Ronnie frowned.

‘Why would she write a middle initial?’

‘Beats me,’ I said.

‘I mean, if the name’s Charlie Dunce, why not write CD?’ I looked down at the page.

‘Charlie Etherington -Dunce? God knows. That’s your patch.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ She was surprisingly quick to take offence.

‘Sorry, I just mean… you know, I imagine you pass the time of day with double-barrelled sorts…’ I tailed off. I could see Ronnie didn’t like this.

‘Yes, and I’ve got a poncy voice, and a poncy job, and my boyfriend works in the city.’ She got up and went to pour herself another vodka. She didn’t offer me one, and I had the definite feeling that I was paying for someone else’s crimes. ‘Look, I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘I didn’t mean anything by it.’

‘I can’t help the way I sound, Thomas,’ she said. ‘Or the way I look.’ She took a belt of vodka and kept her back to me. ‘What’s to help? You sound great, you look even better.’

‘Oh, shut up.’

‘In a minute,’ I said. ‘Why are you so cross about it?’ She sighed and sat down again.

‘Because it bores me, that’s why. Half the people I meet never take me seriously because of the way I talk, and the other half only take me seriously because of the way I talk. Gets on your nerves after a while.’

‘Well, I know this is going to sound pretty oily, but I take

you seriously.’

‘Do you?’

‘Of course I do. Incredibly seriously.’ I waited a bit. ‘Doesn’t bother me that you’re a stuck-up bitch.’

She looked at me for a longish moment, in the course of which I started to think that maybe I’d got it wrong, and she was about to throw something. Then suddenly she laughed, and shook her head, and I feltalot better. I hoped she did.

At aboutsix o’clock the phone rang, and I could tell from the way Ronnie held the receiver that it was the boyfriend announcing his arrival time. She stared at the floor and said yeah a lot, either because I was in the room, or because their relationship had reached that stage. I picked up my jacket and carried my glass through to the kitchen. I washed and dried it, in case she forgot to, and was putting it back in the cupboard when Ronnie appeared.

‘Will you call me?’ She looked a bit sad. Perhaps I did, too. ‘You bet,’ I said.

I left her chopping onions in preparation for the commodity broker’s return, and let myself out of the flat. Apparently the arrangement was that she made supper for him, and he made breakfast for her. Considering Ronnie was the sort of person to call a couple of grapefruit segments a major blow-out, I suspect that he’d got the better of the deal. Honestly. Men.

A cab took me along the King’s Road into theWest End and byhalf past six I was loitering outside the Ministry of Defence. A couple of policemen watched me as I paced up and down, but I’d armed myself with a map and a disposable camera, and was taking pictures of pigeons in a gormless enough way to put their minds at rest. I’d had a lot more suspicion from the shopkeeper when I asked him for a map and said I didn’t care which town it was of.

I’d made no other preparations for the trip, and I certainly hadn’t wanted to have my voice logged on any incoming call to the Ministry. I was taking a chance on my reading of O’Neal as a swot and, from my first reconnaissance, it looked as if I’d got it right. Seventh floor, corner office, O’Neal’smidnight oil was burning brightly. The regulation net curtains that hang in the windows of all ‘sensitive’ government buildings might defeat a telephoto lens, but they can’t stop light from showing in the street.

Once upon a time, in the heady days of the Cold War, a twit in one of the supervising security branches had decreed that all ‘ targetable’ offices should leave their lights on twenty-four hours a day, to prevent enemy agents from tracking who was at work where, and for how long. The idea was greeted at the time with nods of the head and pats on the back and many a murmured ‘that fellow Carruthers will go a long way, mark my words’ - until, that is, the electricity bills started flopping on to the mats of the relevant finance sections, whereupon the idea, and Carruthers, had been shown the door pretty smartly.

O’Neal emerged from the main door of the Ministry at ten minutes past seven. He gave a nod to the security guard, who ignored him, and stepped out into theWhitehall dusk. He was carrying a briefcase, which was odd - because nobody would have let him out of the building with anything more important than a few sheets of lavatory paper - so maybe he was one of those strange people who use a briefcase as a prop. I don’t know.

I let him get a few hundred yards away from the Ministry before I started after him, and I had to work hard to keep my pace down, because O’Neal walked peculiarly slowly. One might have thought that he was enjoying the weather, if there’d been any to enjoy.

It wasn’t until he crossed The Mall and started to speed up that I realised he’d been promenading; playing the part of the Whitehall tiger on the prowl, master of all he surveyed, privy to mighty secrets of state, any one of which would blow the socks off the average gawping tourist if he or she but knew. Once he’d stepped out of the jungle and on to the open savannah, the act wasn’t really worth bothering with, so he walked normally. O’Neal was a man you could feel sorry for, if you had the time.

I don’t know why, but I’d expected him to go straight home. I’d imagined a terraced house in Putney, where a longsuffering wife would feed him sherry and baked cod and iron his shirts while he grunted and shook his head at the television news, as if every word of it had an extra, darker, meaning for him. Instead, he skipped up the steps past theICA, intoPall Mall and the Travellers Club.

There was no point in my trying anything there. I watched through the glass doors while O’Neal asked the porter to check his pigeon-hole, which was empty, and when I saw him shrug off his coat and move into the bar I judged it safe to leave him for a while.

I bought chips and a hamburger from a stall on the Haymarket and wandered a while, chewing as I went, watching people in bright shirts shuffle in to see musical shows that seemed to have been running for as long as I’d been alive. A depression started to drift down on to my shoulders as I walked, and I realised, withajolt, that I was doing exactly the same thing as O’Neal - looking on my fellow man with a weary, cynical, ‘you poor saps, if only you knew’ feeling. I snapped myself out of it and threw the hamburger in a bin.

He came out athalf past eight, and walked up the Haymarket to Piccadilly. From there he carried on upShaftesbury Avenue, then took a left turn intoSoho, where the tinkle of theatre-going chatter gave way to the bassier throbs of chic bars and strip joints. Huge moustaches with men hanging off the back loitered about in doorways, murmuring things about ‘sexy shows’ as I passed.