'Nothing,' Merridew retorted, scared. 'A pressing telegram. Don't take it so personally. Diplomatic wireless.'

'Who's doing the pressing?'

'No one. I can't give you a précis in front of everyone. It's confidential. Our eyes only.'

They forgot his spectacles, thought, Merridew, while he returned Barley's stare. Round. Black-framed. Too small for his eyes. Slips them to the tip of his nose when he' scowls at you. Gets you in his sights.

'Never knew an honest debt that couldn't wait till Monday,' Barley declared-, returning to the major. 'Loosen your girdle, Mr. Merridew. Take a drink with the unwashed.'

Merridew might not have been the slenderest of men or the tallest. But he had grip, he had cunning and like many fat men he had unexpected resources of indignation which he was able to turn on like a flood when they were needed.

'Look here, Scott Blair, your affairs are not my concern, I am glad to say. I am not a bailiff, I am not a common messenger. I am a diplomat and I have a certain standing. I've spent half the day traipsing round after you, I have a car and a clerk waiting outside and I have certain rights over my own life. I'm sorry.'

Their duet might have continued indefinitely had not the major staged an unexpected revival. jerking back his shoulders, he thrust his fists to the seams of his trousers and tucked his chin into a rictal grimace of respect.

'Royal summons, Barley,' he barked. 'Embassy's the local Buck House. Invitation's a command. Mustn't insult Her Majesty.'

'He's not Her Majesty,' Barley objected patiently. 'He isn't wearing a crown.'

Merridew wondered whether he should summon Brock. He tried'-smiling winningly but Barley's attention had wandered to the alcove, where a vase of dried flowers hid an empty grate. He tried calling, 'Okay? All set? much as he might have called to a wife when she was keeping him waiting for a dinner party. But Barley's haggard gaze remained on the dead flowers. He seemed to see his whole life in them, every wrong turning and false step from there to here. Then just as Merridew was giving up hope, Barley began loading his junk into his bush-jacket pockets, ritualistically, as if setting off on a safari: his bent wallet, full of uncashed cheques and cancelled credit cards; his passport, mildewed with sweat and too much travel; the notebook and pencil he kept handy for penning gems of alcoholic wisdom to himself for contemplation when he was sober. And when he had done all this he dumped a large banknote on the bar like somebody who wouldn't be needing money for a long while.

'See the major into his cab, Manuel. That means help him down the steps and into the back seat and pay the driver in advance. When you've done that, you can keep the change. So long, Gravey. Thanks for the laughs.'

Dew was falling. A young moon lay on its back among the moist stars. They descended the stairway, Merridew first, urging Barley to be sure and mind his step. The harbour was filled with roving lights. A black saloon with CD.plates waited at the curbside. Brock lurked restively beside it in the darkness. A second unmarked car lay further back.

'Ah now, this is Eddie.' said Merridew, making the introductions. 'Eddie, I'm afraid we took our time. I trust you have made your phone call?'

'All done,' said Brock.

'And everybody at home is happy, I trust, Eddie? The little ones all tucked up and so forth? You won't get flak from the missus?'

'It's all right,' Brock growled in a tone that said shut up.

Barley sat in the front seat, his head pitched back on the rest, eyes closed. Merridew drove. Brock sat very still in the back. The second car pulled out slowly, in the way good watchers do.

'This the way you usually go to the Embassy?' Barley asked in his seeming doze.

'Ah now, the duty dog took the telegram to his house, you see,' Merridew explained lavishly, as if responding to a particularly well-taken point. 'I'm afraid that, come weekends, we have to batten down the Embassy against the Irish. Yes.' He switched on the radio. A deep-throated woman began sobbing a succulent laracrit. 'Fado ,' he declared. 'I adore Fado . I think it's why I'm here. I'm sure it is. I'm sure I put Fado on my post request.' He began conducting with his spare hand. 'Fado,' he explained.

'Are you the people who've been snooping round my daughter, asking her a lot of stupid questions?' Barley asked.

'Oh we're just commercial, I'm afraid,' Merridew said, and kept conducting for all that he was worth. But inside himself he was by now gravely disturbed by Barley's want of innocence. Sooner them than me, he thought, feeling Barley's untamed gaze upon his right cheek. If this is what Head Office has to reckon with these days, God preserve me from a home posting.

They had rented the town house of a former member of the Service, a British banker with a second house in Cintra. Old Palfrey had clinched the deal for them. They wanted no official premises, nothing that could afterwards be held against them. Yet the sense of age and place had its own particular eloquence. A wrought-iron coaching lamp lit the vaulted entrance. The granite flagstones had been hacked to stop the horses slipping. Merridew rang the bell. Brock had closed in tight in case of accidents.

'Hullo. Come on in,' said Ned pleasantly, opening the huge scrolled door.

'Well I'll be off, won't I?' said Merridew. 'Marvellous, terrific.' Still burbling covering fire, he scampered back to his car before anyone could contradict him. And as he did so the second car cruised by like one good friend who has seen another to his doorstep on a dangerous night.

For a long moment, while Brock stood off observing them, Ned and Barley appraised one another as only Englishmen can who are of the same height and class and shape of head. And though Ned in appearance was the very archetype of quiet British self-command and balance, and in most ways therefore the exact reverse of Barley - and though Barley was loose-limbed and angular with a face that even in repose seemed determined to explore beyond the obvious - there was still enough of the other in each of them to permit a recognition. Through a closed door came the murmur of male voices, but Ned made as though he hadn't heard it. He led Barley down the passage to a library and said, 'In here,' while Brock stayed in the hall.

'How drunk are you?' Ned asked, lowering his voice and handing Barley a glass of iced water.

'Not,' said Barley. 'Who's hijacking me? What goes on?'

'My name's Ned. I'm about to move the goalposts. There's no telegram,. no crisis in your affairs beyond the usual. No one's being hijacked. I'm from British Intelligence. So are the people waiting for you next door. You once applied to join us. Now's your chance to help.'

A silence settled between them while Ned waited for Barley to respond. Ned was Barley's age exactly. For twenty-five years, in one guise or another, he had been revealing himself as a British secret agent to people he needed to obtain. But this was the first time that his client had failed to speak, blink, smile, step back or show the smallest sign of surprise.

'I don't know anything,' said Barley.

'Maybe we want you to find something out.'

'Find it out for yourselves.'

'We can't. Not without you. That's why we're here.'

Drifting over to the bookshelves, Barley tilted his head to one side and peered over the top of his round spectacles at the titles while he went on drinking his water.

'First you're commercial, now you're spies,' he said.

'Why don't you have a word with the Ambassador?'

'He's a fool. I was at Cambridge with him.' He took down a bound book and glanced at the frontispiece. 'Crap,' he pronounced with contempt. 'Must buy them by the yard. Who owns this place?'

'The Ambassador will verify me. If you ask him whether he can manage golf on Thursday, he'll tell you not till five o'clock.'

'I don't play golf,' said Barley, taking down another volume. 'I don't play anything actually. I've retired from all games.'

'Except chess,' Ned suggested, holding out the open telephone directory to him. With a shrug Barley dialled the number. Hearing the Ambassador, he gave a raffish if rather puzzled smile. 'Is that Tubby? Barley Blair here. How about a spot of the golf on Thursday for your liver?'

An acid voice said it was engaged till five o'clock.

'Five won't do at all,' Barley retorted. 'We'll be playing in the dark at that rate - bugger's rung off,' he complained, shaking the dead receiver. Then he saw Ned's hand on the telephone cradle.

'It isn't a joke, I'm afraid,' said Ned. 'It's actually very serious.'

Lost once more in his own contemplations, Barley slowly replaced the receiver. 'The line between actually very serious and actually very funny is actually very thin,' he remarked.

'Well, let's cross it, shall we?' said Ned.

The talk behind the door had ceased. Barley turned the handle and walked in. Ned followed. Brock stayed in the hall to guard the door. We had been listening to everything over the relay.

If Barley was curious as to what he would face in there, so were we. It's an odd game, turning a man's life inside out without meeting him. He entered slowly. He took a few paces into the room and slopped, his long arms -dangling wide of his sides while Ned, halfway to the table, made the all-male introductions.

'This is Clive, this is Walter, and over here is Bob. This is Harry. Meet Barley, everyone.'

Barley scarcely nodded as the names were spoken. He seemed to prefer the evidence of his eyes to anything he was being told.

The ornate furniture and the coppice of vulgar indoor plants interested him. So did an orange tree. He touched a fruit, caressed a leaf, then delicately sniffed his thumb and finger as if assuring himself that,they were real. There was a passive anger about him that went ahead of finding out the cause. Anger at being woken, I thought. At being singled out and named - a thing Hannah said I always feared the most.

I also remember thinking he was elegant. Not, God knows, by virtue of his shabby clothes. But in his gestures, in his faded chivalry. In his natural courtesy, even if he resisted it.

'You don't run to surnames, by any chance, do you?' Barley enquired when he had completed his inspection of the room.

'I'm afraid not,' said Clive.

'Because a Mr. Rigby called on my daughter Anthea last week. Said he was a tax inspector. Some bilge about wanting to adjust an unfair assessment. Was he one of you clowns?'

'By the sound of him I should think he probably was,' said Clive, with the arrogance of someone who can't be bothered to lie.