11

Bret Rensselaer sent for me that morning. I wasn’t there. He sent for me again and continued to send for me until finally I arrived back from my detour to the airport. Bret was in his usual office on the top floor. It was elegantly ­furnished – ­grey carpet, ­glass-­and-­chrome desk and black leather ­Chesterfield – ­in a monochrome scheme that so well suited Bret’s ­hand-­ground carbon steel personality.

Bret was a ­hungry-­looking American in his ­mid-­fifties, with fair hair that was turning white, and a smile that could slice diamonds. Rumours said that he had applied for British citizenship to clear the way for the knighthood he’d set his heart on. Certainly he had never had to pine for the material things of life. His family had owned a couple of small banks which had been absorbed into a bigger banking complex, and that into another, so that now Bret’s shares were worth more money than he needed for his very British understated lifestyle.

‘Sit down, Bernard.’ He always put the accent on the second syllable of my name. Had it not been for that, and the talc he used on his chin and the ­ever-­present fraternity ring, I think I might sometimes have overlooked his American nationality, for his accent was minimal and his suits were Savile Row. ‘You’re late,’ he said. ‘Damned late.’

‘Yes, I am,’ I said.

‘Do I rate an explanation?’

‘I was having this wonderful dream, Bret. I dreamed I was working for this nice man who couldn’t tell the time.’

Bret was reading something on his desk and gave no sign of having heard me. He was wearing a starched white Turnbull and Asser shirt with exaggerated cuffs, monogrammed pocket and gold links. He wore a waistcoat that was unbuttoned and a grey silk ­bow tie. His jacket was hung on a chair that seemed to be there only so that Bret would have somewhere to hang his jacket. Finally he looked up from the very important paper he was reading and said, ‘You probably heard that I’m taking a little of the load off Dicky Cruyer’s shoulders for the time being.’

‘I’ve been away,’ I said.

‘Sure you have,’ he said. He smiled and took off his reading glasses to look at me and then put them on again. They were large, with ­speed-­cop-­style frames, and made him look younger than his ­fifty-­five years. ‘Sure you have.’ So Bret had staked a claim to a chunk of Dicky’s desk. I couldn’t wait to see how Dicky was taking that. Bret said, ‘I just took on this extra work while Dicky went to Mexico. Just because I’m senior to Dicky, that doesn’t mean he’s not in charge of the desk. Okay?’

‘Okay,’ I said. It was pure poetry. Just in case anyone thought Bret was assisting Dicky he was going to precede everything he did by pointing out that he was senior to Dicky. But that was only because he wanted everyone to know that he wasn’t after Dicky’s job. Who could have thought of anything as Byzantine as that except helpful unassuming old Bret Rensselaer.

‘So you talked with this guy Stinnes?’

‘I talked with him.’

‘And?’

I shrugged.

Bret said, ‘Do I have to drag every damned word out of you? What did he say? What do you think?’

‘What he said and what I think are two very different things,’ I said.

‘I spoke with Dicky already. He said Stinnes will come over to us. He’s in a ­dead-­end job and wants to leave his wife anyway. He wants a divorce but is frightened of letting his organization know about it, in case they get mad at him.’

‘That’s what he said.’

‘Does that fit in with what we know about the KGB?’

‘How do I find out what “we” know about the KGB?’

‘OK, smart ass. Does it fit in with what you know about them?’

‘Everything depends upon what his personal dossier says. If Stinnes has been sleeping ­around – ­with other men’s wives, for ­instance – ­and the divorce is the result of that . . . then maybe it would blow up into trouble for him.’

‘And what would happen to him?’

‘Being stationed outside Russia is considered a privilege for any Russian national. For instance, Army regulations prevent any Jew, of any rank, serving anywhere but in the republics. Even Latvians, Lithuanians, Estonians, Crimean Tartars and people from the western Ukraine are given special surveillance when serving in foreign posts, even in communist countries such as the DDR or Poland.’

‘But Stinnes is not in any of those categories?’

‘His marriage to the German girl is unusual. Not many Russians marry foreigners. They know only too well that it will make them into ­second-­class citizens. Stinnes is an exception, and it’s worth noting the confidence he showed in doing it. His use of a German name is also curious. It made me wonder at first if he had come from one of the German communities.’

‘Do German communities still exist in Russia? I thought Stalin liquidated them back in the forties.’ He swung his chair round and got to his feet so that he could look out of the window. Bret Rensselaer was a peripatetic man who could not think unless his body was in motion. Now he hunched his shoulders like a prize fighter and swayed as if avoiding blows. Sometimes he raised his foot to bend the knee that was said to have troubled him since he was a teenage US Navy volunteer in the final months of the Pacific war. But he never complained of his knee. And it didn’t give him enough trouble to interfere with his skiing holidays.

‘The big German communities on the Volga were wiped out by executions and deportations back in 1941. But there are still Germans scattered across Russia from one end to the other.’ His back was still turned to me but I was used to him and his curious mannerisms so I continued to talk. ‘Many German communities are established in Siberia and the Arctic regions. Most big cities in the USSR have a German minority, but they keep a low profile, of course.’

He turned to face me. ‘How can you be sure that Stinnes is not from one of those German communities?’ He tugged at the ends of the grey silk ­bow tie to make sure it was still neat and tidy.

‘Because he is stationed in East Germany. The Army and the KGB have an inflexible rule that no one of German extraction serves with Army units in Germany.’

‘So if Stinnes applies for a divorce the chances are that he’ll be sent to work in Russia?’

‘And probably to some remote “new town” in Central Asia. It wouldn’t be the sort of posting he’d want.’

‘No matter how he beefs about Berlin. Right.’ This thought cheered him up. ‘So that makes Stinnes a good prospect for our offer.’

‘Whatever you say, Bret,’ I told him.

‘You’re a miserable critter, Bernard.’ Now he took his reading glasses off and put them on the desk while he had a good look at me from head to toe.

‘Forget enrolling Stinnes,’ I said. ‘The chances are it will never happen.’

‘You’re not saying we should drop the whole business?’

‘I’m not saying you should drop it. If you and Dicky have nothing better to do, go ahead. There are lots of ­other – ­even less ­promising – ­projects that the Department are putting time and money into. Furthermore I’d say it would be good for Dicky to get some practical experience at the sharp end of the business.’

‘Is that gibe intended for me too?’

‘No reason why you shouldn’t get into the act. You’ve never seen a Russian close to, except over the ­smoked-­salmon sandwiches at Embassy tea parties,’ I said. ‘Stinnes is a real pro. You’ll enjoy talking to him.’

Bret didn’t like comments on his lack of field experience any more than any of the others did, but he kept his anger in check. He sat down behind his desk and swung his glasses for a moment. Then he said, ‘We’ll leave that for the time being because there’s some routine stuff I have to go through with you.’ I said nothing. ‘It’s routine stuff about your wife. I know you’ve been asked all this before, Bernard, but I have to have it from you.’

‘I understand,’ I said.

‘I wish I was sure you did,’ said Bret. He slumped down into his chair, picked up his phone but before using it said to me, ‘Frank Harrington is in town. I think it might be a good idea to have him sit in on this one. You’ve no objection, I take it?’

‘Frank Harrington?’

‘He’s very much involved with all this. And Frank’s very fond of you, Bernard. I guess I don’t have to tell you that.’

‘Yes, I know he is.’

‘You’re a kind of surrogate son for him.’ He toyed with the phone.

‘Frank has a son,’ I pointed out.

‘An airline pilot?’ said Bret scornfully, as if that career would automatically preclude him from such paternity. He pushed a button on the phone and said, ‘Ask Mr Harrington to step in.’ While we were waiting for Frank to arrive he picked up a piece of paper. I could see it was a single page from his ­loose-­leaf notebook. He turned it over, made sure there were no more of his tiny handwritten notes on the back of it, and then placed it on a pile of such pages under a glass paperweight. Bret was methodical. He ran his forefinger down the next page of notes and was still reading them when Frank came in.

Frank Harrington was the head of the Berlin Field Unit, the job my father had held long long ago. He was a thin, bony ­sixty-­year-­old, dressed in a smooth tweed ­three-­piece suit and highly polished Oxford shoes. Seen on the street he might have been mistaken for the Colonel of a rather smart infantry regiment, and sometimes I had the feeling that Frank cultivated this resemblance. Yet, despite the pale but ­weather-­beaten face, the ­blunt-­ended stubble moustache and the handkerchief tucked into his cuff, Frank had never been in the Army except on short detachments. He’d come into the Department largely on the strength of his brilliant academic record; Literae Humaniores was said to demand accurate speech, accurate thought and a keen and critical intellect. Unfortunately ‘Greats’ provides no inkling of the modern world and no clue to the mysteries of ­present-­day politics or economics. And such classical studies could warp a young man’s grasp of modern languages, so that even now Frank’s spoken German had the stilted formality of a kaiserliche proclamation.

Without a word of greeting Bret pointed a finger at the black leather Chesterfield. Frank smiled at me and sat down. We were both used to Bret’s American style of office procedure.

‘As I said, this is just a recap, Bernard, so let’s get it over and done with,’ said Bret.

‘That suits me,’ I said. Frank took his pipe from his pocket, fondled it and then blew through it loudly. When Bret glanced at him, Frank smiled apologetically.

‘Obviously . . .’ Bret looked at me to see how I reacted to his question, ‘. . . you never suspected your wife of working for the KGB prior to your mission to East Berlin.’

‘That’s correct,’ I said. I looked at Frank. He had brought a yellow oilskin tobacco pouch on to his knee and was rummaging through it to fill his pipe. He didn’t look up.

‘Even if we go back years and years?’ said Bret.

‘Especially if we go back years and years,’ I said. ‘She was my wife. I was in love with her.’

‘No suspicions. None at all?’

‘She’d been cleared by the Department. She’d been cleared by Internal Security. She had been vetted regularly . . .’

‘Touché,’ said Bret. Frank Harrington nodded to no one in particular but didn’t smile.

‘If you’re making notes,’ I told Bret, ‘make a note of that. My failure was no greater than the Department’s failure.’

Bret shook his head. ‘Don’t be stupid, Bernard. She was your wife. You brought her to me and suggested that I gave her a job. You were married to her for twelve years. She’s the mother of your children. How can you compare your failure to know what she truly was with ours?’

‘But finally I did know,’ I said. ‘If I hadn’t flushed her out she’d still be working here, and still be passing your secrets back to Moscow.’

‘Our secrets,’ said Bret Rensselaer. ‘Let’s rather say our secrets, unless you are thinking of leaving us too.’

I said, ‘That’s a bloody offensive thing to say, Bret.’

‘Then I withdraw it,’ said Bret. ‘I’m not trying to make life more difficult for you, Bernard, really I’m not.’ He moved his small pages about on the desk. ‘You didn’t ever hear any phone conversations, or find correspondence which, in the light of what we know now, has a bearing on your wife’s defection?’

‘Do you think I wouldn’t have said so? You must have read the transcript of my formal interview. It’s all there.’

‘I know it is, Bernard, and I’ve already apologized for going through all this once more. But that interview was for Internal Security. This is to go on your report.’ Each year a report on every member of the staff was filed to the Personnel Department by his or her immediate superior. The fact that Bret was completing mine this year was just another sign of the way he was edging into Dicky Cruyer’s department.

‘To go on my report?’

‘Well, you didn’t imagine we’d be able to overlook your wife’s defection, did you? I’m supposed to report on your . . .’ a glance down at his notes, ‘. . . judgement, political sense, power of analysis and foresight. Almost every report has some sort of mention of an employee’s wife, Bernard. There is nothing special about that. The whole British Civil Service has exactly the same system of reports, so don’t get paranoid.’

Frank finished filling his pipe. He leaned back and said, ‘The Department looks after its own, Bernard. I don’t have to tell you that.’ He still hadn’t lit his pipe, but he put it into his mouth and chewed at the stem of it.

I said, ‘I don’t think I know what you’re talking about, Frank.’

Frank Harrington had spent a long time in the Department, and this gave him certain privileges, so that now he didn’t defer to Bret Rensselaer despite Bret’s senior ranking. ‘I’m trying to explain to you that Bret and I want this to come out well for you, Bernard.’

‘Thanks, Frank,’ I said, without much warmth.

‘But it’s got to look right on paper too,’ said Bret. He stood up, put his hands in his pockets and jingled his small change.

‘And how does it look on paper now?’ I said. ‘Without you and Frank putting all your efforts into making it come out well for me.’

Bret looked at Frank with a pained expression in his eyes. He was practising that look, so that he could turn it on me if I continued to be insubordinate. Bret was standing by the window. He looked at the view across the park and without turning round said, ‘The Department’s got a lot of enemies, Bernard. Not only certain socialist Members of Parliament. The Palace of Westminster has plenty of publicity hounds who’d love to get hold of something like this so they could pontificate on “Panorama”, get a few clips on TV news and be interviewed on “Newsnight”. And there are many of our colleagues in Whitehall who always enjoy the sight of us wriggling under the microscope.’

‘What is it we’re trying to hide, Bret?’ I asked.

Bret rounded on me angrily. ‘For Christ’s sake . . .’ He went across the room, picked up his jacket and draped it over his arm. ‘Talk to him, Frank,’ he said. ‘I’m stepping outside for a moment. See if you can talk some sense into the man, will you?’

Frank said nothing. He held the unlit pipe in his teeth for a moment before taking it from his mouth and staring at the tobacco. It was something to do while Bret Rensselaer went out and closed the door. Even then Frank took his time before saying, ‘We’ve known each other a long time.’

‘That’s right,’ I said.

‘Berlin: 1945. You were just beginning to walk. You were living at the top of Frau Hennig’s house. Your father was one of the first officers to get his family out to occupied Germany. I was touched by that, Bernard. So many of the other chaps preferred to be away from their families. They had the plush life of the conqueror. Big apartments, servants, booze, ­women – ­everything was available for a few cigarettes or a box of rations. But your father was an exception, Bernard. He wanted you and your mother there with him, and he moved heaven and hell to get you over there. I liked him for that, Bernard. And for much more.’

‘What is it you want to tell me, Frank?’

‘This business with your wife was a shock. It was a shock for you, and a shock for me. The whole Department was caught napping, Bernard, and they are still smarting from the blow.’

‘And blaming me? So that’s it?’

‘No one’s blaming you, Bernard. As you told Bret just now, you’re the one who tipped us off. No one can blame you.’

‘But . . . Can I hear a “but” coming?’

Frank fiddled with his pipe. ‘Let’s talk about this chap Stinnes,’ he said. ‘He was the officer who arrested you in East Berlin at the time of your wife’s defection?’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘And he was the interrogation officer too?’

‘I’ve been through all that with you, Frank,’ I said. ‘There was no proper interrogation. He’d had orders from Moscow to wait for Fiona to arrive.’

‘Yes, I remember,’ said Frank. ‘The point I’m making is that Stinnes is a senior officer with the KGB’s Berlin office.’

‘No doubt about that,’ I agreed.

‘Your wife is now working for the KGB in that same office?’

‘The current guess is that she’s in charge of it,’ I said.

‘And Stinnes is certain to be one of her senior staff members, wouldn’t you say?’

‘Of course.’

‘So Stinnes is the one person who knows about your wife’s defection and her present occupation. It’s even possible that he was concerned with her debriefing.’

‘Don’t keep going round and round in circles, Frank. Tell me what you’re trying to say.’

Frank brandished the pipe at me and closed his eyes while he formulated his response. It was probably a mannerism that dated all the way back to his time at Oxford. ‘This chap Stinnes knows all about your wife’s defection and subsequent employment and he interrogated you. Since that time there has been a departmental alert for him. When he’s located in Mexico City why does Dicky ­Cruyer – ­the German Stations Controller, no ­less – ­go out there to look him over?’

‘We both know the answer to that one, Frank. Dicky loves free trips to anywhere. And this one got him out of the way while Bret chiselled a piece out of Dicky’s little empire.’

‘Very well,’ said Frank, in a way that made it clear that he didn’t agree with my interpretation of those events. ‘So why send you?’

‘Because I work with Dicky. With both of us out of the way Bret had a better excuse for “taking over some of the workload”.’ I imitated Bret’s voice.

‘You’re barking up the wrong tree,’ said Frank. ‘They want to enrol Stinnes. That was a decision of the steering committee, and it’s been given urgent priority. They want Stinnes over here, spilling the beans to a debriefing panel.’

‘About Fiona?’

‘Yes, about your wife,’ said Frank. I noticed he always said ‘your wife’ since her defection. He couldn’t bring himself to use her name any more. ‘And about you.’

‘And about me?’

‘How long before the penny drops, Bernard? How long is it going to take you to understand that you must remain a suspect until you are cleared by ­first-­class corroborative evidence?’

‘Wait a minute, Frank. Remember me? The one who tipped off the Department about Fiona’s activities.’

‘But she’d made mistakes, Bernard. If you hadn’t raised the alarm, someone else would have done so sooner or later. So why not have you tell the Department about her? And have it done the way Moscow Centre wanted it done?’

I thought about it for a moment. ‘It doesn’t hold water, Frank.’

‘The way you did it gave her a chance to escape. She got away, Bernard. You sounded the alarm but don’t forget that in the event she had time enough to make her escape.’

‘There were a few sighs of relief at that, Frank. Some people around here would have done anything to avoid all the publicity of another spy trial. And putting Fiona on trial would have blown a hole in the Department.’

‘Anyone heaving such sighs of relief is a bloody fool,’ said Frank. ‘She’s taken a pot full of gold with her. No secret papers, as far as we know, but her experience here will be worth a lot to them. You know that.’

‘And people are saying that I deliberately arranged her escape?’ I was indignant and incredulous.

Frank could see how furious I was and hastily he said, ‘No one is accusing you of anything, but we must examine every possibility. Every possibility. That’s our job, Bernard. If your wife was due to go into the bag anyway, why not arrange for you to tell us? In that way the KGB lose one highly placed agent but have another in position in the same office. And the second agent’s credentials are ­gilt-­edged; didn’t he even turn in his own wife?’

‘Is that why they want to enrol Stinnes?’

‘I thought you’d understand that right from the start. Bringing Stinnes in for interrogation is the one way that you can prove that everything went the way you say it went.’

‘And if I don’t bring him in?’

Frank tapped the bowl of his pipe against his thumbnail. ‘You’re not doing yourself any good by saying that Stinnes can’t be enrolled. Surely you see that.’

‘I’m just saying what I believe.’

‘Well, damn it, Bernard, stop saying what you believe. Or the Department will think you don’t want us to get our hands on Stinnes.’

‘The Department can think what the hell it likes,’ I said.

‘That’s foolish talk, Bernard. Stinnes would be a plum defector for us. But the real reason that the Department is spending all this time and money is because they think so highly of you. It’s principally because they want to keep you that they are pushing the Stinnes enrolment.’

Frank had the diplomatic touch, but it didn’t change the underlying facts. ‘It makes me bloody angry, Frank.’

‘Don’t be childish,’ said Frank. ‘No one really suspects you. It’s just a formality. They haven’t even put you on a restricted list for secret information. So much of the difficulty arises from the way that you and Fiona had such a happy marriage, that’s the absurd thing about it. One only had to see you together to know that you were both in love. Happy marriage; promising career; delightful children. If you’d had constant arguments and separations, it would be easier to see you as the wronged ­party – ­and politically uninvolved.’

‘And if we don’t enrol Stinnes? What then, if we don’t enrol him?’

‘It will be difficult to keep you in Operations if we don’t enrol Stinnes.’

‘And I know what that implies.’ I remembered a few employees whom Internal Security considered unsuitable for employment in Operations. It was chilling to remember those people who’d had their security ratings downgraded in ­mid-­career. The periodic routine checks were usually the cause. That’s what turned up the discreet homosexuals who weekended with young Spanish waiters, and lesbians sharing apartments with ladies who turned out not to be their cousins. And there were younger people who’d conveniently forgotten being members of international friendship societies while students. Societies which had the words ‘freedom’, ‘peace’ and ‘life’ in their articles so that anyone who opposed them would be associated with incarceration, war and death. Or had joined other such ­innocuous-­sounding gatherings, which locate themselves conveniently near universities and provide coffee and buns and idealistic talk from respectably dressed foreign visitors. I knew that such downgraded rejects found themselves working the SIS end of an embassy in Central Africa or checking Aeroflot cargo manifests at London Airport.

‘I wouldn’t worry about having to leave Operations,’ said Frank. ‘You’ll get Stinnes. Now you understand what’s involved, you’ll get him. I’m confident of that, Bernard.’

There seemed to be nothing more to say. But as I got up from my chair Frank said, ‘I had a word with the ­D-­G last night. I was having drinks at his place and a number of things came into the conversation . . .’

‘Yes?’

‘We’re all concerned about you and the problem of looking after the children, Bernard.’

‘The only problem is money,’ I said sharply.

‘We all know that, Bernard. It’s money I’m talking about. The ­D-­G has looked into the possibility of giving you a special allowance. The diplomatic service has something called “Accountable Indirect Representational Supplement”. Only a bureaucrat could think up a name like that, eh? It reimburses the cost of a nanny, so that children are taken care of while diplomats and wives attend social functions. Diplomats also have “Boarding School Allowance”. I’m not sure how much that would come to, but it would probably ease your financial situation somewhat. It might take a bit of time to come through; that’s the only snag.’

‘I’m not sending the children to boarding school.’

‘Relax, Bernard. You’re too damned prickly these days. No one is going to come snooping round you to find out what kind of school your children are attending. The ­D-­G simply wants to find a way to help. He wants a formula that’s already acceptable. An ex gratia payment would not be the way he’d want to do it. If anyone discovered an ex gratia payment going directly to an employee, it could blow up into a scandal.’

‘I’m grateful, Frank.’

‘Everyone is sympathetic, Bernard.’ He put his tobacco pouch in his pocket. His pipe was still unlit. ‘And, by the way, Stinnes is back in Berlin. He’s been in the Western Sector to visit your friends the Volkmanns . . . Mrs Volkmann, in particular. I thought you’d like to know that.’

Frank Harrington had had an affair with Zena Volkmann and there was bad feeling between him and Werner that dated from long before. I wondered if Frank was telling me about Stinnes as some sort of reproach to Werner, who’d not reported it. ‘Yes, I’ll follow that up, Frank. I will have to go to Berlin. It’s just a matter of fitting it in.’

I left Frank to tell Bret that he’d done what was wanted. He’d drawn a diagram so simple that even I could understand it. Then he’d written detailed captions under all the component parts.

I went to my office and sent for a young probationer named Julian MacKenzie. ‘Well?’ I said.

‘No, the nurses at St Mary Abbots don’t wear the uniform you described and they don’t change shifts at eight ­forty-­five. And there is no coloured woman, of any age, known to the residents of the block opposite your house.’

‘That was very quick, MacKenzie.’

‘I thought it was pretty good myself, boss.’ MacKenzie was an impertinent little sod who’d come down from Cambridge with an honours in modern languages, got the A1 mark that the Civil Service Selection Board usually reserve for friends and relations, and had been a probationer with the Department for a few months. It was a record of achievement made even more remarkable by the fact that MacKenzie, despite his Scottish name, had a strong Birmingham accent. His ambition was such that he would work hard and long, and never ask questions nor expect me to give him signed authorizations for each little job. Also his insubordinate attitude to all and sundry amused me.

‘I’d really like to get into fieldwork. How can I start on that? Any hints and tips, boss?’ This had now become a standard inquiry.

‘Yes, comb your hair now and again, change your shirt every day and introduce an obsequious note into your social exchanges with the senior staff.’

‘I’m not joking.’

‘Neither am I,’ I assured him. ‘But, while you’re here, what’s the last name of that girl Gloria. That typist who used to work for Mr Rensselaer?’

‘The gorgeous blonde job with the big knockers?’

‘You have such a delicate way of phrasing everything, MacKenzie. Yes, that’s who I mean. I haven’t seen her lately. Where is she working now?’

‘Her name’s Kent, Gloria Kent. Her father is a dentist. She’s very keen on ballroom dancing and water skiing. But she’s not a typist, she’s a Grade 9 executive officer. She’s hoping to fiddle one of those departmental grants to go to university. And what’s more she speaks fluent Hungarian.’ He grinned. ‘Ambition drives us all. I’d say Miss Kent is hankering after a career in the service, wouldn’t you?’

‘You’re a mine of information, MacKenzie. Is her father Hungarian?’

‘You guessed. And she lives with her parents, miles out in the sticks. No joy for you there, I’m afraid.’

‘You’re an impertinent little sod, MacKenzie.’

‘Yes, I know, sir. You told me that the other day. She’s working in Registry at present, the poor little thing. It’s only my daily trips down there to see her among the filing cabinets that keeps her sane.’

‘Registry, eh?’ It was the most unpopular job in the Department and nearly ­one-­third of all the staff were employed there. The theory was that the computer in the Data Centre would gradually replace the thousands of dusty files, and Registry would eventually disappear. But, true to the rules of all bureaucracy, the staff at the Data Centre grew and grew but the staff in Registry did not decrease.

‘She’d like working up here with you, sir. I know she’d give anything for a job with any member of the Operations staff.’

‘Anything?’

‘Almost anything, sir,’ said MacKenzie. He winked. ‘According to what I hear.’

I phoned the old dragon who ran Registry and told her I wanted Miss Kent to work for me for a few days. When she came up to the office I showed her the great pile of papers due for filing. They’d been stacking up in the cupboard for months, and my own secretary was pleased to see the task taken off her hands.

Gloria Kent was tall. She was slim and ­long-­legged and about twenty years old. Her hair was the colour of pale straw. It was wavy but loose enough to fall across her forehead, short but long enough to touch the roll-neck of her ­dark-­brown sweater. She had large brown eyes and long lashes and a wide mouth. If Botticelli had painted the box top for a Barbie doll the picture would have looked like Gloria Kent. And yet she was not ­doll-­like. There was nothing diminutive about her. And she didn’t bow her head, the way so many tall women do to accommodate themselves to the egos of shorter men they find around them. And it was her ­straight-­backed ­posture – ­for her use of ­make-­up was ­minimal – ­that gave her the appearance of a chorus girl rather than a civil servant.

She’d been sorting out the files for about an hour when she said, ‘Will I be going back to work in Registry?’

‘It’s nothing to do with me, Miss Kent,’ I said. ‘We’re both working for Mr Cruyer. He makes all the decisions.’

‘He’s the Controller of German Stations,’ she said, giving Dicky his official title. ‘So that’s my department, is it?’

‘The German Desk, we usually call it,’ I said. ‘Everything’s in a turmoil up here at present, I’m afraid.’

‘I know. I was working for Mr Rensselaer. But that only lasted ten days. Then his Economics Intelligence Committee had no more work for me. I did odd bits of typing for people on the top floor, then I was sent down to Registry.’

‘And you don’t like Registry?’

‘No one likes it. There’s no daylight and the fluorescent lighting makes me so tired. And you get so dirty handling those files all day. You should see my hands when I go home at night. When I get home I can’t wait to strip right off and have a bath.’

I took a deep breath and said, ‘You won’t get so dirty up here, I hope.’

‘It’s a treat to see the daylight, Mr Samson.’

‘No one round here calls me anything but Bernard,’ I said. ‘So it might be easier if you did the same.’

‘And I’m Gloria,’ she said.

‘Yes, I know,’ I said. ‘And by the way, Gloria, Mr Cruyer always likes to meet his staff socially. Every now and again he has a few members of the staff along to his house for an informal dinner and a chat.’

‘Well, I think that’s very nice,’ said Gloria. She smoothed her skirt over her hips.

‘It is,’ I said. ‘We all appreciate it. And the fact is that he has one of these dinners on Thursday. And he made a special point of saying that he’d like you to be there.’

‘Thursday. That’s rather short notice,’ she said. She moved her head to let her hair swing and touched it as if already calculating when to go to the hairdresser’s.

‘If you have something more important to do, I know he’ll understand.’

‘It would sound terrible, though, wouldn’t it?’

‘No, it wouldn’t sound terrible. I’d explain to him that you had some other appointment that you couldn’t give up.’

‘I’d better come,’ she said. ‘I’m sure I can rearrange things. Otherwise . . .’ she smiled, ‘I might spend the rest of my life in Registry.’

‘He’d like us there at seven ­forty-­five, for drinks. They sit down to eat at eight thirty. If you live too far away, I’m sure Mrs Cruyer will be happy to let you have a room to change. Come to that,’ I said, ‘you could have a drink at my house and change there. Then I could drive you over. His house is rather difficult to find.’

I saw a look of doubt come into her face. I feared for a moment that I’d overplayed my hand but I busied myself with my work and said no more.

Dicky’s dinner party was very successful. Daphne had worked for three days preparing the meal, and I realized that she’d not invited me for lunch the previous Sunday because she had been trying out on Dicky the same cucumber soup recipe, and the same wild rice, and the same gooseberry fool that she served for the dinner party. Only the boiled salmon was an experiment; its head fell on the kitchen floor as it was coming out of the fish kettle.

There were eight of us. If Gloria Kent had expected it to be a gathering of departmental staff she gave no sign of disappointment at meeting the Cruyers’ new neighbours and a couple named Stephens, the wife being Liz Stephens who was Daphne’s partner in the stripping business. Dicky couldn’t resist his joke about Daphne making money from stripping, although it was clear that only Glor­ia had not been told it before. Gloria laughed.

The conversation at table was confined to the usual London ­dinner-­party small talk: listing foreign ski resorts, local restaurants, schools and cars in descending order of desirability. Then there was talk about the furniture stripping. The first attempt had gone badly. No one had told them not to try it with bentwood furniture and the first lot of chairs had disintegrated in the soda bath. The two women were able to laugh about it but their husbands exchanged looks of mutual resignation.

The neighbours from across the ­road – ­whose schoolgirl babysitter had to be home very ­early – ­left after the gooseberry fool. The Stephenses departed soon afterwards after just one hurried cup of coffee. This left the four of us sitting in the front room. Dicky had the ­hi-­fi playing Chopin very quietly. Gloria asked Daphne if she could help with the washing up and, being told no, admired the primitive painting of Adam and Eve that was hanging over the fireplace. Daphne had ‘discovered’ it in a flea market in Amsterdam. She was always pleased when someone admired it.

‘A damn fine meal, darling,’ said Dicky as his wife brought the second pot of coffee and ­chocolate-­covered ­after-­dinner mints. His voice was a fruity imitation of Silas Gaunt, one of the ­old-­timers of the Department. He pushed his cup forward for a refill.

Daphne glanced at him, smiled nervously and poured the hot coffee on to the polished table. I had the feeling that these dinners were nightmares for Daphne. She had been a pushy, ­self-­confident career girl when Dicky married her, but she knew her limitations as a cook and she knew how critical Dicky (one-time President of Oxford University Wine and Food Society) Cruyer could be when he was playing host to people he worked with. Sometimes she seemed physically frightened of Dicky and I knew enough about his sudden fits of bad temper to sympathize.

After a competition to see who could use the most Kleenex tissues to clean up the spilled ­coffee – ­which Daphne won by using a large handful of them to conceal and smuggle out of the room a box of very wet ­cigars – ­Gloria said, ‘You have such a beautiful house, Mrs Cruyer.’

‘Daphne. Daphne, for God’s sake. It’s a pigsty,’ said Daphne with modest ­self-­confidence. ‘Sometimes it gets me down.’

I looked round to see any sign of the furniture that Daphne had stored in there but it had all been removed. Poor Daphne. Their cars were parked in the street. I suppose all the furniture was now stacked in the garage.

‘And lovely to see you both,’ said Dicky, passing coffee to Gloria. Dicky put a lot of meaning into the word ‘both’; it was almost carnal. She smiled nervously at Dicky and then looked at me. ‘Yes,’ said Dicky, passing a cup of coffee to me, ‘Bernard has talked about you so much.’

‘When?’ said Gloria. She was no fool. She guessed immediately what was behind Dicky’s remarks.

‘When we were in Mexico,’ said Dicky.

‘Mexico City,’ I said.

‘They call it Mexico,’ said Dicky.

‘I know,’ said Gloria, as if her mind was on other things. ‘My mother and father went there two years ago, on a package holiday. They brought back a lot of home movies. That’s my father’s hobby. It looked awful.’ She turned to me and smiled; sweet smile but cold eyes. ‘I didn’t know you were talking about me when you were in Mexico, Bernard,’ she said.

I drank some of my coffee.

Gloria turned her attention to Daphne. ‘As long as I don’t have to go back to working in Registry, Mrs Cruyer,’ she said. ‘It’s absolute hell.’ Daphne nodded. It was brilliant of her to say it to Daphne. Had she said it to Dicky or to me, I think Daphne would have made sure Gloria went back into Registry the following morning. ‘Couldn’t you ask your husband to let me work somewhere else?’

Daphne looked uncertain. She said, ‘I’m sure he’ll do what he can, Gloria. Won’t you, Dicky?’

‘Of course I will,’ said Dicky. ‘She can work upstairs. There’s always extra work to do and I’ve had to ask Bret Rensselaer to share his secretary with one of the Deputy Desk people. Gloria could help my secretary and Bernard’s secretary and do the occasional job for Bret.’

So Dicky was fighting back. Good old Dicky. Share his secretary; that should make Bret retire to a neutral corner and shake the tears from his eyes.

‘That would be wonderful, Mr Cruyer,’ said Gloria, but she smiled at Daphne. It was becoming clear to me that Gloria had a great career ahead of her. What was that joke about Hungarians going into a revolving door behind you and coming out ahead of you.

‘We’re all one happy family in Dicky’s department,’ I said.

Dicky smiled at me scornfully.

‘But we’d better be moving along,’ I said. And to meet Dicky’s gaze I added, ‘Gloria has left her clothes at my place.’

‘Oh, doesn’t that sound awful,’ said Gloria. ‘Bernard let me change at his house. My parents live too far away for me to go home to change.’

When we’d said our goodnights and were in my old Ford, Gloria said, ‘What nice people they are.’

‘Yes,’ I said.

‘Mr Cruyer is a very interesting man,’ she said.

‘Do you think so?’

‘Don’t you?’ she said, as if worried that she’d said the wrong thing.

‘Very interesting,’ I said. ‘But I was surprised you got on to that so quickly.’

‘He was at Balliol,’ she said wistfully. ‘All the very brightest people go to Balliol.’

‘That’s true,’ I said.

‘Where did you go to, Bernard?’

‘You can call me Mr Samson if you like,’ I said. ‘I didn’t go anywhere. I left school when I was sixteen and started work.’

‘Not for the Department?’

‘Sort of,’ I said.

‘You can’t take the Civil Service exam at sixteen.’

‘It all happened in a foreign country,’ I said. ‘My father was the Berlin Resident. I grew up in Berlin. I speak Berlin German like a native. I know the town. It was natural that I should start working for the Department. The paperwork was all done afterwards. I never took the selection board.’ It sounded more defensive than I had intended it should.

‘I got five A levels,’ said Gloria proudly. Gone was the femme fatale ; all of a sudden she was the ­sixth-­form schoolgirl running home with her school report.

‘Here we are,’ I said. ‘Do you want to come inside and have a drink?’

To my surprise she tilted her head back until it was on my shoulder. I could smell her perfume and the warmth of her body. She said, ‘I don’t want this evening to end.’

‘We’ll keep it going as long as possible,’ I said. ‘Come and have a drink.’

She smiled lazily. She hadn’t had much wine or I might have suspected that she was drunk. She put her hand on my arm and turned her face to me. I kissed her on the forehead and opened the door. ‘Come along, then.’ She giggled and got out of the car. As she slid from the seat her skirt rode up to expose a lot of leg. She tugged at it and smiled modestly.

Once inside the house she sat down on the sofa and again said what a wonderful evening it had been. ‘Brandy?’ I said. ‘Liqueur? Scotch and soda?’

‘A very tiny brandy,’ she said. ‘But I’ll miss my last train if we don’t go very soon.’ I poured two huge Martell brandies and sat down next to her.

‘Will your parents worry?’ I gave her a decorous kiss on the cheek. ‘If you miss your train, would they really worry?’

‘I’m a big girl now,’ she said.

‘You are indeed, Gloria,’ I said admiringly. ‘You’re a wonderful girl.’ I put my arm round her and pulled her close. She was soft and warm and big. She was just what I wanted.

‘What were you saying about me when you were in Mexico City?’ Her voice was dreamy and softened by the way she was nibbling my ear.

‘Mexico. You heard what Dicky said. They always call it Mexico.’

She murmured, ‘Did you bet Dicky Cruyer that you’d get me into bed?’

‘Of course not,’ I said.

‘You said you’d already had me in bed? Ummm?’

‘Good Lord, no,’ I said. ‘We were talking about staffing. We weren’t talking about any one member of the staff in particular. We were talking about the office . . . the workload.’

She nuzzled her face against my ear. ‘You’re a terrible liar, Bernard. Did anyone ever tell you that? You are a completely hopeless liar. How did you ever survive as a secret agent?’ She was kissing my cheek now. As I hugged her she murmured, ‘Admit it, you told Dicky we were lovers.’ As she said it she turned her head to offer me her lips and we kissed. When she broke away she purred, ‘You did, didn’t you?’

‘I might have said something that gave him the wrong impression,’ I admitted. ‘You can see what Dicky’s like.’

She kissed me again. ‘I must go home,’ she said.

‘Must you?’

‘I must. My parents might worry.’

‘You’re a big girl now,’ I reminded her. But she pushed me away and got to her feet. ‘Perhaps some other time,’ she said. She was alert now, and I could see she had decided to leave. ‘I’ll go upstairs and get my bag. But you . . .’ she took me by the hand and pulled me to the front door, ‘you will go out and start the car and take me to the station.’

When I showed little inclination to do this, she marched upstairs to get the clothes she’d left there and, over her shoulder, said, ‘If I miss my train at Waterloo you’ll have to drive me all the way to Epsom, Mr Samson. And that’s a miserable drive at this time of night. And my parents always wait up to see who I’ve been with. I hate to make them angry.’

‘Okay, Gloria,’ I said. ‘You talked me round.’ I didn’t relish facing the wrath of a Hungarian dentist in the small hours of the morning.

I took her to Waterloo Station in time to catch her train and I returned to my lonely bed.

It was only next morning that I discovered that she’d used the scissors from the bathroom cupboard to cut all my underpants in two. And it was only when daylight came that I could see that she’d written ‘You are a bastard Mr Samson’ in lipstick on the bedroom window. I spent ages removing the lipstick marks, and hiding my pieces of underwear, before Mrs Dias the cleaning lady arrived. I was not in a hurry to repeat that experience with Gloria. It seemed as if there might be something of deep psychological significance about the retribution she’d wreaked upon my linen for what seemed to me a harmless little joke.