'They won't like that answer,' said Frank. 'They are very keen to get it settled very quickly.' The wind came again, fiercer now. When the wind abated it would rain.

'I'll bet they are. Well, we can get it settled very quickly, if that's what they want. I'll fax my story to the New York Times.'

For a moment Frank didn't react. Then he rubbed his face and said, 'Don't make jokes like that, Bernard. I shudder to think of the damage that would be inflicted upon all of us if you did something silly.'

'Okay, Frank. I'll stop making jokes like that but you tell London that it's my deal or nothing.'

He kept his voice low and measured. 'I don't know anyone who has your knowledge – and your instinct – for what's happening here, Bernard. Your time in the field added to time on the German Desk in London makes you a key person^ and so a prime target, You've seen the Department at work since you were on your father's knee. Surely you can see why they worry so much.'

'Yes, Frank. So you tell London that it's my deal or nothing.'

'They'll not be threatened, Bernard.'

'That has a sinister ring to it, Frank.'

'Did it? I'm truly sorry, that's not at all what I intended to convey. I was trying to point out that your approach is ill-considered. Their offer is made in good faith. Must you throw it back into their face?'

'I'm not resigning.'

'Go back to London. I'll arrange everything. Go to the office and work normally. Let the resignation issue stand for the time being while I talk to the old man.'

'There remains the question of Fiona,' I said.

Frank flinched as if I'd struck him. 'We can't discuss your wife.'

'I've got to know whether Fiona defected or went over there continuing to work for the Department.'

Frank stared at me. His face was like stone without even a flicker of sentience.

I said, 'Very well: you can't tell me officially, and I understand that, Frank. But it's my wife. I've got to know.'

I waited for him to frame an answer that would comply with his sense of propriety but he still didn't speak.

'Fiona was sent, right? She's working for us still?' Frank's face was the same Frank I'd known since childhood, but those pitiless eyes revealed a Frank that I'd always said did not exist. This tough unbending reaction to my question did not cause me to hate him: on the contrary it made me want his help and assistance even more. That of course was the secret of Frank's success over these many years; I'd taken a long time to discover it. 'Right?' I seemed to see in his eyes an affirmative. I felt sure that Frank wouldn't allow me to harbour the dangerous belief that Fiona was innocent if she was really a dedicated opponent.

After what seemed an age Frank said, 'I forbid you to discuss Fiona with me or with anyone else. I told you I would do my best to find out what you want to know. Meanwhile you must keep completely silent. Put her out of your mind.'

'Okay.'

'And I mean it.'

'I said okay.'

Frank relaxed a little. He said, 'I take it you'll want to go to London as soon as possible?' I nodded. 'You must have a lot of things to attend to.'

He looked at me for a moment before putting his hand in his pocket and putting a foolscap-sized white envelope on the table in front of me.

I looked at him and smiled. He'd outmanoeuvred me, and been so confident about being able to do so that he'd brought the airline ticket with him. 'Checkmate in three moves, eh Frank?' I smiled and tried not to sound too bitter.

'I thought you would want to see Gloria and the children as soon as possible.' He touched the ticket and moved it a fraction of an inch closer to me. 'You'll be with them tonight. Go in to the office tomorrow and work as usual. I'll phone you at home to tell you what's happening.' He was careful to keep any note of triumph out of his voice. From his tone and demeanour you'd have thought we were fellow sufferers with the same misfortune.

'Thanks, Frank,' I said, picking up the ticket. 'What happened to our colleague Teacher today?'

'You won't regret it, Bernard. I'm giving you good advice, the sort your dad would have given you.' A pause as he breathed deeply and no doubt congratulated himself upon getting a chance to change the subject. 'Teacher. Yes. A spot of bother,' said Frank, picking up his pipe and touching it to his lips. 'His wife skedaddled. An awfully nice girl. Extremely intelligent. Clementine: gorgeous-looking creature: wonderful figure. Ever meet her?'

I nodded. Frank had a sharp eye for desirable young females with wonderful figures. His eyes stared into the distance as he remembered her.

'She went off with some flashy Yankee film producer. Met him for the first time ten days ago. Women are so impulsive aren't they? What provokes a young wife to such a headstrong act?' The wind had dropped now. The sky had darkened. At any moment it would rain.

'Poor old Teacher,' I said. 'He seemed to be very fond of her.' Now I realized why the beautiful Clemmie had become so agitated when I had lunch there on Sunday. Never mind her shouting about me being a pariah, my guess is that she thought the Department had got wind of her plans and sent me to spy on her.

'This wretched American has taken her to a film festival in Warsaw. Warsaw! Alarm bells started ringing I can tell you. London overreacted: the telex got red-hot! "Do this; don't do that; disregard previous message; provide present whereabouts." You know. Luckily Mrs Teacher must have realized what trouble she was causing us. She phoned me from her hotel in Warsaw and explained, in guarded terms, that it was just a domestic rift. She had, she said, fallen in love for the very first time. Deep sighs and all. Says she'll never go back to her husband. They plan to fly on to a film festival in Japan and then to America. She wants to live in Beverly Hills. She said that I was not to worry.' Frank blew through his pipe and gave me a worried smile. 'So I'm not worrying.'

So that was what the Duchess and co. had been so excited about. They'd been talking about the Teachers: not about me and Fiona. 'And London?'

'London Central have professional worriers on the staff. But there's no way we can have our chaps lock their wives in the broom cupboard while they're out at work, eh?' He began to push tobacco into the bowl of his pipe. 'It's a pity in some ways we can't.'

There was the gentle noise of rain dabbing the windows. At first there were huge raindrops that came at measured intervals but soon the drops dribbled and joined and made rivulets and bent the trees and distorted the outside world beyond recognition.

6

I am not paranoid. That is to say I am not paranoid to the extent of distrusting everyone around me. Only some of them. When I went into the office next morning all seemed normal: too normal. When I'd finished looking at my own desk, I was summoned upstairs. Dicky Cruyer, German Desk supremo and my immediate superior, was in a singular mood that I could almost describe as jovial.

'Good morning, Bernard!' he said and smiled. He was a slim bony man with pale complexion and a golliwog-style head of curly hair that I suspected he regularly had permed.

During my few weeks of living rough in Berlin I'd reconciled myself to the idea that I would never again see this office. Never again see England, in fact. So now I looked round Dicky's office and marvelled at it as if seeing it all for the first time. I examined anew the magnificent rosewood table that Dicky used instead of a desk, and behind it the wall filled with photos, mostly of Dicky. I inspected the soft black leather Eames chair and matching footstool and the slightly mangy lion skin on the floor which I noticed he'd positioned less obtrusively. I looked at it all with a feeling of wonder.