see her for what she was: someone who could play the agent game as well as he could play it. Perhaps then he would treat her as she wanted to be treated: as an equal. And if meantime she'd used the same sort of secrecy to steal a little happiness for herself, could she be blamed? No one had been hurt.

She looked round the room at the mess that Bernard had left for her to tidy up. Was it any wonder that she had found such happiness in the short and foolish love affair with Harry Kennedy? He had given her a new lease of life at a time when she was almost in despair. During the time she'd had with Harry she had stopped the tablets and felt like a different person. Harry treated her with care and consideration and yet he was so wonderfully outgoing. He wasn't frightened to tell her how much he adored her. For him she was a complex and interesting human being whose opinions counted, and with him she found herself exchanging personal feelings that she had never shared with Bernard. When it came down to hard facts: she loved Bernard and put up with him, but Harry loved her desperately and he made her feel deeply feminine in a way she'd never experienced before.

Now that was all over and finished with, she told herself. She could look back soberly and see the affair with Harry for what it was: the most glorious luxury; a release in time of stress, a course of treatment.

She looked at the time. She must have a bath and change her clothes. Thank heavens she'd brought with her some really good clothes. For this evening's meeting she would need to look her best as well as have her wits about her.

Fiona Samson's appointment was in Kessler's, a family restaurant in Gatower Strasse, Berlin-Spandau. Its premises occupied the whole house, so that there were dining rooms on every floor. Downstairs old Klaus Kessler liked to supervise his dining room waiters in person. He stood there in his long apron amid dark green paintwork, red checked gingham table-cloths and the menu written on small slates. Kessler described it as a 'typical French bistro', but in fact its decor, and the menu too, showed little change from the Berlin Weinstube where the family had been serving good simple food since his grandfather's time.

Up the narrow creaking stairs there was a second dining room, and above that three upper rooms were more elaborately furnished, and with better cutlery and glass, linen cloths and handwritten menus without prices. These were booked for small and very discreet dinners. It was in one of them that Fiona had dinner with Bret Rensselaer that evening.

'You got away all right?' Bret said politely. She offered her cheek and he gave her a perfunctory kiss. There was champagne in an ice bucket: Bret was already drinking some.

The waiter took her coat, poured her a glass of champagne and put a menu into her hands.

'There was no problem,' said Fiona. 'Bernard is at a party with his father.'

'I hear the venison is good,' said Bret, looking at the menu.

'I don't like venison,' said Fiona more forcefully than she intended. She sipped her champagne. 'In fact I'm not very hungry.'