‘Think about it,’ he had whispered to him one night through the door of the cell. ‘Your own mother hated you so much that she was prepared to give you up, to abandon you. You ever think about that, about how ugly you must have been? A real cunt to do that to her son, too, don’t you reckon?’ It was perhaps three or four o’clock in the morning, the house asleep, not even the click of the cicadas outside to break the silence. François, lying on the bed, had wrapped the pillow around his ears but could still hear every word of what Slimane was saying. ‘I’ve seen a picture of your mother,’ he whispered. ‘Good-looking woman. I’d like to fuck her. Akim wants to fuck her too. Maybe we’ll both do it after we kill you. What do you think? You like that idea? We’ll both fuck her in the ass for what she did to you when you were just a little kid.’

That was perhaps the worst night, the one that François always remembered. But Slimane’s constant taunts were debilitating to his spirit. Whenever he brought food, for example, whenever he emptied the bucket, whenever he thought Akim was getting too close or too friendly to ‘the little boy’, Slimane would make a remark, put the gun in François’ groin, come up behind him and rip at the hairs on the nape of his neck or slap him hard around the head. François wondered if a braver man would have fought back or tried harder to escape. It made sense to try to run. If they had killed Philippe and Jeannine, they were surely going to kill him.

Often, at night, when he was on shift, Slimane would wake François as a kind of sleep deprivation for kicks, a way of passing the time through the boredom of a nightwatch. So François would sleep during the days, resting on his bed listening to the frogs and birds in the garden, dreaming of Paris, of his parents brought back to life and protecting him from what had happened. Then, in time, he began to dream of his real mother, of Amelia Levene, but had no picture of her in his mind’s eye, nor of the man who was his father. Did he look like either of them? Perhaps François was now too old for any family resemblance to have lasted. He had never wanted to find them, not since Philippe and Jeannine had given him the news of his adoption, but towards the third week of his captivity François began to pray that he would be rescued by them, that his real parents would somehow pay the ransom and return him to his life in Paris. At times, François would sob like a child for the mother he had never seen, for the father he had never known, but not so that his captors would hear him or see his face, never so that Slimane could enjoy the pleasure of his distress. François at least kept that dignity. But everything was complicated by Vincent. Everything was made worse by the knowledge that another man had replaced him, stolen his life, and was already making a relationship with Amelia.

‘Vincent’s living in your house,’ Slimane told him, day after day, night after night. ‘He’s wearing your clothes, he’s fucking your girls. He even went on holiday with your mother. Did you know that? Luc says she loves him, they can’t get enough of each other. He’s going to go and live with her in England. How do you feel about that, François? Amelia’s got the son she always wanted. So why would she ever think about cashing him in for a dumb prick like you?’

49

Amelia rang the man who was no longer her son, the man who had so humiliated her, less than an hour after meeting Kell in Queensway. She had made the call from the kitchen of the open-plan office using her private mobile. Kell, standing a few feet away, watched her intently, amazed by Amelia’s ability to continue with the masquerade of maternal affection.

‘François? It’s Amelia. I’ve missed you, darling. How are you? How are things in Paris?’

They had talked for almost ten minutes, ‘François’ relating the story of his journey home via Marseille, the narrative of his lies still watertight, his facility for deceit as accomplished as any Amelia could recall. She wondered if the man Kell had identified as ‘Luc’ was seated alongside CUCKOO in Paris, listening to his conversation, just as Kell was listening to hers: two sets of spies, in London and Paris, both working under the assumption that they held the upper hand.

‘What are you doing this weekend?’ she asked.

‘Nothing,’ CUCKOO replied. ‘Why?’

‘It’s just that I wondered if you would be free to come and stay at my house in Wiltshire?’

‘Oh …’

‘Perhaps it’s too soon?’

‘No, no.’ CUCKOO sounded enthused, as well he might; the invitation would be welcomed by his masters in Paris. ‘Will Giles be there?’

‘No.’ She glanced at Kell, who frowned, as though confused by CUCKOO’s interest in Amelia’s husband. ‘I think he’s away this weekend. Why, do you want to meet him?’

‘At this moment I prefer if it’s just the two of us, you know?’ CUCKOO replied. ‘Is that OK?’

‘Of course, darling.’ She generated a perfectly timed pause. ‘Does that mean you’ll come?’

‘I would love to.’

‘That’s wonderful news. I can’t wait.’ Amelia recalled CUCKOO’s insistence on taking the ferry to Marseille, rather than a flight direct to Paris and decided on a quick test of his cover. ‘Can I send you a ticket for the plane?’

‘I prefer not to fly, remember?’ he replied instantly, and she could only marvel at the speed of his lies. What a fool she had been, what a dupe. And now she would have to live a lie of her own, to ensure that there was no difference between her behaviour in Tunis and her behaviour in Wiltshire. She would have to play the part of a caring mother, embracing him, smiling at his conversation, taking an interest in his affairs. Amelia dreaded that and yet she longed for the moment when she would have her revenge. From the great joy of the reunion in Tunis she had been cruelly returned to the tunnel of her working life, a place of ambition, of dedication to a cause, but a place without personal fulfilment. Perhaps it was where she belonged.

‘I’m starving,’ she told Kell after she had hung up. She saw her hand lingering on the sleeve of his coat, one of her habitual ways of controlling men. ‘Take me somewhere to eat?’

‘Of course.’

They had walked a few hundred metres to a Lebanese restaurant on Westbourne Grove and set about formulating the plan to find François. Sitting over open menus, waiting for a bottle of wine in the bustle of the dining room, it was decided that, in order to keep the operation secret from Truscott, Haynes and Marquand, Kell would assemble a small team of trusted contacts off the books at Vauxhall Cross. He suggested bringing Barbara Knight over from Nice and told Amelia that he would call her in the morning to arrange the trip. Having ordered their food, he sent a text to Elsa Cassani, asking if it would be possible for her to take the next available flight to London. Elsa responded within fifteen minutes (‘For you, Tom, anything!’) and Kell smiled. He knew a former MI5 Tech-Ops officer named Harold Mowbray, now private sector, who would be able to work in tandem with Elsa on CUCKOO’s email servers and mobile phone networks. They would also need a surveillance man to tail CUCKOO once he had left Amelia’s house in the country. Kell had an old contact from his days working a desk in London, a former Royal Marine named Kevin Vigors, who would work in return for cash-in-hand.

‘I’ll need money,’ he told Amelia. ‘A lot of it. These are good people and they’ll all need paying.’

‘It can be arranged.’ He wondered if she would lean on Giles for the cash. ‘I’ll see what I can dig up on Luc Javeau, but I can’t be away from the Office this week. You’ll be on your own until I get down to Wiltshire on Friday. The next few days are wall-to-wall with meetings, then the PM on Wednesday. Is that all right?’