Horse Under Water

35 At the door

Deep down in the lower basement of the Central Register building the air is warmed and filtered. Two armed policemen in their wooden office photographed me with a Polaroid camera and filed the photo. The big grey metal cabinets hum with the vibration of the air-conditioning fans, and on the far side of the wooden swing doors is yet another security check waiting. Perhaps this is the most secret place in the world. I asked for Mr Cassel and it took a little time to find him. He greeted me, signed for me, and took me into the inner sanctum. On both sides of us the cabinets rose ten feet high, and every few paces we dodged around stepladders on wheels, or around the serious-faced W.R.A.C. officers who service the records.

The ceiling was a complex grid of piping. Some pipes had pinholes in them, some, larger punctures; the fire precautions were delicate and comprehensive. We came to a low room that looked like a typing pool. In front of each clerk was an electric typewriter, a phone with a large number painted where the dial should be, and a machine like a typewriter-carriage.

Each document received from commercial espionage or government departments is retyped by the men in this room. When it is typed (in a type-face exclusive to these machines, on heat-and water-resistant paper), the supervising clerk compares the original with the newly typed summary, puts his stamp on the corner, and the typist feeds the original into the small machine which is a paper shredder. The destruction of the original protects the information source.

I watched as one typist stopped typing, picked up his phone and spoke into it. The supervisor walked across to him and together they compared the copy with the original. The typist explained what he had put in and why he had not bothered with other items. These ‘clerks’ are senior intelligence officials. The supervisor embossed the corner with a device like a pair of nail clippers, and they fed the original into the shredder. I noticed the care with which this was done. Both typist and supervisor held the paper above the shredder, and fed it in together. There was no feeling of hurry, it was a calm place.

Kevin Cassel’s office was a glass-walled eyrie reached by a steep wooden staircase. From it we could see perhaps two acres of files. Here and there were brick columns on which hung red buckets and soda-lime fire-extinguishers.

‘Hello, sailor,’ said Kevin.

‘Word gets around,’ I said.

‘Yes,’ said Kevin, ‘the Cabinet have promised us that we are the first people to be informed after the William Hickey column — you’ve put on weight, you old son of a gun.’

He motioned me into a battered green civil-service armchair. Kevin smiled expectantly; his moon-like face was much too large for his short, slim body, and was made even larger by a receding hair-line.

‘First time you’ve been down to see us since Charlie Cavendish …’ He didn’t finish the sentence. We had both liked Charlie.

Kevin looked at me for a minute without speaking before he said,

‘Somebody put a firecracker under the Volkswagen, I hear.’

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘someone from Rootes Group.’

‘Take care,’ said Kevin, ‘they could get spiteful.’

I said, ‘It was a metal canister they were after, not me.’

‘Famous last words,’ said Kevin. ‘I’d wear the steel Y-fronts for the time being, just the same.’

He reached inside his green tweed jacket for his notebook and an old fountain pen.

‘You wouldn’t mind telling me something and then forgetting right afterwards.’ In tacit agreement Kevin capped his pen, closed his notebook and replaced it.

‘What do you want now?’ said Kevin. ‘Are you going to put a wall mike into 12 Downing Street or a sniper’s rifle into the Press Gallery?’

‘That’s next week,’ I said. ‘I want to …’ I paused.

‘This will make you feel more comfy.’ He swung a large neon tube down from the ceiling until it rested upon the desk between us; it would jam any known micro-transmitter, which is why agents always use a public phone that is near a neon sign if they have a chance. He switched the tube on. It flickered before underlighting Kevin’s face with a blank blue glare.

It took Kevin only a few minutes to produce the documents I wanted to see. I glanced through the medical ‘flimsy’. It was a clinical description of physical being: height, weight, scars, moles, birthmarks, blood group, reflexes and a blow-by-blow description of teeth and medical treatment from the age of eleven.

I turned to the card.