Page 70 of The Other Woman

“What’s the date?”

“The nineteenth.”

“December or January?”

“December.”

Gabriel had about an inch of documents remaining. He discovered another trace of her in a telegram dated December 28. “They were spotted together in the bar of the St. Georges. Romeo was pretending to edit something she had written. It was obviously a ruse for a romantic assignation.” And another two days after that: “She was overheard at the Normandie spouting Marxist drivel. It’s no wonder Romeo finds her attractive.”

And then, quite suddenly, December turned to January and she was forgotten. Nicholas Elliott had returned to Beirut to interrogate Philby and extract his confession and a pledge of cooperation. And Arthur Seymour was deeply worried Philby might make a run for it. His worst fears came true on the night of the twenty-third: “Romeo is nowhere to be found. I fear he has flown the coop.”

It was the last telegram in Gabriel’s stack, but in the kitchen Graham Seymour had several more to review. Gabriel sat down at the opposite side of the table and watched the rainwater running over the windows and the wind making patterns in the dormant grass of the moor. There was no sound other than the gentle rustle of paper. Seymour was reading with maddening slowness, running the tip of his forefinger down the length of each page before moving on to the next.

“Graham,please...”

“Quiet.”

And then, a moment later, Seymour slid a single sheet of paper across the table. Gabriel didn’t dare look at it. He was watching Kim Philby walking across the moor, holding the hand of a child.

“What is it?” he asked at last.

“A sort of after-action report, written in mid-February, after Philby was in Moscow.”

“Is there a name?”

“See for yourself.”

Gabriel looked down at the document before him.

The other woman’s name is Charlotte Bettencourt. While it is true she is a bit of a leftist, she is certainly no agent of Moscow. Recommend no further action...

Gabriel looked up sharply. “My God! We found her!”

“That’s not all we found. Read the postscript.”

Gabriel looked down again.

I am reliably informed Mademoiselle Bettencourt is now several months pregnant. Has Philby no conscience at all?

No, thought Gabriel, he did not.

45

Dartmoor—London

The only computer at Wormwood Cottage with a connection to the outside world was the one on Parish’s desk. Gabriel used it to conduct a perfunctory search of the name Charlotte Bettencourt. He found several dozen, young professionals mainly, including nine in France. None were journalists, and none were of the appropriate age. And when, on a lark, he added the name Kim Philby to the white rectangular box, he received fourteen thousand meaningless results, the Internet equivalent of an invitation to look elsewhere.

Which is precisely what Gabriel did. Not from Wormwood Cottage, but from the secure-communications room at the Israeli Embassy in London. He arrived there in the early evening after a white-knuckle ride from Devon in Nigel Whitcombe’s Ford hatchback and placed a call to Paul Rousseau, chief of the Alpha Group, in Paris. Rousseau, as it turned out, was still at his desk. France was on high alert, with a stream of intelligence indicating an attack by ISIS was imminent. Contritely, Gabriel made his request.

“Bettencourt, Charlotte.”

“Birthdate?” asked Rousseau with a heavy sigh.

“Sometime around 1940.”

“And she was a journalist, you say?”

“Apparently.”