Ten minutes later I was staring at him, unsure if I was being teased. Except Grandfather didn’t tease.
“You’re not old enough to have been involved in post-war espionage,” I whispered across my salmon salad.
“My father was.”
“Pop-Pop?” My great-grandfather was a kindly old gent who gave me sips of his brandy and pulled gold sovereigns from behind my ears. He’d died when I was about eight years old, leaving Grandfather as the de facto head of our family, even though he had older brothers and sisters. My family was privileged and wealthy and had been that way for a very long time.
“He spent a good deal of time until forty years ago traveling back and forth from the Soviet Union. As a youngster, I used to carry letters for him occasionally.”
I looked at him, aghast. “Pop-Pop used you as—as a courier?”
He gave me a stern look. “Traveling with a child is excellent camouflage. When I finished at Cambridge I joined the—er, firm myself. Your mother, too—”
“My mother? Oh my God. We’re a third-generation family of”—I looked around furtively—“spies?”
Not sure if I should feel slighted that no one had initiated me into the family business, I sat back in my seat and stared at him.
“Close your mouth, Theophania,” he said. My jaws snapped shut. “How is the salmon?”
“How is the—Grandfather! Pop-Pop was a spy? You were a spy? My mother was a spy? Sergei—”
“Probably best if we don’t use that name, my dear.”
“Oh my God. Why didn’t I know any of this? Why tell me now?”
He pursed his lips. “Your courage and resourcefulness recently made me reevaluate my decision not to tell you about the family … history.” If he was giving me undeserved credit for resolving the turmoil of a few months ago, I’d take it, but—“In addition to which,” he went on, “our friend’s appearance at your shop is unsettling. I want you to understand what may be at stake and to be on your guard.”
I dropped my knife and fork with a clatter that startled the young waiter as he approached with a pitcher of iced tea. “What’s going on? Does this have anything to do with Ser—do you know why your friend wants to see you?”
Grandfather put his elbows on the table and steepled his fingers. “If I had to guess, and I do, then perhaps I have been … outed, and he is concerned about—er—family repercussions.”
“I’m so sorry, dear,” the waiter said with a sympathetic grimace, and then blushed and busied himself filling my iced tea glass before touching Grandfather lightly on the shoulder and withdrawing.
I’m pretty sure all of this went over Grandfather’s head.
“Outed? How could you be outed? And by whom? And why? And whose family are we talking about having repercussions?”
He pulled on one ear. “Remember, my dear, this is conjecture. The family in this case is our American cousins. They will be concerned that their own, er, sons and daughters will be exposed also. Our friend was a colleague twenty-five years ago. But he was injured and left the firm, entering a Catholic seminary to study for the priesthood.” He pursed his lips again. “Truthfully, I wondered if he was in deep cover. He had been involved in a particularly brutal operation in Eastern Europe, and afterward he apparently had a Damascene moment. He eventually went through with his ordination. I couldn’t imagine the firm taking things that far, so I assume he had experienced a genuine conversion. I haven’t heard from him for—it must be twenty years. The last thing I knew, he was in South America. Colombia, I think.”
I had no idea where to locate Colombia on a map. I was on slightly firmer ground with South America, but the only thing I associated with Colombia was drug smugglers and death squads, having watched an episode of Narcos at an impressionable age. Grandfather moved on while I was still trying to catch up.
“The Americans are extremely sensitive and don’t really trust us—or anyone, really,” he said thoughtfully. “His appearance here might mean that something, somewhere, has gone wrong with—well, it would have to be an historical operation. Or I suppose it could be something unrelated, and he needed my nonprofessional help.”
I tried to keep my expression neutral as I chewed a mouthful of something. He gave me one of his fleeting smiles, and after a short pause, he took a small, leather agenda from the breast pocket of his jacket and slid it toward me. “Please write down the telephone number he gave you.”
I pulled out my phone. “I could just—”
“Write it, please, Theophania. And then erase it from your telephone.”
He glanced at the number and then tore out the part of the page where I’d written it, then kept tearing it until it was practically dust and put some of the dust on his empty plate and the rest of it in his pocket. He took my telephone, scrolled and tapped through several screens, changed a setting or two, and returned it to me. I had no idea what he’d done, and I didn’t like to ask.
He raised a hand, and our waiter instantly appeared with the bill for lunch in a discreet folder. Grandfather checked it cursorily, handed it back to him with a black credit card, and then waited until he was out of earshot. “I will telephone our friend and meet him later today. I need to catch up with him this afternoon because I have a meeting to attend this evening.” He seemed to think for a minute. “Hmph. If his situation isn’t toxic, and doesn’t cross too many national borders, I might invite him to join us.”
“A meeting? National borders?”
“A few old colleagues who get together every month or so for dinner and drinks.”
“Old colleagues.” I took a deep breath. “You mean—spies? Other spies?”
“Well, former military intelligence officers, for the most part.”
Of course. “Former intell…” I had a sudden qualm. “Are they all American?”
“Hardly, my dear; I’m a member, after all. My group in London is more geographically diverse, but even here we have quite a representative sampling of international—”
“Oh my God, there’s a group in London?”
“We have several chapters.”
I choked on my iced tea, coughing and spluttering, and finally managed to get out a croak as another thought occurred to me and I bent low to whisper across the table. “Do you mean Russians? Are you friends with Russian … um … intelligence officers? Can’t you be deported for that?” I looked quickly around to see if anyone was listening, which seemed to amuse him.
His hand absently touched the Eton Ramblers tie, and his lips twitched at my no doubt appalled expression.
“Is the tie for … our friend, instead of a red carnation in your buttonhole?”
“It’s been some time and that photograph didn’t capture me very well. In fact, I’m a little surprised—I thought the tie might help him to identify me, since he’s an Eton Old Boy. It was a joke between us years ago. His eyesight has been poor for quite some time. An acid attack, I believe. You said he was wearing a Roman collar, Theophania, so unless he’s in mufti, that will help me, even if he has changed a good deal.”
My struggling brain caught up. “Oh, God, an acid attack—his face is badly scarred. But why would he come here to try and find you?”
“I can’t imagine. The—er—codes he used are very out of date, of course. Viktor and Houston are, or were, in the nature of an SOS.” He thought for a moment. “No, not an emergency; more like a call for assistance.
“But why did he come to me?”
“You said he had a photo of me taken outside your shop; perhaps it was simply the only place he knew where to begin.” In a different tone he asked, “Who have you told about your hiatus here, Theophania?”
I assumed the subject of MI5 or 6, or Her Majesty’s Secret Service and the family business, was finished. When Grandfather moved on, he moved on. “I’m in touch with a few friends in London through text or video apps, but I haven’t told them where I am.” When it came down to it, I didn’t trust any of my harebrained friends not to sell me to the UK tabloids, which were zealous and unmerciful.
“What about Frederick?”
My cousin Frederick—Freddie—was the family black sheep and chronically short of cash. With any kind of financial incentive, he’d hand me over to the tabloids without a second thought. “Especially not Frederick. He thinks I’m in the Canaries.”
“Ah,” he said. We considered the dessert menu in silence for a minute or two. “He is coming for a visit.”
“Oh, God, really?” Frederick wasn’t anyone’s idea of an ideal houseguest. He tended to overstay his welcome, often by months.
“I’m afraid so. He thinks I’m antelope hunting in Wyoming. I may have to lease a hotel suite in Jackson Hole so he can visit me there.” He smiled faintly, and I did a mental double take. I’d thought he was simply being courteously reticent and quintessentially English when he’d taken to my strange new life, and my new identity, without a hint of disquiet. I’d obviously been mistaken. He was thoroughly enjoying himself.
Even with most of my thoughts in turmoil, I knew how very lucky I was to have him in my life. Within weeks of telling him where I had landed—it didn’t occur to me even for a moment to keep it from him—he followed me here and leased a home on Telegraph Hill. He’d never said so, but I assumed he felt I needed some adult supervision. He’d given up his very comfortable life in Kent, surrounded by horses, hunting hounds, and Capability Brown landscapes to live in a city where, honestly, he was a fish out of water. I was vaguely pleased that he had some friends—even if they were spies. Ex-spies.
“Thank you, Grandfather.” He looked at me with a raised eyebrow and then at our coffee cups, as if he thought I were thanking him for lunch. I hurried through the next bit: “For moving here, for helping me, for everything.”
His expression didn’t alter. “Our sojourn has been interesting for me,” he said, “and, if you don’t mind my mentioning it, Theophania, I felt you might need some … support after … the events of last year. In any event, I was glad to do it, my dear.”
I tried to swallow the lump in my throat, recognizing the partial truth hiding his refusal to say that he, too, had needed some propping up. The comforting idea that I’d been any help at all was fairly remote. “Grandfather—”
But he cleared his throat and briskly checked his wristwatch. “I should telephone our friend right away; if his personality hasn’t changed, he will be pacing the floor waiting for me.”
“I thought he might be a news photographer,” I mumbled.
Grandfather laughed like a seal barking.