The D-G looked round the table. 'I'm so glad we're all agreed,' he said. He'd obviously made this exact decision before the meeting began. Or Morgan had made it for him.

'Will Stinnes remain at Berwick House?' said Bret.

'Better you work out the details at the first meeting of the whole committee,' said the D-G. 'I don't want them to say we've presented them with a fait accompli; it will get things off to a bad start.'

'Of course, sir,' said Bret. 'Who will have the chair?'

'I'll insist that you do,' said the D-G, 'unless you'd prefer not to do it that way. It would limit your voting.'

'I think I should have the chair,' said Bret. Bret was at his smoothest now, his elbows on the polished tabletop, his hands loosely clasped so that we could all see his signet ring and the gold wristwatch. It was all coming out well for him so far, but he wasn't going to enjoy hearing the way Stinnes described him as a blundering amateur when the transcription was sent upstairs. 'How many of them will there be?'

'I'll sound them out,' said the D-G. 'Cabinet Office might want a say in it too.' He looked round the table until he came to me. 'You're looking very stern, young man. Have you any comments?'

I looked at Dicky. Whatever he'd told his wife about Bret being a KGB mole, Dicky was not going to stand up and remind the meeting about it. Dicky looked away from me and grew suddenly interested in the D-G. 'I don't like it,' I said.

'Why not?' interjected Frank, anxious to head off any chance of me being rude to the old man.

'They'll find some damned thing to use against us.' There was no need to say who. They all knew I didn't mean Moscow.

'They're already well provided with things to use against us,' said the D-G. He chuckled. 'It's time for a compromise. I don't want to see us in direct conflict with them.'

I said, 'I still don't like it.'

The D-G nodded. 'No one here likes it,' he said in a soft friendly voice. 'But we have very little choice.' He shook his head so hard that his cheeks wobbled. 'No one here likes it.'

He wasn't quite correct. Behind his lifted glass of Perrier water Morgan was loving every minute of it. He was stepping from office boy to an operational role without the twenty years of experience that usually went with such moves. It was only a matter of time before Morgan would be running the whole Department.

20

'Unmarried men are the best friends, the best masters, and the best servants,' said Tessa Kosinski, my sister-in-law. She was undoing the wire to open a bottle of champagne, careful of her long painted fingernails. She flicked a piece of gold foil from her fingers and swore softly.

'Don't shake the bottle or it will go everywhere,' I said. She smiled and without a word handed the bottle to me. 'Who said that? Was it George?'

'No, Francis Bacon, silly. Why do you always think I'm totally ignorant? I may not have had Fi's brilliant career at Oxford, but I'm not an untutored fool.' Her fair hair was perfect, as if she'd just come from the hairdresser, her pink dress revealed her bare shoulders, and she was wearing a gold necklace and a wristwatch glittering with diamonds. She was waiting for George to come home, and then they were going to the theatre and on to a party at the house of a Greek shipping magnate. That's the sort of life they led.

'I know you're not, Tessa. It's just that it sounded like something George might say.' She was bright when she wanted to be. She knew that I was trying to get the conversation round to the subject of her men friends, but she deftly avoided it. The champagne wasn't so easy to open. I twisted the cork and, despite my warning to her, gave the bottle a little shake to help. The champagne opened with a loud bang.

'George is becoming a religious fanatic since we moved here,' she said. She watched me pouring the champagne and said nothing when some spilled over onto the polished table.

'How did moving here affect him?' I put the bottle back into the silver bucket.

'We're so near the church now. Mass every morning without fail, darling – surely that's rather overwrought?'

'I've learned not to comment on other people's religion,' I said cautiously.

'And he's become awfully friendly with a bishop. You know what a snob George is and he's so easily flattered.'

'How do you know?'

'Now, now.' She grinned. 'I flatter George sometimes. I think he's very clever at business and I'm always telling him so.'

'What's wrong with being friends with a bishop?' I asked.

'Nothing at all; he's an amusing old rogue. He sits up drinking George's best brandy and discussing the nuances of theology.'

'That's not being a fanatic,' I said.

'Even the bishop says that George is zealous. He says he must be trying to compensate for the lives of his two uncles.'

'I thought his uncles were both priests.'

'The bishop knows that; he was joking, darling. Sometimes you're as slow on the uptake as poor old George.'

'Well, I think George is a good husband,' I said, preparing the ground for the subject of her infidelities.

'So do I. He's wonderful.' She got up and looked round the room in which we were sitting. 'And look what he's done with this flat. It was a shambles when we first came to look at it. Most of the furniture was chosen by George. He loves going to the auctions and trying to get a bargain. All I did was to buy some of the fabrics and the carpets.'

'It's a superb result, Tessa,' I said. The cream-coloured sofas and the pale carpet contrasted with the jungle of tropical plants that filled the corner near the far window. The lights were recessed into the ceiling to produce a pink shadowless illumination throughout the whole room. The result was expensive looking and yet austere. It was not exactly what one would expect to be the taste of George, the flashily dressed cockney millionaire. The whole flat was perfect and glossy, like a double-page spread in House & Garden. But it was lifeless too. I lived in rooms that bore the imprint of two young children: plastic toys in the bath, odd shoes in the hall, stains on the carpet, and dents in the paintwork. It was nothing less than tragic that George and Tessa had never had children. George desperately wanted to be a father, and Tessa doted on my two kids. Instead, they had this forbiddingly tranquil home in that bleak exclusive part of London – Mayfair. I'm not sure that either of them really belonged there.

'Give me another drink,' said Tessa. She had this preposterous idea that champagne was the only alcohol that would not make her fat. She was like a small child in some matters, and although he grumbled about her behaviour, George indulged her in such ridiculous notions. He was to blame for what he didn't like in her, for to some extent he had created this exasperating creature.

'I didn't intend to stay.'

'George will be back at any time. He phoned from the workshop to say he was leaving.' I took the bottle of vintage Bollinger from the solid-silver wine cooler and poured more for both of us. 'Is the car going well?'

'Yes, thank you.'

'George is sure to ask me if you like the car. He's taken a shine to you. I think he must have guessed the way you bully me about not looking after him properly.' In Tessa's language that meant being unfaithful. Her vocabulary was brutally frank about everything except her infidelity.

'Then there's something we should talk about before he arrives,' I said.

'Your girlfriend was looking absolutely stunning the other night,' said Tessa, getting to her feet. She walked over to the window and looked down at the street. 'If George arrives soon, there's a place for him to park,' she said. She came back to where I was sitting and, standing behind me, ruffled my hair. 'I'm so glad you brought her. Where is she tonight?'