“Apparentlyyes, or apparentlyno?” asked Rousseau impatiently.
Gabriel explained she had worked in Beirut as a freelancer in the early sixties, and that by all accounts she subscribed to left-wing politics.
“So did everyone else in the early sixties.”
“Is it possible the old DST might have opened a file on her?”
“It’s possible,” admitted Rousseau. “They opened a file on anyone with pro-Moscow sympathies. I’ll run her name through the database.”
“Quietly,” cautioned Gabriel, and hung up the phone. And for the next three hours, alone in a soundproof box in the embassy’s basement, he considered all the reasons why Rousseau’s search might prove fruitless. Perhaps Arthur Seymour had been mistaken and Charlotte Bettencourt was not her real name. Perhaps after giving birth to Philby’s child, she had changed her name and gone into hiding. Perhaps she had fled to Moscow and was living there still. Perhaps the great Sasha had killed her, as he had killed Konstantin Kirov and Alistair Hughes.
Whatever had happened to the woman, it was a very long time ago. It had been a long time, too, since Gabriel had slept. At some point, he laid his head on the table and drifted into unconsciousness. The phone woke him with a start. It was half past eleven. Eleven in the morning or eleven at night, he did not know; the soundproof box was a world without sunrise or sunset. He snatched up the receiver and raised it swiftly to his ear.
“She left Beirut in 1965 and returned to Paris,” said Paul Rousseau. “She was a somewhat minor figure in the demonstrations in sixty-eight. After that, the DST lost interest in her.”
“Is she still alive?”
“Apparently so.”
Gabriel’s heart gave a sideways lurch. “Apparentlyyes, or apparentlyno?”
“She still receives her state pension. The checks are sent to an address in Spain.”
“You don’t happen to have it, do you?”
As a matter of fact, he did. Charlotte Bettencourt, the mother of Kim Philby’s illegitimate child, lived on the Paseo de la Fuente in Zahara, Spain.
46
Zahara, Spain
It was shortly after two o’clock the following afternoon when Charlotte Bettencourt concluded she was being watched by a pair of men, one tall and lanky, the other a few inches shorter and more powerfully built. Kim would have been proud of her for spotting them, but truth be told they made little effort to conceal themselves. It was almost as if they wanted her to see them. A pair of Russians sent to kidnap or kill her would not have behaved so. Therefore, she did not fear the men. In fact, she was looking forward to the moment they finally put all pretense aside and introduced themselves. Until then, she would think of them as Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, two indifferent creatures of the earth who functioned as one.
She had noticed them for the first time earlier that morning strolling along the paseo. The second sighting occurred on the Calle San Juan, where they were sitting beneath an umbrella at one of the cafés, each staring at a mobile phone, seemingly oblivious to her presence. And now here they were again. Charlotte was lunching among the orange trees at Bar Mirador, and the two men were crossing the paving stones of the plaza toward the church of Santa María de la Mesa. They did not strike her as believers, especially the taller of the two, the one with pale skin. Perhaps they were in search of absolution. They looked as though they could use it.
The two men climbed the steps of the church—one, two, three, four—and disappeared inside. Charlotte picked up her pen and tried to resume her work, but it was no good; the sight of the two men had dammed the flow of words. She had been writing about an afternoon in September 1962 when Kim, rather than make love to her, became drunk instead. He was inconsolable with grief. Jackie, his beloved pet fox, had recently fallen to its death from the terrace of his apartment. But Charlotte was convinced something else was troubling him and had pleaded with him to take her into his confidence. “You couldn’t p-p-possibly understand,” he had stammered into his drink, his eyes hidden beneath the mantle of his unruly forelock. “Everything I did, I did as a matter of c-c-conscience.” She should have known at that instant it was all true, that Kim was a Soviet spy, the Third Man, a traitor. She would not have despised him. Quite the opposite, actually. She would have loved him all the more.
She returned her pen and Moleskine notebook to her straw bag and finished the last of her wine. There was only one other patron in the café, an elfin man with wispy hair and a face that defied description. The weather was ideal, warm in the sun, chill in the shade of the orange trees. Charlotte wore a fleece pullover and a pair of denim trousers with a dreaded elastic waist. It was perhaps the worst thing about growing old, the pouch she was forced to lug around all day, like her memories of Kim. She could scarcely recall the lithe, supple body he had devoured each afternoon before running home to Eleanor for the evening quarrel. He had loved her body, even when the bump appeared in her abdomen. “Do you suppose it will be a b-b-boy or a girl?” he had asked, stroking her skin softly. Not that it mattered. Two weeks later he was gone.
The man with wispy hair was studying a newspaper. Poor lamb, thought Charlotte. He was alone in the world, like her. She was tempted to strike up a conversation, but the two men were stepping from the church, into the glare of the plaza. They passed her table in silence and headed down the steep slope of the Calle Machenga.
After paying her check, Charlotte did the same. She was not attempting to follow the two men; it was merely the shortest route to the little El Castillo supermarket. Inside, she saw one of the men yet again. It was the one she thought of as Rosencrantz, the taller one. He was contemplating a container of milk, as though searching for the expiration date. For the first time, Charlotte felt a stab of fear. Perhaps she had been mistaken. Perhaps they were an SVR snatch team after all. She thought Rosencrantz looked a little Russian, now that she had a chance to see him up close.
She hastily tossed a few items into her basket and then surrendered her money to a busty girl with a bare belly and too much makeup. “La loca,” hissed the girl contemptuously as Charlotte carried her plastic bags into the street. And there stood Guildenstern. He was leaning against an orange tree, smiling.
“Bonjour, Madame Bettencourt.” His tone was agreeable. He took a cautious step toward her. “Sorry to bother you, but I was wondering whether we might have a word in private.”
His eyes were very blue, like Kim’s.
“A word about what?” she asked.
“The matter I wish to discuss with you,” said the man, “is quite sensitive in nature.”
Charlotte smiled bitterly. “The last time someone said that to me...” She watched the wispy-haired man walking toward them down the slope of the hill. She hadn’t suspected him. She supposed he was of a higher caliber.
She directed her gaze toward the one she thought of as Guildenstern, the one with Kim’s blue eyes. “Are you from the French government?” she asked.
“Heavens, no.”
