LITMIR.BIZ

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Ellis,’ Monica told him.

      ‘We do our best, my lady,’ he told her.

      The truth was that as an ex-paratrooper, he enjoyed working for Miller. During these overnight stops at Stokely, he stayed in the spare bedroom at the Grants’ cottage.

      Olivia was on a high. Miller, on the other hand, felt strangely lifeless, a reaction to his trip, he told himself. They didn’t arrive until one thirty in the morning, and went to bed almost at once, where Miller spent a disturbed night.

      They had a family breakfast on Sunday morning, with Aunt Mary later than usual. She was eighty-two now, whitehaired, but with a healthy glow to her cheeks, and her vagueness was, in a way, quite charming.

      ‘Don’t mind me, you three. Go for a walk, if you like. I always read the Mail on Sunday at this time.’

      Mrs Grant brought it in. ‘There you are, Madam. I’ll clear the table if you’re all finished.’

      Miller was wearing a sweater, jeans and a pair of ankle boots. ‘I feel like a gallop round the paddock. I asked Fergus to saddle Doubtfire.’

      Olivia said, ‘Are you sure, darling? You look tired.’

      ‘Nonsense.’ He was restless and impatient, a nerviness there.

      Monica said, ‘Off you go. Be a good boy. We’ll watch, you can’t complain about that.’

      He hesitated, then forced a smile. ‘Of course not.’

      He went out through the French windows and it was Aunt Mary who put it in perspective. ‘I think it must have been a difficult trip. He looks tired and he’s not himself.’

      ‘Well, you would know,’ Monica said. ‘You’ve known him long enough.’

      They took their time walking down to the paddock and he was already in the saddle when they got there, Fergus standing by the stables, watching.

      Miller cantered around for a while and then started taking the hedge jumps. He was angry with himself for allowing things to get on top of him, realizing now that what had happened in Kosovo had really touched a nerve and he was damned if he was going to allow that to happen.

      He urged Doubtfire over several of the jumps, then swung the plucky little mare round and, on an impulse, urged her towards the rear fence’s forbiddingly tall five-barred gate.

      ‘Good girl,’ he said. ‘We can do it,’ and he pushed her into a gallop.

      His wife cried out, ‘No, Harry, no!’

      But Doubtfire sailed over into the meadow, and just as she caught her breath in relief, Miller galloped a few yards on the other side, swung Doubtfire round and once again tackled the gate.

      Olivia’s voice raised in a scream, ‘No, Harry!’ Monica flung an arm around her shoulders. Miller took the jump perfectly, however, cantered over to Fergus and dismounted. ‘Give her a good rubdown and oats. She’s earned it.’

      Fergus took the reins and said, ‘If you’ll excuse me, Major, but I’ve the right to say after all these years that –’

      ‘I know, Fergus, it was bloody stupid. Just get on with it.’

      He walked towards the two women, and Olivia said, ‘Damn you, Harry Miller, damn you for frightening me like that. It will take some forgiving. I’m going in.’

      She walked away. Monica stood looking at him, then produced a cigarette case from her handbag, offered him one and took one herself. She gave him a light from her Zippo.

      He inhaled with conscious pleasure. ‘We’re not supposed to do this these days.’

      She said, ‘Harry, I’ve known you for forty years, you are my dearly loved brother, but sometimes I feel I don’t know you at all. What you did just now was an act of utter madness.’

      ‘You’re quite right.’

      ‘You used to do things like that a lot when you were in the Army, but for the last four years, working for the Prime Minister, you’ve seemed different. Something’s happened to you, hasn’t it? Kosovo, that trip there?’ She nodded. ‘What was it? Come on, Harry, I know Kosovo is a hell of a place. People were butchered in the thousands there.’

      ‘That was then, this is now, Monica, my love.’ He suddenly gave her the Harry smile and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I’m tired, a bit wound up, that’s all. Now be a good girl, come up to the house and help me with Olivia.’

      And so she went, reluctantly, but she went.

THE KREMLIN

       4

      There was a hint of sleet in the rain falling in Moscow as Max Chekov’s limousine transported him from his hotel to the Kremlin. It was a miserable day, and to be perfectly frank, he’d have preferred to have stayed in Monaco, where one of the best clinics in Europe had been providing him with essential therapy to his seriously damaged left leg. But when you received a call demanding your appearance at the Kremlin from General Ivan Volkov, the personal security adviser to the President of the Russian Federation, you hardly said no.

      The limousine swept past the massive entrance to the Kremlin, and negotiated the side streets and checkpoints until they reached an obscure rear entrance. Chekov got out and mounted a flight of stone steps with some difficulty, making heavy use of the walking stick in his left hand. His approach was obviously under scrutiny, for the door opened just before he reached it.

      A tough-looking young man in the uniform of a lieutenant in the GRU greeted him. ‘Do you require assistance?’

      ‘I’m all right if we stay on the ground floor.’

      ‘We will. Follow me.’

      Chekov stumped after him along a series of incredibly quiet, dull corridors that seemed to stretch into infinity and then his guide opened a door leading to a much more ornate passageway lined with paintings and antiques. At the far end, a burly man in a dark suit, his head shaven, sat outside a door, a machine pistol across his knees. The GRU officer ignored him, opened the door and motioned Chekov inside.

      Chekov moved past him and the door closed behind. The room was fantastic, decorated in a kind of seventeenth-century French style, beautiful paintings everywhere, a superb carpet on the floor, and a marble fireplace, with what at least looked like a real fire. There was a desk, three chairs in front of it and General Ivan Volkov behind it. There was nothing military about him at all. In his sixties with thinning hair, wearing a neat dark blue suit, and conservative tie, he could have been the manager of some bank branch, not one of the most powerful men in the Russian Federation.

      He wore old-fashioned wire spectacles and removed them as he glanced up. ‘My dear Chekov.’ His voice was curiously soft. ‘It’s good to see you on your feet again.’

      ‘Only just, Comrade General.’ Chekov stuck to the old titles still popular with older party members. It was better to be safe than sorry. ‘May I sit down?’

      ‘Of course.’ Chekov settled himself. ‘Your stay in Monaco has been beneficial?’

      ‘I’m better than I was.’ Chekov decided to bite the bullet. ‘May I ask why I’m here, Comrade?’

      ‘The President has expressed an interest in your personal welfare.’

      Such news filled Chekov with a certain foreboding but he forced a smile. ‘I’m naturally touched.’

      ‘Good, you can tell him yourself.’ Volkov glanced at his watch. ‘I anticipate his arrival in approximately two minutes.’

      Chekov waited in some trepidation, and was thrown when a secret door in the panelled

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