Read A Very British Ending (Catesby Series) for Free Online

Spanish Netherlands? Then, finally realising that no ship was going to appear and aided by undercover Jesuits, Catesby had disappeared forever into the Suffolk countryside. For a year or two, Catesby relished the romanticism of a famous rebel as an ancestor, but then came to realise that Catesby-the-recusant-Catholic was even more reactionary than those he had plotted against. He became ashamed of his adolescent fantasy.
    ‘This lamb,’ said Frances, ‘comes from a flock that grazes on the marshes near Aldeburgh. Dad knows the farmer.’
    Catesby put his fork down. ‘If your father didn’t buy it with his ration book I’m not going to eat it. I won’t eat black market meat.’
    ‘William, meat rationing ended in 1945.’
    ‘I was joking. You never laugh at my jokes.’
    ‘I do when they’re funny.’
    ‘This is delicious – you can taste the samphire from the marshes where they were grazing.’
    ‘Would you like some Algerian red? I found a case left over from the war.’
    ‘Don’t you like the rosé?’
    ‘It is a bit sweet, maybe we should save it for the pud.’
    ‘As I said, I never get anything right.’
    ‘Would you like this casserole poured over your head?’
    ‘Then I hope you would lick it off.’
    ‘Don’t be rude.’
    ‘You look very fetching tonight.’ Catesby had felt pangs of desire ever since he walked in the door. It had been so long.
    ‘How’s your mother?’
    Catesby stared at his wife; then laughed aloud.
    ‘What is so funny, William?’
    ‘You are a master of the passion-killing reply. Sorry, ignore that. My mother is a mystery. I don’t even know how old she is.’
    Catesby knew that his sailor father had met his mother in an Antwerp bar the very day that the Great War had broken out. The Bastins weren’t a particularly poor family, his Belgian grandparents apparently owned the bar, but he had never met them – or any Bastins other than an uncle. The uncle had turned up one day in the 1930s with his Russian émigré wife. They helped the Catesbys find a larger house in north Lowestoft and moved in with them. It was bliss compared to the cramped house on Roman Hill – it even had indoor loos. The aunt by marriage was extremely glamorous and taught Catesby and his sister basic Russian. Ten years later, at the end of the Second World War, the aunt and uncle disappeared as mysteriously as they had appeared. It was a story that caused a lot of frowns and head shaking whenever he had a security vetting – but Catesby and his sister had grown up as skilled linguists. His sister went on to study Slavonic languages at the London School of Economics.
    ‘I’m going to get some red,’ said Frances getting up.
    ‘By the way, Freddie sends her love.’
    Frances smiled bleakly. ‘Send her my love too.’
    Catesby didn’t know how to make things better. Relations between his sister Freddie and his wife had never been good and were getting worse. Maybe Frances knew things about Freddie that she had never shared. Spying was the family business. Frances worked for MI5 and Freddie was a translator at GCHQ.
    Frances got up and came back blowing the dust off a litre bottle of Algerian red. ‘I hope this hasn’t turned into vinegar.’ She poured the wine into Catesby’s glass.
    He sipped. ‘It’s quite good, actually. Was it liberated by your father?’
    ‘I’m not sure.’
    ‘I think it came from Admiral Darlan’s private cellars.’
    ‘We don’t talk about that.’
    The assassination of the pro-Vichy Darlan in Algiers was hush-hush – and Frances’s father had been involved. His father-in-law would never even hint at what had happened. But Catesbysuspected that the British had done the dirty work as a favour to de Gaulle? Spying was her family’s business too.
    ‘It’s a pity,’ said Catesby, ‘that the children aren’t here.’
    ‘I think they need some time to get used to you again.’
    ‘Does that mean…’
    ‘I don’t know what it means.’
    Catesby looked at