Curtis, Stafford's manservant, was mildly surprised at seeing him. 'The Colonel is back early,' he observed.

'Yes, I got sidetracked. It wasn't worth going back to the office.'

'Would the Colonel like afternoon tea?'

'No; but you can bring me a scotch in the study.' 'As the Colonel wishes,' said Curtis with a disapproving air which stopped just short of insolence.

Curtis was a combination of butler, valet, chauffeur, handyman and nanny. He was ex-Royal Marines, having joined in 1943 and electing jo stay in the service after the war. A 37-year man. At the statutory retiring age of 5 5 he had been tossed into the strange civilian world of the 1980s, no longer a Colour-Sergeant with authority but just another man-in-the-street. A fish out of water and somewhat baffled by the indiscipline of civilian life. He was a widower, his wife Amy having died five years before of cancer; and his only daughter was married, living in Australia, and about to present him with a third grandchild.

When Stafford had divorced his wife he had stayed at his club before moving into a smaller flat more suitable for a bachelor. It was then that he remembered Curtis whom he had known from the days when he had been a young officer serving with the British Army of the Rhine. One night, in one of the lesser salubrious quarters of Hamburg, he had found himself in a tight spot from which he had been rescued by a tough, hammer-fisted Marine sergeant. He had never forgotten Curtis and they had kept in touch, and so he acquired Curtis – or did Curtis acquire Stafford? Whichever way it was they suited each other; Curtis finding a congenial niche in a strange world, and Stafford lucky enough to have an efficient, if somewhat military, Jeeves. Curtis's only fault was that he would persist in addressing Stafford in the third person by his army title.

Stafford looked at the chunky, hard man with something approaching affection. 'How's your daughter, Sergeant?"

'I had a letter this morning. She says she's well, sir.'

'What will it be? Boy or girl?'

'Just so that it has one head and the usual number of arms, legs and fingers. Boy or girl – either will suit me.'

'Tell me when it comes. We must send a suitable christening present.'

'Thank you, sir. When would the Colonel like his bath drawn?'

'At the usual time. Let me have that scotch now.' Stafford went into his study.

He sat at his desk and thought about Gunnarsson. He had never met Gunnarsson but had sampled his methods through the machinations of Peacemore, Willis and Franks which was the wholly-owned London subsidiary of Gunnarsson Associates, and what he had found he did not like.

It was the work of Stafford Security Consultants to protect the secrets of the organizations which were their clients. A lot of people imagine security to be a matter of patrolling guards and heavy mesh fencing but that is only a part of it. The weakest part of any organization is the people in it, from the boss at the top down to the charwomen who scrub the floors. A Managing Director making an indiscreet remark at his golf club could blow a secret worth millions. A charwoman suborned can find lots of interesting items in waste paper baskets.

It followed that if the firm of Stafford Security Consultants were making a profit out of guarding secrets – and it was making a handsome profit – then others were equally interested in ferreting them out, and the people who employed Gunnarsson Associates were the sort who were not too fussy about the methods used. And that went for the Peacemore mob in the United Kingdom.

Stafford remembered a conversation he had had with Jack Ellis just before he left for the Continent. 'We've had trouble with the Peacemore crowd,' said Ellis. 'They penetrated Electronomics just before the merger when Electronomics was taken over. Got right through our defences.'

'How?'

Jack shrugged. 'We can guard against everything but stupidity. They got the goods on Pascoe, the General Manager. In bed with a gilded youth. Filthy pictures, the lot. Of course, it was a Peacemore set-up, but I'd have a hell of a job proving it.'

'In this permissive age homosexuality isn't the handle it once was,' observed Stafford.

'It was a good handle this time. Pascoe's wife didn't know he was double-gaited. He has teenage daughters and it would have ruined his marriage so he caved in. After the merger we lost die Electronomics contract, of course. Peacemore got it.'

'And Pascoe's peccadilloes came to light anyway.'

'Sure. After the merger he was fired and they gave full reasons. He'd proved he couldn't be trusted.'

'The bastards have no mercy,' said Stafford.

Industrial espionage is not much different from the work of that department called MI6 which the British government refuses to admit exists, or the KGB which everyone knows to exist, or the CIA which is practically an open book. A car company would find it useful to know the opposition's designs years in advance. One airline, after planning an advertising campaign costing half a million, was taken very much by surprise when its principal rival came out with the identical campaign a week before its own was due to start.

A company wanting to take over another, as in the Electronomics case, would like to know the victim's defensive strategy. Someone wanted to know what bid price Electronomics would jib at, and employed Peacemore to find out.

Of course, no one on the Board comes right out and says, 'Let's run an espionage exercise against so-and-so.' The Chairman or Managing Director might be thinking aloud and says dreamily, 'Wouldn't it be nice if we knew what so-and-so are doing.' Sharp. ears, pick up the wishful think and the second echelon boys get to work, the hatchet men hungry for promotion. Intermediaries are used, analogous to the cut-outs used in military and political intelligence, the job gets done with no one on the Board getting his hands dirty, and an under-manager becomes a manager.

Defence is difficult because the espionage boys go for the jugular. All the security guards in creation are of no avail against human weakness. So Stafford Security Consultants investigated the personnel of their clients, weeding out doubtful characters, and if that was an offence against human rights it was too bad.

And sometimes we fail, thought Stafford.

He sighed and picked up the neglected whisky which Curtis had brought in. And now Gunnarsson was mixed up in the affairs of a friend. Not that Stafford felt particularly friendly towards Dirk Hendriks, but Alix was his friend and he did not want her hurt in any way. And Gunnarsson was not acting in a straightforward manner. Why had he not produced the missing heirs?

Stafford checked the time. It was probably after office hours in Jersey but he would try to talk with the Jersey law firm. There was no reply.