'A bit.'

'Hanging around waiting for Katya? Hanging around waiting for Goethe? You seemed to do quite some hanging around after you and Goethe had finished your little powwow, didn't you?'

Perching his spectacles on the tip of his nose, Brady was studying the paper before passing it to Skelton. I knew the pause was contrived but it scared me all the same, and I think it scared Ned for he glanced at Sheriton, then anxiously back to Barley. 'According to our field reports, you and Goethe broke up around fourteen thirty-three Leningrad time. Seen the picture? Show it to him, Skelton.'

All of us had seen it. All but Barley. It portrayed the two men in the gardens of the Smolny after they had said goodbye. Goethe had turned away. Barley's hands were still held out to him from their farewell embrace. The electronic timeprint in the top left corner said fourteen thirty-three and twenty seconds.

'Remember your last words to him?' Brady asked, with an air of sweet reminiscence.

'I said I'd publish him.'

'Remember his last words to you ?'

'He wanted to know whether he should look for another decent human being.'

'One hell of a goodbye,' Brady remarked comfortably, while Barley continued to look at the photograph, and Brady and Skelton looked at Barley. 'What did you do then, Barley?'

'Went back to the Europe. Handed over his stuff.'

'What route did you take? Remember?'

'Same way I got there. Trolleybus into town, then walked a bit.'

'Have to wait long for the trollcybus?' Brady asked, while his Southern accent became, to my ear at least, more of a mocking-bird than a regional digression.

'Not that I remember.'

'How long?'

'Five minutes. Maybe longer.'

I could not remember one occasion until now when Barley had pleaded an imperfect memory.

'Many people in line?'

'Not many. A few. I didn't count.'

'The trolleybus runs every ten minutes. The ride into town takes another ten. The walk to the Europe, at your pace, ten. Our people have timed it all ways up. Ten's the outside. But according to Mr. and Mrs. Henziger, you didn't show up in their hotel room till fifteen fifty-five. That leaves us with quite a tidy hole, Barley. Like a hole in time. Mind telling me how we're going to fill it? I don't expect you went on a drinking spree, did you? You were carrying some pretty valuable merchandise. I'd have thought you wanted to unload it pretty quick.'

Barley was becoming wary and Brady_must have seen that he was, for his hospitable Southern smile was offering a new kind of encouragement, the kind that said 'come clean'.

As to Ned, he was sitting stock still with both feet flat on the ground, and his straight gaze was fixed on Barley's troubled face.

Only Clive and Sheriton seemed to have pledged themselves to display no emotions at all.

'What were you doing, Barley?' Brady said.

'I mooched,' said Barley, not lying at all well.

'Carrying Goethe's notebook? The notebook he had entrusted to you with his life? Mooched? You picked a damned odd afternoon to mooch for fifty minutes, Barley. Where d'you go?'

'I wandered back along the river. Where we'd been. Paddy had told me to take my time. Not to rush back to the hotel but to go at a leisurely speed.'

'That's true,' Ned murmured. 'Those were my instructions via Moscow station.'

'For fifty minutes?' Brady persisted, ignoring Ned's intervention.

'I don't know how long it was. I wasn't looking at my watch. If you take time, you take time.'

'And it didn't cross your mind that with a tape and a power-pack in your-pants, and a notebook full of potentially priceless intelligence material in your carrier bag, the shortest distance between two points might just be a straight line?'

Barley was getting dangerously angry but the danger was to himself as Ned's expression, and I fear my own, could have warned him.

'Look, you're not listening, are you?' he said rudely. 'I told you. Paddy told me to take time. They trained me that way in London, on our stupid little runs. Take time. Never hurry if you're carrying something. Better to make the conscious effort to go slowly.'

Yet again, brave Ned did his best. 'That's what he was taught,' he said.

But he was watching Barley as he spoke.

Brady was also watching Barley. 'So you mooched away from the trolleybus stop, towards the Communist Party Headquarters in the Smolny Institute – not to mention the Komsomol and a couple of other Party shrines – carrying Goethe's notebook in your bag? Why did you do that. Barley? Fellows in the field do some damned strange things, you don't have to tell me that, but this strikes me as plain suicidal.'

'I was obeying orders, blast you, Brady! I was taking my time! How often do I have to tell you?'

But even as he flared it occurred to me that Barley was caught not so much in a lie as in a dilemma. There was too much honesty in his appeal. too much loneliness in his assailed eyes. And Brady to his credit seemed to understand this too, for he showed no sign of triumph at Barley's distress, preferring to befriend him rather than to goad.

'You see, Barley, a lot of people around here would attach a heap of suspicion to a gap like that,' Brady said. 'They would have- a picture,of you sitting in somebody's office or car while that somebody photographed Goethe's -notebook or gave you orders. Did you do any of that? I guess now's the time to say so if you did. There's never going to be a good time, but this is about as good as we're likely to get.'

'No.'

'No, you won't tell?'

'That's not what happened.'

'Well, something happened. Do you remember what was in your mind while you mooched?'

'Goethe. Publishing him. Bringing down the temple if he had to.'

'What temple's that, exactly? Can we get away from the metaphysical a little?'

'Katya. The children. Taking them with him if he gets caught. I don't know who has the right to do that. I can't work it out.'

'So you mooched and tried to work it out.'

Maybe Barley did mooch, maybe he didn't. He had clammed up.

'Wouldn't it have been more normal to hand over the notebook first and try to work out the ethics afterwards? I'm surprised you were able to think clearly with that damn thing burning a hole in your carrier bag. I'm not suggesting we're any of us very logical in these situations, but even by the laws of un logic, I would feel you had put yourself in a damned uncomfortable situation. I think you did something. I think you think so too.'

'I bought a hat.'

'What kind of hat?'

'A fur hat. A woman's hat.'

'Who for?'

'Miss Coad.'

'That a girlfriend?'

'She's the housekeeper at the safe house in Knightsbridge,' Ned cut in before Barley could reply.

'Where'd you buy it?'

'On the way between the tram stop and the hotel. I don't know where. A shop.'

'That all?'

'Just a hat. One hat.'

'How long did that take you?'

'I had to queue.'

'How long did it take?'

'I don't know.'

'What else did you do?'

'Nothing. I bought a hat.'

'You're lying, Barley. Not gravely, but you are undoubtedly lying. What else did you do?'

'I phoned her.'

'Miss Coad?'

'Katya.'

'Where from?'

'A post office.'

'Which one?'

Ned had put a hand across his forehead as if to shield his eyes from the sun. But the storm had taken hold, and outside the window both sea and sky were black.

'Don't know. Big place. Phone cabins under a sort of iron balcony.'

'You called her at her office or at her home?'

'Office. It was office hours. Her office.'

'Why don't we hear you do that on the body tapes?'

'I switched them off.'

'What was the purpose of the call?'

'I wanted to make sure she was all right.'

'How did you go about that?'

'I said hullo. She said hullo. I said I was in Leningrad, I'd met my contact, business was going along fine. Anyone listening would think I was talking about Henziger. Katya would know I was talking about Goethe.'

'Makes pretty good sense to me,' said Brady with a forgiving smile.

'I said, so goodbye again till the Moscow book fair and take care. She said she would. Take care, I mean. Goodbye.'

'Anything else?'

'I told her to destroy the Jane Austens I'd given her. I said they were the wrong edition. I'd bring her some new ones.'

'Why'd you do that?'

'The Jane Austens had questions for Goethe printed into the text. They were duplicates of the questions in the paperback he wouldn't take from me. In case she got to him and I didn't. They were a danger to her. Since he wasn't going to answer them anyway, I didn't want them lying around her house.'

Nothing stirred in the room, just the sea wind making the shutters crack, and puffing in the waves.

'How long did your call with Katya take, Barley?'

'I don't know.'

'How much money did it cost you?'

'I don't know. I paid at the desk. Two roubles something. I talked a lot about the book fair. So did she. I wanted to listen to her.'

This time it was Brady's turn to keep quiet.

'I had a feeling that as long as I was talking, life was normal. She was all right.'

Brady took a while, then against all our expectation closed the show: 'So, small talk,' he suggested as he began to pack his wares into his grandfather's attaché case.

'That's it,' Barley agreed. 'Small talk. Chitchat.'

'As between acquaintances,' Brady suggested, popping the case shut. 'Thank you, Barley. I admire you.'

We sat in the huge drawing-room, Brady at our centre, Barley gone.

'Drop him down a hole, Clive,' Brady advised, in a voice still steeped in courtesy. 'He's flakey, he's a liability and he thinks too damn much. Bluebird is makingwaves you would not believe. The fiefdoms are up in arms, the Air generals are in spasm, Defense say he's a charter to give away the store, the Pentagon's accusing the Agency of promoting bogus goods. Your only hope is throw this man out and put in a professional, one of ours.'

'Bluebird won't deal with a professional,' said Ned, and I heard the fury simmering in his voice and knew it was about to boil over.

Skelton too had a suggestion. It was the first time I had heard him speak, and I had to crane my head to catch his cultured college voice.

'Fuck Bluebird,' he said. 'Bluebird's got no business calling the shots. He's a traitor and a guilt-driven crazy and who knows what else he is besides? Hold his feet to the fire. Tell him if he stops producing we'll sell him to his own people and the girl with him.'

'If Goethe's a good boy, he gets the jackpot, I'll see to it,'Brady promised. 'A million's no problem. Ten million's better. If you frighten him enough and pay him enough, maybe the neanderthals will believe he's on the level. Russell, give my love. Clive, it's been a pleasure. Harry. Ned.'