That evening, Liz and Martin had supper in his flat in Paris. Neither of them wanted any more excitement after the stress and frantic activity of recent weeks.
They had spent several hours that afternoon at the Santé prison, talking to Amir Khan. Martin had already told him about events in Birmingham – how Malik, his old friend and comrade at the mosque, had tried to blow himself up at a pop concert. Amir had remained silent, clearly shocked. It was as though, for the first time, he’d realised what the extremist views that both he and Malik had held, actually meant. How the logical end of them was the death of people, casually chosen, when they were doing no more than enjoying themselves.
Then Seurat added something else – that at the end, Malik had done his best to kill Tahira too – and Amir’s shock had turned to outrage.
With the news of his former friend’s betrayal, whatever doubts he might have had about his own recent collaboration with the security authorities disappeared in an instant. It was clear that the entire belief system by which Amir had recently lived had now collapsed. He had asked Martin Seurat how anyone could defend a cause which would slaughter the person closest to him in the world. And Martin replied that no one could.
So when Liz had arrived that afternoon, Amir Khan had listened quietly to the joint French and English proposal. He would be released from prison and would stay in France, under the protection of the security authorities there, who would give him a new identity and a place to live. In return he would help them by reporting on extremist Islamist activity. They did not spell it out in detail at that stage, but what Amir was being offered was a job as an agent, to be run by colleagues of Martin Seurat.
As Amir hesitated, trying to understand the implications of what they were saying, Liz added that there was something else she had to suggest. It was no longer safe, she said, for Tahira to live in Birmingham. She might well be suspected of having helped to prevent Malik’s suicide attempt, even if she had not been seen in the park with Liz or leaving in DI Fontana’s car. Tahira was longing to see her brother. Liz told Amir that she’d promised the girl she would arrange for her to come to Paris as soon as possible. But more than that, when Liz had suggested to Tahira that she might like to live in France too if Amir agreed to settle there, she had jumped at the idea. What did he think of that?
To the relief of both Liz and Martin, Amir had liked the idea. In fact he had been delighted by it, and grinned as he shook Liz’s hand when she said goodbye. ‘I hope we meet again – but not in a prison,’ were his parting words.
Liz had been looking forward to relaxing for a few days with Martin in Paris. But now, as she cleared the dinner plates from the table in the small dining alcove overlooking the square, she realised there were unresolved issues even here.
They were both tired. Martin had been closely involved in the planning that had foiled the last attempted hijack of the Aristides, and had flown an hour south to the French base at Toulon as soon as he’d heard that Dave and Captain Guthrie had been taken off the ship as hostages. Though they had been freed without any losses on the French or British side, it had been a close-run thing.
Liz was tired too, but not pleasantly so. She felt on edge. It wasn’t the recent operation or that afternoon’s conversation with Amir that was nagging at her. It was Martin. Well, not the man himself, but what he had come to represent. Since he had asked her to come and live with him in Paris, he had started to pose a threat to the one other love of her life – her job. For Liz, her work wasn’t just important to her; to a large extent it was her.
She sat down again at the table and Martin poured her another glass of Burgundy and offered the plate of cheeses they had carefully chosen that afternoon from Madame Lileau’s little shop around the corner. He was looking at her thoughtfully. He said, ‘You seem tired, ma chérie.’
‘I suppose I am. You must be exhausted too.’
He shook his head. ‘Having you here gives me energy.’
She smiled to acknowledge the compliment, but words were forming in her head. ‘Martin, you know, I’ve been thinking – ’
But he interrupted her, reaching across the table to hold her hand. ‘Let me speak first, if you don’t mind. I have been thinking too. When I asked if you would consider moving to Paris and coming to live with me, I thought it was an offer you couldn’t refuse.’ He smiled wistfully. ‘But that was very selfish of me, I see it now. Love is not always about the other person; it is all too often about one’s self.’
‘You’re the least selfish man I know.’
‘That is very kind of you to say, but sadly untrue. However, a man can make amends,’ he said lightly. ‘And in my case the situation can be recovered. Even an old dog like me can learn a new trick or two. And I have come to realise, my dear Miss Carlyle,’ he said now, gently stroking her hand, ‘that fond as you may be of me, there is another love in your life.’
‘What do you mean?’ she asked. Could he really think she was seeing someone else?
He shook his head. ‘I don’t mean another man. Much as Geoffrey Fane might like to play that role.’ He smiled. ‘I was thinking of your career. Only the proper word, I believe, is vocation. It is not just important to you, Liz, it is part of you. If I kept nagging at you then possibly you would be willing to give it up – we are all sometimes tempted to quit, ours are not the easiest jobs in the world. But that would not only be selfish of me, but very wrong – and I would know, however happy we were together, that I had taken you away from something you hold tremendously dear.’
He let go of her hand and leaned back in his chair, a look of wry amusement on his face. ‘You know, I practised that speech a hundred times, and still it came out different from the way I’d intended.’
‘It came out very well, Martin,’ Liz said, touched by what he had just said. He was not the first man in her life to have understood how important her work was to her – but he was the first to swallow his disappointment, accept the way things had to be for them, and continue to offer her his love and support.
‘Thank you,’ she said, as his arms came around her and she rested her head against his shoulder. She remembered what her friend Elaine, an ex-researcher in the Service turned Hampstead housewife and mother, had once told her: ‘Life is about love and work. If neither’s right, you’re in trouble. If one’s right, you’ll probably be okay. But for a truly fulfilled life, you need them both to be in order.’
Liz could see the truth in that. It was a difficult balance and one she hadn’t so far managed to achieve. Might she be able to with this patient man who, for now at least, was prepared to put her needs ahead of his own? Martin said softly, ‘I do hate having the Channel between us. But thanks to Eurostar I can just about put up with it. I only hope you can as well.’
Liz looked at Martin. ‘Of course I can.’
Then, with a grin, she said, ‘Tell you what: let’s buy each other season tickets for Christmas.’