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something and put it in a carrier bag with your hat. Then come and join me in a close examination of those big teddy bears at the back of the shop. There, while we’re talking about which one has the most squishiness or will be easiest to get on the plane, we’ll swap bags. Okay so far?”
    She nodded.
    “But I’ll need the hat back,” she said with a glint.
    “I promise,” he said, smiling.
    “After lunch I will leave the bag at the interpreter’s reception desk in the conference hall,” he continued. “You probably haven’t even noticed it, it’s just a table covered in dark gray fabric, with lists and badges on it. Because of security it is always manned. Two lovely girls do it, Irene and Marie-Louise. Simply say you are really worried, that you left the bag somewhere on the ground floor, you have tried the ladies’ room but you think you may have put it on the desk when taking your coat off, prior to going into lunch. Push it, make them look under the table, start looking yourself if need be. But rest assured, it will be there.
    “You pick it up, take it to the ladies’ room, haul the hat out, and in front of the mirror you spend a few moments trying your darnedest to get it on right. There will be other women in there and ideally you will have witnesses. In a perfect world, one of them will be a Russian.
    “You fail, mostly because you are in a hurry as you really don’t want to risk missing the bus that will transport you and the other ladies to the watch factory, someplace I guess you wouldn’t want to miss under any circumstances.” He smiled.
    “For speed, you simply give up and leave the hat in exactly the same place you did yesterday.”
    He stopped, letting it all sink in.
    “Can you do that?”
    Over lunch she thought about him. She’d only met him once before but again he had instilled a sense of adventure into her life.
     
     
     
    While the usual three-course lunch was served two CIA officers somehow managed to sew a tiny microphone into the lining of the crown of her hat. Her husband was told of the plan by the courtly American ambassador to Switzerland who had insisted on dragging him out to the frost-covered garden. If the Russians were so aware, who knew what they had bugged!
    The diplomat was so busy trying to impress someone who might one day be his boss that Jack had no time to warn her off the whole thing.
    She carried out the charade with the hat and eventually it was placed in exactly the same spot as before. This time, when the Russians went into private talks every single word could be heard by the American listeners in a room at the rear of the conference center.
    At last the Americans understood. The Russians were waiting for the right moment to stage a walkout denouncing the West. They hoped this would deflect any criticism about their aid to China and with the UN in session act as a smokescreen for their own activities.
    The Americans decided that the best way to stop this plan was to fold the talks immediately.
    A few weeks later Guy sent her a pale pink smocked dress in Caroline’s size that almost replicated the romper suit they had chosen together.
    When she became First Lady he was encouraged by his immediate boss to keep in touch.
    When he made his twice-yearly visits home on leave Guy would bring her the latest European gossip. They talked about their childhoods. She found it easy to be honest with him about how she felt about her mother and her late father, and he told her how he’d got into the CIA, about how he remembered so little about his parents, and how his grandfather, a wealthy Bostonian with a great deal of old money, had packed him off to a strict school that had a strong military slant.
    “It seems cold and callous but he was only doing his best. As a hardworking widower with no free time, he was sure I would go off the rails without it,” Guy said.
    “Now, when he waves me off to another posting in a foreign embassy I think he regrets