Afterwards, on the floor, wedged between the wall and the bed, she slept in the crook of his arm, her hair spread across his chest.
Then he realised she was awake again. Her left hand stroking his cock back to life.
And when it rose, she slipped into his lap and deftly took him inside.
Her lips at his ear.
“The game you and Guy played that night in Vienna?”
“How do you know about that?”
She rose up and slid down on him.
“If you want your secrets kept, never tell Sasha.”
Yes. He had told Sasha and even as he had done so knew it was a mistake.
“Let’s play it now.”
“Do you really think this is the right time?”
She rose up and slid down on him.
“Oh yes. Go on. Ask me. Remember, I know everything.”
The only words that could have made him go along with this.
“Go on.”
“Alright, number one?”
She rose up and slid down on him.
“Burgess.”
“Number two?”
“Maclean.”
She rose up and slid down on him.
“Number three.”
“Philby.”
She rose up and slid down on him.
“Number four.”
“Blunt.”
“Venetia … this really—”
She rose up and slid down on him.
Troy said nothing.
She rose up and slid down on him again.
“Five?”
“Your pal and mine, Charlie Leigh-Hunt.”
She rose up and slid down on him.
“Now ask me about six.”
“There was no six. Venetia, we never got to the sixth man.”
“But I know everything.”
“Fine. Number six?”
She rose up and slid down on him.
Her lips touched his left ear once more as she whispered:
“Bill Blaine.”
Troy slipped his hands under her arms and lifted her gently off. Her bottom slapped softly against his thighs.
“I told you,” she said simply.
“How? How do you know this?”
“Freddie? What’s my name?”
“What?”
“Just tell me.”
“Venetia Stainesborough.”
“No. That’s my title. My name is Venetia Frances Adelaide Parker-Blaine. Bill was Gerry’s little brother. It’s his book you were reading not half an hour ago.”
“Parker-Blaine?”
“Gerry never used his surname. Inherited the title aged three. He was always Lord Stainesborough or Gerry Stainesborough. Bill … Bill had a rough time at school, and after his first year at Cambridge dropped the Parker. He’d had quite enough of hyphens and silly nicknames.”
Troy heard, clear as a bell, a drunken Burgess replying to his last question in the Café Landtmann—”who was number six?”—and Burgess muttering, “Nosey Parker” as he fell into his lemon tart. He had assumed Burgess was telling him to mind his own business. He hadn’t heard the capital N. He’d no idea that Burgess had actually answered his question—until now. And he did not doubt that Venetia was telling him the truth. She knew everything.
“Nosey Parker?”
“Yep.”
“You’ve known all along?”
“Yes. I was Bill’s confidant. Everyone has to tell someone, and after Gerry died, I think I was the most important person in his life. He told me all about it—getting recruited at Cambridge, all about his handler … even the secrets he passed on. I knew and did not tell. Mea culpa. I chose a man over a country.
“I won’t be telling anyone else. All I have is a room full of Bill’s books. The ones you were sitting on. Arrived yesterday. Probate was granted a few days ago. I am next of kin, if not all kin. He left me about two thousand in cash, a flat near Marble Arch, and a zillion books. There are no diaries, no letters. I doubt he ever wrote anything down, so there’s nothing for anyone to find.”
“But you choose to tell me?”
“I think Bill owed you that. He nearly got you killed. What he told me was a secret we shared. Now you and I share it, and there it stays. I don’t have much patriotism in me, and nor do you, I think, but let’s not destroy Bill’s reputation. He’s dead and that’s an end of it.”