I took the ashtray, tapped ash into it and said, 'Whatever it was she did, you wanted to question Stinnes about it?'

'We wanted to question him about your role in that move. There are people downstairs who've always thought that you and your wife were working together as a team.' I saw Frank edge his chair back an inch from the table, his subconscious prompting him to dissociate himself from anyone who thought that.

I said, 'But when she ran I was already there. I was in East Berlin. Why would I come back here to put my head in a noose?'

Bret held one of his cuff-links and twisted his wrist in the starched white cuff. His eyes were fixed on me. He said, 'That was the cunning of it. What guilty man would come running back to the department he betrayed? The fact that you came back was the most ingenious defence you could have contrived. What's more, Bernard, it's very you.'

'I say, Bret. Steady on,' said Frank Harrington. Bret looked at Frank for long enough to remind him who'd given him his present posting and who could no doubt get him a staff job in Iceland if he felt inclined. Frank turned his objection into a cough and Bret looked down the table to me.

'Very me?' I said.

'Yes,' said Bret. 'It's exactly the kind of double-bluff that you excel at. And you are one of the few people who could swing it. You are cool; very cool.'

I inhaled on my cigarette and tried to be as cool as he said I was. I knew Bret; he worked on observation. It was his standard method to throw his weight around and then see how people reacted to him. He even did it with the office clerks. 'You can invent some exciting yarns, Bret,' I said. 'But this particular parable leaves out one vitally important event. It leaves out the fact that I was the one who flushed Fiona out. It was my phone call to her that made her run.'

'That's your version of events,' said Bret. 'But it conveniently overlooks the fact that she got away. I'd say that your phone call warned her in time for her to get away safely.'

'But I told Dicky too.'

'Only because you wanted him to stop her taking your children.'

'Leaving my motivation aside,' I said, 'the fact is that I stampeded her into immediate flight. Even the report says that she seems to have taken no papers or anything of importance with her.'

'She took nothing because she was determined to be clean for Customs and immigration. The way the British law stands, there were no legal grounds for preventing her leaving the country with or without a passport. She knew that if she had nothing incriminating with her we would have had to wave goodbye with a smile on our faces when she took off.'

'I don't want to be side-tracked into a discussion about the British subject's rights of exit and re-entry,' I said primly, as if Bret was trying to evade the subject of discussion. 'I'm just telling you that she was unprepared. With proper warning she could have dealt us a bad blow.'

Bret was all ready for that one. 'She was a burned-out case, Bernard, and she'd run her course. The evidence that would incriminate her was there. If you hadn't stampeded her, the next agent in would have done. But, by having you do it, Moscow were going to make you a golden boy here in London. That's what chess players call a gambit, isn't it? A piece is sacrificed to gain a better position from which to attack.'

'I don't know much about chess,' I said.

'I'm surprised,' said Bret. 'I would have thought you'd be good at it. But you'll remember that next time you're playing – about losing a piece to get into a better position – won't you?'

'Since my duplicity was so bloody obvious, Bret, why didn't you arrest me then, as soon as I got back here?'

'We weren't sure,' said Bret. He shuffled in his seat. Bret was a shirt-sleeve man. He didn't look right sitting there with his jacket on like a shop-window dummy.

'You didn't ask me to face a board. There wasn't even an inquiry.'

'We wanted to see what you would do about enrolling Stinnes.'

'That's not very convincing, Bret. The fact that you wanted to enrol Stinnes, and question him, was a measure of your doubt about my guilt.'

'Not at all. This way, we could confirm or deny your loyalty and have Stinnes as a bonus. Dicky and I talked that one over. Right, Dicky?' Bret obviously felt that Dicky wasn't giving him the support he needed.

Dicky said, 'I've always said that there was insufficient evidence to support any action against Bernard. I want to make that clear to everyone round this table.' Dicky looked round the table making it clear to everyone.

Well, good old Dicky. So he's not just a pretty face either. He'd realized that this might well turn out to be the opportunity he'd been waiting for; the opportunity to dump a bucket of shit over Bret's head. Dicky was going to sit on the sidelines, but he'd be cheering for me now that Bret had adopted the role of my prosecutor. And, if I proved to be guilty, Dicky would still be able to wriggle free. The present company were well equipped to understand every nuance of Dicky's carefully worded communiqué to the future. He'd said there was insufficient evidence to support any action against me. Dicky wasn't going to stick his neck out and say I wasn't guilty.

Seeing that Bret was momentarily disconcerted by his remark, Dicky followed with a quick right and left to the body. 'And if Bernard didn't manage to persuade Stinnes to defect that would prove his guilt?' Dicky asked. He used a rather high-pitched voice and a little smile. It was Dicky's idea of the droll Oxford don that he'd once hoped to be, but it ill fitted a man in trendy faded denim and Gucci shoes. Dicky persisted, 'Is that it? It sounds like those medieval witch trials. You throw the accused into a lake and if he comes up you know he's guilty so you execute him.'

'Okay, Dicky, okay,' said Bret, holding up a hand and admiring his signet ring, his fraternity ring and his manicure. 'But there are still a lot more questions unanswered. Why did Bernard make Biedermann sacred?'

It was a good tactic to address the question to Dicky Cruyer, but Dicky leaped aside like a scalded cat. He knew that being cast as my counsel was just one step away from being my accessory. 'Well, what about that, Bernard?' said Dicky, turning his head towards me with an expression that said he'd gone as far as any man could go to help me.

I said, 'I was at school with Biedermann. I knew him all his life. He was never of any importance.'

'Would you like to see a rough listing of Biedermann's business holdings?' said Bret. 'Not a bad spread for a nothing.'

'No, I wouldn't. I'm talking about what he did as an agent. He was of no importance.'

'How can you be so sure?' said Bret.

'Biedermann's death is a red herring. He could never be anything more than a very small piece of the KGB machinery. There is nothing to suggest that Biedermann has ever had access to any worthwhile secrets.' They all looked at me impassively; they all knew that I'd play down Biedermann whatever he was.

Tiptree spoke for the first time. He used his hand to smooth his well-brushed ginger hair and then fingered his thin moustache as if making sure it was still gummed on. He was like a nervous young actor just about to make his first stage appearance. He said, 'Carrying secrets this time though, eh?'

'I'll wait for the official assessment before saying anything about that,' I said. 'And, even if it's worthwhile material, I'll bet you that it will reveal nothing about the Russians.'

'Well, of course it will reveal nothing about the Russians,' said Tiptree in his measured, resonant voice. 'This chap was a Soviet agent, what?' He looked round the table and smiled briefly.

Morgan spoke for the first time. He explained to Tiptree what I was getting at. 'Samson means that we'll learn nothing about Soviet aims or intentions from the submarine construction report that was being carried by Biedermann.'