Lucky Sophie, thought Liz, taking in the oak cupboards, the granite tops and the slate floor. The kitchen of the large Edwardian villa seemed enormous and bright, as the sun, low in the sky now, glanced between two tall trees at the bottom of the garden. It was a far cry from Liz’s Kentish Town basement.
She was sipping a glass of wine while Sophie moved back and forth between the stove and a large chopping block -she’d always liked to cook, Liz remembered. An elegant woman came in through the French windows from the garden, holding the hand of a small pyjama-clad boy. Dressed casually in well-cut trousers and a cashmere cardigan, she was still handsome in her mid-sixties. Liz liked her at once. Watching her sitting in the kitchen with her grandson on her knee, she admired how the older woman seemed to manage to be an attentive and devoted grandmother while simultaneously conducting an adult conversation. While Sophie put the little boy to bed, Liz and Hannah sat on the terrace and talked about Israel, which to Liz’s surprise, Hannah seemed to regard with very mixed feelings. Now Liz took another pistachio from the bowl between them and said, ‘Sophie tells me you’ve made a friend here, from the Israeli Embassy.’
‘Yes. Danny Kollek. Have you met him?’
‘No. I don’t think I have,’ said Liz. ‘Where did you meet him?’
‘Quite by chance, really. We got talking in the interval of a play at the Haymarket theatre. He’s very nice. Much nicer than any of the officials I’ve met in Tel Aviv, that’s for sure.’
‘Do you know a lot of them, back in Israel?’
‘Well, not really. Most of those I know are Mossad. They came to talk to me about my husband, Saul – ex-husband I should say – almost as soon as I arrived in Tel Aviv. I expect Sophie told you. Sophie thinks Danny may be Mossad too,’ added Hannah disarmingly.
‘Did he tell you he was?’
‘No, and I don’t believe it. He’s far too nice and we met quite by chance.’
Liz said nothing but she was thinking, I bet that was no chance meeting. She’d checked before she came out and Kollek was at the embassy all right, and he wasn’t on the list Mossad provided of their London-based officers. But what Hannah had described was a classic intelligence officer’s pick-up. He’s probably been asked to keep a discreet eye on her while she’s in London, she thought.
Hannah went on, ‘I’ve told them I don’t want to talk to them anymore.’ She lowered her voice. Why? thought Liz. There was no one to overhear.
‘Saul and I split up, you know. He did business throughout the Middle East, probably still does; computer systems. I couldn’t help them much because I didn’t understand the detail, but they told me that though the systems were innocent enough by themselves, they were capable of helping a country develop sophisticated counter-radar weapons.’
‘Did he deal with the enemies of Israel?’
Hannah shrugged and, looking at Sophie who was now back in the kitchen and seemed preoccupied with her daube, she said, ‘Saul wasn’t very choosy about his customers. He was only interested in making money.’
Liz nodded sympathetically. ‘Is that what Danny Kollek talks to you about?’
Hannah gave a sudden laugh. ‘Goodness, no. Danny’s only interested in music. Even more than in me,’ she added loudly enough for Sophie to hear. ‘Seriously, he’s just a friend. We have lunch, we go to a concert – there’s nothing professional about it at all. If anything, he’s sympathetic to the movement.’
‘The movement?’
‘The peace movement. I got involved almost as soon as I arrived in Israel. Everyone seems to think Israel is full of right-wing hawks, determined to keep the occupied territories. But it’s not that way at all. There’s plenty of dissent there. In fact, I’d say most intelligent Israelis are adamantly opposed to government policy. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t think a negotiated settlement is the only way forward. The Likud people are just nuts.’
‘And your friend Danny thinks that way, too.’
‘Absolutely. But of course his hands are tied. That’s one of the drawbacks, he says, of being at the embassy. He’s not allowed to have an opinion, really. But I can tell he’s on our side.’
‘I see,’ said Liz as politely as she could, reluctant to say that this didn’t seem a very professional way for a diplomat to behave. Could this apparently switched-on woman be so easily taken for a ride?
At this interesting point in the conversation Sophie intervened. ‘Here we go,’ she called from the kitchen, putting a large cast-iron casserole on the table. ‘All I can say, Hannah, is thank heavens you’re not kosher. I had to brown the beef in bacon fat.’
Thinking afterwards about her conversation with Hannah Gold on Sophie’s terrace, Liz concluded that Sophie had been perfectly right about Danny Kollek. To the professional eye, too many things didn’t fit, quite apart from the implausibility of the whole relationship. Charles Wetherby agreed. ‘He must be Mossad,’ he said. ‘But you say he’s not on the list – he’s undeclared to us?’
‘Well, it’s not the first time the Israelis haven’t played by the rules. Presumably his head office have asked him to keep an eye on Mrs Gold while she’s here. But there’s not enough there so far for us to complain.’
Charles looked at her. ‘What’s the matter? What are you thinking? Is this important?’
‘I’m just worried about this peace conference. There’s too much noise around it. Too many odd leads that don’t seem to take us anywhere. I don’t know what it is, but I’m going to keep in touch with Sophie Margolis.’
‘Yes,’ said Charles, turning back to the papers on his desk. ‘Do. And keep me informed.’