'And what will it say, your long study?'

'I say, you are polite. You know what it will say, Samson. It will say all those things we all know only too well but that politicians are desperately keen we should forget.'

'Such as?'

'That eighty per cent of all armaments established in Central Europe since 1965 belong to the Warsaw Pact countries. It will say that between 1968 and 1978 American military spending was cut by forty per cent, and during the same period Soviet military spending increased by seventy-five per cent. It will record how Western military strength was cut by fifty thousand men, while during the same period the East increased its forces by one hundred and fifty thousand men. It will tell you nothing that you don't already know.'

'So why write it?'

'Current theory has it that we must look for the motives behind the huge Soviet military build-up. Why are the Russkies piling up these enormous forces of men, and gigantic stockpiles of armaments? My master feels that an answer can be found by looking at the detailed tactical preparations made by Russian army units in the front line, units that are facing NATO ones.'

'How will you do that?' I asked. Lisl's record was now playing for the third time.

'It's a long and arduous process. We have people who regularly talk with Russian soldiers – on day-to-day matters – and we interrogate deserters and we have reports from cloak-and-dagger outfits.' He bared his teeth. 'Have some more brandy, Samson. I heard you're quite a drinker.'

'Thanks,' I said. I wasn't sure I liked having that reputation but I wasn't going to spare his brandy to disprove it. He poured a large measure for both of us and drank quite a lot of his.

'I'm mostly with your people,' he said. 'But I'll be spending time with other outfits too. Dicky arranged all that. Awfully good fellow, Dicky.' A lock of ginger hair fell forward across his face. He flicked it back as if annoyed by a fly. And when it fell forward again pushed it back with enough force to disarrange more hair. 'Cheers.'

'What will you be doing with them?' I said.

He spoke more slowly now. 'Same damn thing. Soviet Military Power and Western… what did I say it was called?'

'Something like that,' I said. I poured out more brandy for both of us. We were near the bottom of the bottle now.

'I know what you're doing, Samson,' he said. His voice was pitched high, as a mother might speak to a baby, and he raised a fist in a joking gesture of anger. 'At least… I know what you're trying to do.' His words were slurred and his hair in disarray,

'What?'

'Get me drunk. But you won't do it, old chap.' He smiled. 'I'll drink you under the table, old fellow.'

'I'm not trying to make you drunk,' I said. 'The less you drink the more there is for me.'

Henry Tiptree considered this contention carefully and tried to find the flaw in my reasoning. He shook his head as if baffled and drained the brandy bottle, dividing it between us drip by drip with elaborate care. 'Dicky said you were cunning.'

'Then here's to Dicky,' I said in toast.

'Cheers to Dicky,' he responded, having misheard me. 'I've known him a long tune. At Oxford I always felt sorry for him. Dicky's father had investments in South America and lost most of his money in the war. But the rest of Dicky's family were well off. Dicky had to watch his cousins dashing about in sports cars and flying to Paris for weekends when Dicky didn't have the price of a railway ticket to London. It was damned rotten for him, humiliating.'

'I didn't know that,' I said.

'Chaps at Oxford said he was a social climber… and he was, and still is… But that's what spurred Dicky into getting such good results. He wanted to show us all what he could do… and, of course, having no money meant he had a lot of time on his hands.'

'He has a lot of time on his hands now,' I said.

Henry Tiptree looked at me solemnly before giving a sly grin. 'What about another bottle of this stuff?' he offered.

'I think we've both had enough, Henry,' I said.

'On me,' said Henry. 'I have a bottle in my room.'

'Even if it's on you, we've had enough,' I said. I got to my feet. I was in no hurry. I wasn't drunk but my response times were down and my coordination poor. What time in the morning would Werner phone, I wondered. It was stupid of me to tell Werner that he would be going on the payroll. Now he'd be determined to show London Central what they'd been missing for all those years. With Werner that could be a surefire recipe for disaster. I'd seen Werner when he wanted to impress someone. When we were at school there had been a pretty girl named Renate who lived in Wedding. Her mother cleaned the floor at the clinic. Werner was so keen to impress Renate that he tried to steal an American car that was parked outside the school. He was trying to force the window open with wire when the driver, an American sergeant, caught him. Werner was lucky to get away with a punch in the head. It was ridiculous. Werner had never stolen anything in his life before. A car – Werner didn't have the slightest idea of how to drive. I wondered if he'd had trouble in the Sector or out in the Zone. If anything happened to him I'd blame myself. There'd be no one else to blame.

Henry Tiptree was sitting rigidly in his seat, his head facing forward and his body very still. His eyes flicked to see about him; he looked like a lizard watching an unsuspecting fly. A less tidy man would not have appeared so drunk. On the impeccable Henry Tiptree such slightly disarranged hair, the tie knot shifted a fraction to one side and the jacket rumpled by his attempts to fasten the wrong button made him look comic. 'You won't get away with it,' he said angrily. He was going through the various stages of drunkenness from elation to depression via happiness, suspicion and anger.

'Get away with what?' I asked.

'You know, Samson. Don't play the innocent. You know.' This time his anger enabled him to articulate clearly.

'Tell me again.'

'No,' he said. He was staring at me with hatred in his eyes.

I knew then that Tiptree played some part in spinning the intricate web in which I was becoming enmeshed. On every side I was aware of suspicion, anger and hatred. Was it all Fiona's doing, or was it something I had brought upon myself? And how could I fight back when I didn't know where to find my most deadly enemies, or even who they were?

'Then goodnight,' I said. I drank the rest of the brandy, got up from the chair and nodded to him.

'Goodnight, Mr bloody Samson,' said Tiptree bitterly. 'Champion bloody boozer and secret agent extraordinary.'

I knew he was watching me as I walked across the room so I went carefully. I looked back when I got as far as the large folding doors that divided the salon from the bar. He was struggling to get to his feet, reaching right across to grip the far edge of the table. Then, with whitened knuckles, he strained to pull himself up. He seemed well on the way to succeeding, but when I got to the stairs I heard a tremendous crash. His weight had proved too much and the table had tipped up.

I returned to the bar where Henry Tiptree had fallen full-length on the floor. He was breathing very heavily and making slight noises that might have been groans, but he was otherwise unconscious. 'Come along, Henry,' I said. 'Let's get out of here before Lisl hears us. She hates drunks.' I knew if he was found there in the morning Lisl would blame me. No matter what I said, anything that happened to this 'English gentleman' would be my fault. I put the table back into position and hoped that Lisl hadn't heard the commotion.

As I dragged Tiptree up on to my shoulder in a fireman's lift, I began to wonder why he'd come here. He'd been sent, surely, but who had sent him? He wasn't the sort who came to stay in Tante Lisl's hotel, and went down the corridor for a bath each morning and then found there was no hot water. The Tiptrees of this world prefer downtown hotels, where everything works, even the staff – places where the silk-attired jet-setters of all sexes line up bottles of Louis Roederer Cristal Brut, and turn first to those columns of the newspaper that list share prices.