Page 132 of Fire Must Burn

‘It’s not that long a trip,’ she said. ‘And I have three questions for you.’

‘All this way for three questions,’ he said. ‘I feel like an oracle. Ask and be enlightened.’

‘Why did you kiss me outside the Barley Mow that night?’ she asked.

‘I’m sorry about that,’ he said.

‘I asked you why, not to apologise.’

‘I spotted a man following me,’ he said reluctantly. ‘I’ve been fearful ever since I came back that the Foreign Office would discover my preferences, and I thought they had sent someone to catch me in pursuit of them. I thought maybe a brazen display of blatant heterosexuality would appease them. I’m sorry my paranoia led to your discomfort.’

She looked at him for a long time. He couldn’t read her expression. Then she nodded.

‘You weren’t being paranoid,’ she said. ‘But you were wrong about the reason you were being followed. Did Parham tell you why you were attacked?’

‘Not in detail,’ said Tony. ‘Just that it was a man who had dated Evelyn before me. I assumed that it was out of some insane level of jealousy.’

‘That was part of it,’ said Sparks. ‘There’s more.’

‘How is it that you know this?’

‘Forster wrote something pretentious before the war that nevertheless has stuck with me,’ she said. ‘That if he had to choose between betraying a friend and betraying his country, he hoped he would be strong enough to save his friend.’

‘I don’t want you to commit treason on my behalf, Sparks,’ he said softly.

‘That isn’t the problem,’ she said. ‘The problem is what to do when you also believe said friend is also a betrayer. Which leads to my second question: what did Sauce tell you when you drove her from the Pickard mansion to the train station?’

He was silent.

‘Did she tell you that Bruce had raped her?’ she continued. ‘That he did it repeatedly while Kevin held her down, and that your two close friends then traded places? That this was all happening while you and I slept unawares in Kevin’s sister’s bed?’

‘Iris, please,’ he whispered.

‘I think she told you,’ said Sparks. ‘Because I asked you when you got back what she had said, and you refused to answer. Which means that instead of helping her, instead of helping a woman who had been brutally victimised by your two dear friends, you took their side instead.’

‘So did you,’ he said.

‘No, I took no position,’ she said. ‘I didn’t have the know­ledge of what she said happened. I asked her after the weekend, but she shut herself down. I’m not saying I came out of this clean. I should have trusted my suspicions. But you made your choice based on much more information than I had. Why?’

‘Because they were my friends, and she wasn’t,’ he said. ‘I couldn’t let them go to jail. I had no idea Sauce would kill herself. Then when Bruce spiralled down afterwards I offered him a grand soul-cleansing adventure, which ended up killing him. I’ve lived with that guilt ever since. Guilt over them both.’

‘She was my friend, Tony,’ said Sparks. ‘So were you. You should have told me.’

‘Were?’ he said, his voice breaking. ‘Is this your judgement upon me?’

‘You’ve already been punished,’ she said. ‘And here is where I betray my country. I was an inadvertent instrumentality of that punishment.’

‘How so?’

‘You were being followed because you were suspected of being a communist double-agent,’ she said. ‘Whether for Uncle Joe or Chairman Mao, I don’t know. I was asked to set you up with a British agent who would find out if it was true.’

‘Evelyn Lowle?’ he said. ‘She works for the government?’

‘Yes,’ said Sparks. ‘Only it turned out there was much more to her than that. How well did you know Bruce’s family?’

‘I met him and Kevin when I started at Cambridge,’ he said. ‘I only met his parents when they came to visit, which was infrequent. Why?’

‘He had a little sister, Charlotte,’ said Sparks. ‘She’s Evelyn Lowle. She was the one who got Lonsdale to attack you. No one knew she was planning this.’