Mexico Set

21

I knew what to expect. That was why I lingered over breakfast, spent a little extra time with the children and chose a dark suit and sober tie. Bret Rensselaer chose to see me in the number 3 conference room. It was a small top-floor room that was normally used when the top brass wanted to have a cozy chat far away from the noise of the typewriters, the smell of copying machines and the sight of the workers drinking tea from cups without saucers.

There was a coffin-shaped table there and Bret was in the chairman's seat at the head of it. I was at the other end. The rest of them – Dicky Cruyer and his friend Henry Tiptree, together with Frank Harrington and a man named Morgan, who was general factotum and hatchet man for the D-G – were placed so that they were subject to Bret's authority. Quite apart from anything that might happen to me, Bret was going to stage-manage things to get maximum credit and importance. Bret was a 'department head' looking for a department, and there was no more dangerous animal than that stalking through the corridors of Whitehall. He was wearing a black worsted suit – only a man as trim as Bret could have chosen a fabric that would show every spot of dust and hair – and a white shirt with stiff collar and the old-fashioned doubled-back cuffs that require cufflinks. Bret's cuff-links were large and made from antique gold coins, and his blue-and-white tie was of a pattern sold only to Concorde passengers.

'I've listened,' said Bret. 'You can't say I haven't listened. I'm not sure I'm able to understand much of it but I've listened to you.' He looked at his watch and noted the time in the notebook in front of him. Bret had gone to great pains to point out to me how informal it all was; no stenographer, no recording and no signed statements. But this way was better for Bret, for there would be no record of what had been said except what Bret wrote down. 'I've got a hell of a lot of questions still to ask you,' he said. I recognized the fact that Bret was ready for any sort of showdown; 'loaded for bear' was Bret's elegant phrase for it.

I was trying to give up smoking but I reached for the silver-plated cigarette box that was a permanent feature of top-floor conference rooms, and helped myself. No one else wanted a cigarette. They didn't want to be associated with me by thought, theory or action. I had the feeling that if I'd declared abstinence they'd all have rushed out to get drunk. I lit up and smiled and told Bret that I'd be glad to do things any way he wanted.

There were no other smiles. Frank Harrington was fiddling with his gold wrist-watch, pushing a button to see what time it was in Timbuctoo. Henry Tiptree, having written something that was too private to say, was now showing it to Morgan. Bret seemed to have hidden away the little notepads and pencils that were always put at each place on the table. That had effectively prevented note-taking except for the freckle-faced Tiptree, who'd brought his own notepad. Dicky Cruyer was wearing his blue-denim outfit and a sea-island cotton sports shirt open enough to reveal a glimpse of gold chain. Now it was obvious that Dicky had known all along that Henry Tiptree was an Internal Security officer. I'd never forgive him for not warning me back in Mexico City when Tiptree first came sniffing around.

Bret Rensselaer took off the big, wire-frame, speed-cop-style glasses that he required for reading and said, 'Suppose I suggested that you were determined that Stinnes would never be enrolled? Suppose I suggested that everything you've done from the time you went to Mexico City – and maybe before that, even – has been done to ensure that Stinnes stays loyal to the KGB?' He raised a hand in the air and waved it around as though he was trying to get someone to bid for it. 'This is just a hypothesis, you understand.'

I took my time answering. 'You mean I threatened him? Are you "suggesting" that I told him that I worked for the KGB and that I'd make sure that any attempt to defect would end in disaster for him?'

'Oh, no. You'd be far too clever for a crude approach like that. If it was you, you wouldn't tell Stinnes anything about your job with the KGB. You'd just handle the whole thing in an incompetent fumbling way that would ensure that Stinnes got scared. You'd make sure he was too damned jumpy to make any move at all.'

I said, 'Is that the way you think it was handled, Bret? In an incompetent fumbling way?' No hypothesis now, I noticed. The incompetence was neatly folded in.

Mexico City had been Dicky's operation and Dicky was quick to see that Bret was out to sink him. 'I don't think you have all the necessary information yet,' Dicky told Bret. Dicky wasn't going to be sunk, even if it meant keeping me afloat.

'We were taking it slowly, Bret,' I said. 'The brief implied that London wanted Stinnes gung-ho, and ready to talk. We didn't want to push hard. And you said London Debriefing Centre wouldn't want to find themselves dragging every word out of him. Frank will remember that.'

Bret realized that he could get caught in the fallout. Defensively he said, 'I didn't say that. What the hell would I know about what the Debriefing Centre want?'

Dicky leaned forward to see Bret and said, 'Words to that effect, Bret. You definitely said that Bernard was to use his own judgement. He decided to do things slowly.'

'Maybe I did,' said Bret and, having pacified Dicky, turned the heat back on to me. 'But how slow is slow? We don't want Stinnes to die of old age while you're enrolling him. We want to speed things up a little.'

I said, 'You wanted to speed things up. So you applied the magic speed-up solution, didn't you? You offered Stinnes a quarter of a million dollars to help him make up his mind. And you did it without even informing me, despite the fact that I am the enroller. I'm going to make an official objection to that piece of clumsy meddling.' I turned to the D-G's personal assistant and said, 'Have you got that, Morgan? I object to that interference with my operation.'

Morgan was a white-faced Welshman whose only qualifications for being in the department were an honours degree in biology and an uncle in the Foreign Office. He looked at me as if I were an insect floating in his drink. His expression didn't change and he didn't answer. On the day I leave the department I'm going to punch Morgan in the nose. It is a celebration I've been promising myself for a long time.

Bret continued hurriedly, as if to cover up for the way I'd made a fool of myself. 'We were in a hurry to debrief Stinnes for reasons that must be all too clear to you.'

'To question him about Fiona's defection?' I said. 'Would you push that ashtray down the table, please?'

'It wasn't a defection, buddy. To defect means to leave without permission. Your wife was a KGB agent passing secret information to Moscow.' He slid the heavy glass ashtray along the polished table with that violent aplomb with which bartenders shove bourbon bottles in cowboy films.

I took the ashtray, tapped ash into it and said, 'Whatever it was she did, you wanted to question Stinnes about it?'

'We wanted to question him about your role in that move. There are people downstairs who've always thought that you and your wife were working together as a team.' I saw Frank edge his chair back an inch from the table, his subconscious prompting him to dissociate himself from anyone who thought that.

I said, 'But when she ran I was already there. I was in East Berlin. Why would I come back here to put my head in a noose?'

Bret held one of his cuff-links and twisted his wrist in the starched white cuff. His eyes were fixed on me. He said, 'That was the cunning of it. What guilty man would come running back to the department he betrayed? The fact that you came back was the most ingenious defence you could have contrived. What's more, Bernard, it's very you.'

'I say, Bret. Steady on,' said Frank Harrington. Bret looked at Frank for long enough to remind him who'd given him his present posting and who could no doubt get him a staff job in Iceland if he felt inclined. Frank turned his objection into a cough and Bret looked down the table to me.

'Very me?' I said.

'Yes,' said Bret. 'It's exactly the kind of double-bluff that you excel at. And you are one of the few people who could swing it. You are cool; very cool.'

I inhaled on my cigarette and tried to be as cool as he said I was. I knew Bret; he worked on observation. It was his standard method to throw his weight around and then see how people reacted to him. He even did it with the office clerks. 'You can invent some exciting yarns, Bret,' I said. 'But this particular parable leaves out one vitally important event. It leaves out the fact that I was the one who flushed Fiona out. It was my phone call to her that made her run.'

'That's your version of events,' said Bret. 'But it conveniently overlooks the fact that she got away. I'd say that your phone call warned her in time for her to get away safely.'

'But I told Dicky too.'

'Only because you wanted him to stop her taking your children.'

'Leaving my motivation aside,' I said, 'the fact is that I stampeded her into immediate flight. Even the report says that she seems to have taken no papers or anything of importance with her.'

'She took nothing because she was determined to be clean for Customs and immigration. The way the British law stands, there were no legal grounds for preventing her leaving the country with or without a passport. She knew that if she had nothing incriminating with her we would have had to wave goodbye with a smile on our faces when she took off.'

'I don't want to be side-tracked into a discussion about the British subject's rights of exit and re-entry,' I said primly, as if Bret was trying to evade the subject of discussion. 'I'm just telling you that she was unprepared. With proper warning she could have dealt us a bad blow.'

Bret was all ready for that one. 'She was a burned-out case, Bernard, and she'd run her course. The evidence that would incriminate her was there. If you hadn't stampeded her, the next agent in would have done. But, by having you do it, Moscow were going to make you a golden boy here in London. That's what chess players call a gambit, isn't it? A piece is sacrificed to gain a better position from which to attack.'

'I don't know much about chess,' I said.

'I'm surprised,' said Bret. 'I would have thought you'd be good at it. But you'll remember that next time you're playing – about losing a piece to get into a better position – won't you?'

'Since my duplicity was so bloody obvious, Bret, why didn't you arrest me then, as soon as I got back here?'

'We weren't sure,' said Bret. He shuffled in his seat. Bret was a shirt-sleeve man. He didn't look right sitting there with his jacket on like a shop-window dummy.

'You didn't ask me to face a board. There wasn't even an inquiry.'

'We wanted to see what you would do about enrolling Stinnes.'

'That's not very convincing, Bret. The fact that you wanted to enrol Stinnes, and question him, was a measure of your doubt about my guilt.'

'Not at all. This way, we could confirm or deny your loyalty and have Stinnes as a bonus. Dicky and I talked that one over. Right, Dicky?' Bret obviously felt that Dicky wasn't giving him the support he needed.

Dicky said, 'I've always said that there was insufficient evidence to support any action against Bernard. I want to make that clear to everyone round this table.' Dicky looked round the table making it clear to everyone.

Well, good old Dicky. So he's not just a pretty face either. He'd realized that this might well turn out to be the opportunity he'd been waiting for; the opportunity to dump a bucket of shit over Bret's head. Dicky was going to sit on the sidelines, but he'd be cheering for me now that Bret had adopted the role of my prosecutor. And, if I proved to be guilty, Dicky would still be able to wriggle free. The present company were well equipped to understand every nuance of Dicky's carefully worded communiqué to the future. He'd said there was insufficient evidence to support any action against me. Dicky wasn't going to stick his neck out and say I wasn't guilty.

Seeing that Bret was momentarily disconcerted by his remark, Dicky followed with a quick right and left to the body. 'And if Bernard didn't manage to persuade Stinnes to defect that would prove his guilt?' Dicky asked. He used a rather high-pitched voice and a little smile. It was Dicky's idea of the droll Oxford don that he'd once hoped to be, but it ill fitted a man in trendy faded denim and Gucci shoes. Dicky persisted, 'Is that it? It sounds like those medieval witch trials. You throw the accused into a lake and if he comes up you know he's guilty so you execute him.'

'Okay, Dicky, okay,' said Bret, holding up a hand and admiring his signet ring, his fraternity ring and his manicure. 'But there are still a lot more questions unanswered. Why did Bernard make Biedermann sacred?'

It was a good tactic to address the question to Dicky Cruyer, but Dicky leaped aside like a scalded cat. He knew that being cast as my counsel was just one step away from being my accessory. 'Well, what about that, Bernard?' said Dicky, turning his head towards me with an expression that said he'd gone as far as any man could go to help me.

I said, 'I was at school with Biedermann. I knew him all his life. He was never of any importance.'

'Would you like to see a rough listing of Biedermann's business holdings?' said Bret. 'Not a bad spread for a nothing.'

'No, I wouldn't. I'm talking about what he did as an agent. He was of no importance.'

'How can you be so sure?' said Bret.

'Biedermann's death is a red herring. He could never be anything more than a very small piece of the KGB machinery. There is nothing to suggest that Biedermann has ever had access to any worthwhile secrets.' They all looked at me impassively; they all knew that I'd play down Biedermann whatever he was.

Tiptree spoke for the first time. He used his hand to smooth his well-brushed ginger hair and then fingered his thin moustache as if making sure it was still gummed on. He was like a nervous young actor just about to make his first stage appearance. He said, 'Carrying secrets this time though, eh?'

'I'll wait for the official assessment before saying anything about that,' I said. 'And, even if it's worthwhile material, I'll bet you that it will reveal nothing about the Russians.'

'Well, of course it will reveal nothing about the Russians,' said Tiptree in his measured, resonant voice. 'This chap was a Soviet agent, what?' He looked round the table and smiled briefly.

Morgan spoke for the first time. He explained to Tiptree what I was getting at. 'Samson means that we'll learn nothing about Soviet aims or intentions from the submarine construction report that was being carried by Biedermann.'

'The only thing we'll learn from it', I added, 'is that the KGB chose a document that will involve the maximum number of security organizations: France, Denmark, Norway, Britain, several Latin American customers. Mexico where he was resident and the US because of his passport.'

'But the material was important enough for him to be killed,' said Tiptree.

'He was killed to incriminate me,' I said.

'Well,' said Tiptree with studied patience. There's no avoiding the fact that you gave him the drink that poisoned him.'

'But I didn't know what it was. We've been through all that. Just before we came in here Bret told me that the Sûreté have even found someone who identified the girl who gave me the poisoned coffee.'

Bret fidgeted in his chair. He liked to swing round in his swivel chair in his office. This wasn't a swivel chair but Bret kept throwing his weight from one side to the other as if hoping that it might become one. He corrected me. 'I said, the Sûreté found someone in the building who remembered seeing the girl you described. Hardly the same thing, Bernard. Hardly the same thing.'

'You say that Biedermann was of no account,' said Tiptree, still exhibiting that mannered patience with which great minds untangle ignorance. 'I wish you could give us just one reason for believing that.'

'Biedermann was so unimportant that the KGB killed him just to implicate me. Doesn't that prove something?'

Bret said, 'It proves nothing, as well you know. For all we can figure, Biedermann was in this up to his neck and you were working with him. That sounds a more likely motive for his murder. That explanation shows why you made him sacred without putting his name on our copy of the filing sheets.'

'I wanted a favour from him. I was preparing the way for it.'

'What favour?'

'I wanted him to help me persuade Stinnes.'

Bret said, 'What help were you going to get from the unimportant little jerk you described?'

'Stinnes was in contact with Biedermann. I thought Stinnes would choose to work through him instead of Werner Volkmann.'

'Why?'

'It's what I would have done.'

'So why didn't Stinnes do it through Biedermann?'

'I think he planned to do it that way but that the KGB began to get worried about what was happening and stopped him.'

'Play that back at half-speed,' said Bret.

'I think Moscow encouraged Stinnes to tease us a little at first. But then Stinnes realized he had the perfect cover for coming over to us. But Moscow never trusts anyone, so I think they are monitoring Stinnes and his contacts with us. He has an assistant – Pavel Moskvin – who might be someone assigned by Moscow Centre to spy on him. It could well be that they have other people spying on him. We all know that Moscow likes to have spies who spy on spies who spy on spies. I think someone higher up told Stinnes not to use Biedermann as the go-between. They had other plans for Biedermann. He was to be murdered.'

Bret fixed me with his eyes. We both knew that by 'someone higher up' I meant Fiona. I half expected him to say so. Once I'd suspected him of being Fiona's lover. Even now I'd not entirely dismissed the idea. I wonder if he knew that. He said, 'So you thought Biedermann would be valuable to us. That's why you made him sacred?'

'Yes,' I said.

'Wouldn't it be simpler, and more logical, to think you covered for Biedermann because he was a buddy?'

'Are we looking for simplicity and logic?' I said. 'This is the KGB we're talking about. Let's just stick to what is likely.'

'Then how likely is this?' said Bret. 'Biedermann is your KGB contact. You make him sacred to keep everyone else off his back. That way you'll be the first to hear if he attracts the attention of any NATO intelligence agency. And your excuse for contacting him, any time you want, night or day, is that you are continuing the investigation into his activities.'

'I didn't like Biedermann. I've never liked him. Anyone will tell you that.' It was a feeble response to Bret's convincing pattern and he ignored it.

'That sort of cover – investigation – has been used before.'

'Biedermann was killed in order to frame me for his murder, and because while he was alive his evidence would support everything I've told you. There's no other reason for what was otherwise a completely gratuitous killing.'

'Oh, sure,' said Bret. 'All to get you into deep trouble.'

I didn't answer. The KGB's operational staff had done their work well. Given all the facts against some other employee of the department, I too would have been as suspicious as Bret was.

Dicky stopped biting his nail. 'Shall I tell you what I think,' said Dicky. His voice was high and nervous but it wasn't a question; Dicky was determined to share his theory. 'I think Stinnes never gave a damn about Biedermann. That night in Mexico, when he first made contact with the Volkmanns, he apparently went across to the table because he mistook Zena Volkmann for the Biedermann girl, I say Stinnes was after Zena Volkmann. Hell, she's a stunner, you know, and Stinnes has a reputation as a woman chaser. I think we're making too much of Biedermann's role in all this.'

'Well, think about this one,' I said. 'Suppose Stinnes was sent to Mexico City only because Zena and Werner were already there. He told them that he'd been there a few weeks but we have no proof of that. We've been congratulating ourselves on the way that we put out an alert and then the Volkmanns spotted him. But suppose it's the other way round? Suppose Stinnes knew exactly who the Volkmanns were that night when he went over to their table in the Kronprinz Club? Suppose the whole scenario had been planned that way by the KGB operational staff.'

I looked around. 'Go on,' said Bret. 'We're all listening.'

I said, 'How could he mistake Zena Volkmann for Poppy Biedermann? No one could mistake one for the other; there's no resemblance. He pretended to mistake Zena for the Biedermann girl in order to bring Biedermann into the conversation, knowing that we'd find out Paul Biedermann was in Mexico and that we'd make contact with him. Suppose they were thinking of involving Biedermann right back when we started?'

'With what motive?' said Dicky and then regretted saying it. Dicky liked to nod things through as if he knew everything. He touched his bloodless lips as if making sure his mouth was shut.

'Well, he's not done too badly, has he?' I said. 'He's got everyone here jumping up and down with excitement. You're accusing me of being a KGB agent and of murdering Biedermann on KGB instructions. Not bad. We'd be very proud to have the KGB floundering about like this, trying to find out who's on which side.'

Bret frowned; my accusation of floundering found a target. Frank Harrington leaned forward and said, 'So how far will they go? Send Stinnes here to give us a lot of misinformation?'

'I doubt if he could sustain a prolonged interrogation.'

'Then why the hell would they bother?' said Bret.

'To get me to run, Bret,' I said.

'Run to Moscow?'

'It fits. They send Stinnes to Mexico so that Volkmann will spot him because they guess that I'll be the chosen contact. And then they plan Biedermann's murder so that they can incriminate me. They might even have guessed I'd make Biedermann NATO sacred – it's been done before: we all know that – and now they want to pin his murder on me.' There were all sorts of other things – from the black girl's clumsy approach, to MacKenzie's murder – that supported my theory but I had no intention of revealing those. 'The whole thing adds up to a way of making me run.'

'That's what physicians call a "waste-paper basket diagnosis",' said Bret. 'You throw all the symptoms into the pot and then invent a disease.'

'Then tell me what's wrong with it,' I said.

'I'd want to see you completely cleared of suspicion before I started racking my brains about why they might be framing you,' said Bret. 'And we've still got a long way to go on that one.'

Frank Harrington looked round the table and said, 'It would be worth a lot to them to have Bernard there asking for political asylum. I think we have to take into account the way that Bernard has stayed here and faced the music.' Until that moment I'd wondered if Frank's offer to let me run off to Checkpoint Charlie had been in response to some directive from London. But now I decided that Frank had done it on his own. I was more than ever grateful to him. And if Frank seemed lukewarm in his contribution to this meeting that might be because he could offer more support to me behind the scenes if he showed no partisanship.

To me Bret said, That's your considered opinion, is it; that all this evidence against you is part of a Moscow plan to have you running over there?' He paused, but no one said anything. Sarcastically Bret added, 'Or could it just be your paranoia?'

'I'm not paranoid, Bret,' I said. 'I'm being persecuted.'

Bret exploded with indignation. 'Persecuted? Let me tell you – '

Frank put a hand on Bret's arm to calm him. 'It's a joke, Bret,' he said. 'It's an old joke.'

'Oh, I see. Yes,' said Bret. He was embarrassed at losing self-control if only for a moment. 'Well, it's hard to imagine KGB Operations cooking that one up.'

I said, 'I could tell you some even more stupid ideas that we've followed through.'

Bret didn't invite me to tell him any of the stupid ideas. He said, 'But what you describe would be a change of style, wouldn't it? The sort of thing someone new might dream up, to show what a genius they were.' Everyone round the table knew what he meant but when he remembered there were no notes or recordings he said it anyway. 'Someone like your wife?'

'Yes. Fiona. She could have had a hand in something like that.'

'She makes you run. She gets you and gets your kids. Ummm,' said Bret. He had a gold ball-point pen in his fist, and he clicked the top two or three times to show us he was thinking. 'Would Fiona think you could be stampeded that way? She knows you well. Why would she guess wrong? Is she wrong?'

'Hold it, Bret,' I said. 'Just four beats to the bar.'

Bret said, 'Because we still have another unreported incident.' He looked at Tiptree.

Tiptree continued right on cue. Maybe it hadn't been rehearsed but this interview had obviously been discussed in detail. Tiptree looked at me and said, 'A black woman asked for a lift in your car and you took her to London Airport. There you both had a brief exchange of words with a second woman.'

I looked at Tiptree and then at Bret. I was shaken. They'd caught me off-guard with that one. And bringing it up so late was a part of the effect it had. 'That was nothing to do with the department.'

'Well, I say it was to do with the department,' said Bret.

'We're all allowed a private life, Bret,' I reminded him. 'Or are we starting a new game? We all come in on Monday mornings and discuss each other's private lives as revealed by the surveillance teams. Do you want to start right away?' Bret, who wasn't above taking some of the more shapely secretaries to his riverside mansion for a cosy weekend, was not keen to get into an exchange of confidences.

To take the pressure off Bret, Henry Tiptree said, 'By that time we were checking your journeys between home and the office. You were under suspicion from the time you returned, Bernard. Surely you must have guessed that.'

'No, I didn't. At least, I didn't think you were sending Internal Security teams to follow me home.'

'So who was she?' said Tiptree.

'It was a neighbour. She has a friend who works at the airport and I was going to employ her to look after the children. She's a qualified nurse who wanted to earn some extra money on her days off. But, the way things are now, I have to have someone full-time.'

It was a hasty improvisation and I was by no means sure that Tiptree believed me. Tiptree looked at me for a long time and I stared back at him in mutual antipathy. 'Well, we'll leave that for the time being,' he said, as if making a concession to me. I wondered if he too had been trying to trace the black girl with rather less luck than poor old MacKenzie. 'Let's move on to MacKenzie,' said Tiptree, as if reading my thoughts. 'Tell me what he was doing for you at the time of his death.'

Was it a trick? 'I don't know the time of his death,' I said. 'I just know what the doctor estimated it might have been.'

Tiptree smiled grimly. 'If you don't know the time of his death,' he said, carefully inserting that proviso as if not believing it, 'tell me about MacKenzie. You gave him quite a few errands. From what I hear of you, it's not like you to use a probationer. You're the one who's always complaining about the lack of experience around here. You're the one who won't tolerate amateurism. Why MacKenzie, then?'

I kept as near to the truth as possible. 'He wanted to be a field agent,' I told them. 'He really wanted that.' They nodded. We'd all seen lots of probationers who wanted to be field agents, even though the various selection boards tried to screen out anyone with that perverted ambition. Soon even the most headstrong such probationer came to realize that his chances of being sent off to operate as a field agent were very slim. Field agents were seldom chosen from recruited staff. Field agents didn't get sent anywhere. Field agents were there already.

'You used him a lot,' said Tiptree.

I said, 'He would always find time to help. He'd type reports when all the bloody typing pool had refused to work overtime. He'd stand in the rain all night and never ask questions about the premises he'd watched. He'd go into municipal offices and spend hours rummaging through boxes of old birth certificates or ratings slips or voters' lists. And because he was a particularly rude and badly dressed probationer, and spoke ungrammatical English with a regional accent, he had no trouble convincing anyone that he was a reporter on one of our great national newspapers. That's why I used him.'

Morgan, a man with a Welsh accent who had briefly tried his hand at being a reporter for one of our great national newspapers, allowed a ghost of a smile to haunt his face.

'That hardly explains what he was doing in a departmental safe house in Bosham,' said Tip tree.

'Oh, we all know what he was doing there,' I said. 'He was lying there dead. He was lying there dead for seven days before anyone from that highly paid housekeeping department of ours bothered to check the premises.'

'Yes, those bastards,' said Bret. 'Well, I shafted those lazy sons of bitches. We won't have that trouble any more.'

'That will be very comforting for me next time I walk into a safe house and sit down in a chair so that some KGB hood can put a.44 Magnum into my cranium.'

'How do you know what kind of pistol it was,' said Henry Tiptree as casually as he was able.

'I don't know what kind of pistol it was, Mr Tiptree,' I said. 'I just know what kind of bullet it was; a hollow-point one that mushrooms even when the muzzle velocity is high, so it blows people apart even when it's not well aimed. And, before you ask me the supplementary question that I can see forming on your lips right now, I got that out of the ballistics sheet that was part of the file on MacKenzie's death. Maybe that's something you should read, since you are so keen to find the culprit.'

'No one is blaming you for MacKenzie's death,' said Frank gently.

'Just for Biedermann's,' I said. 'Well, that's nice to know.'

'You don't have to stand up and sing 'Rule Britannia',' said Bret. 'There's been no suggestion of opening an orange file on you. We're simply trying to get at the truth. You should be more keen than anyone that we do that.'

'Then try this one on for size,' I said. 'Suppose everything is the way I say it is – and so far you've produced nothing to prove I'm wrong – and suppose my slow way of enrolling Stinnes is the best way. Then perhaps there are people in the department who'd like to see my attempt to enrol Stinnes fail.' I paused to let the words sink in. 'Suppose those people hope that, by hurrying me along and interfering with what I do, they'll keep Stinnes where he is on the other side.'

'Let me hear that again,' said Bret. His voice was hard and unyielding.

'You heard what I said, Bret. If Stinnes goes into London Debriefing Centre in the way I want him to go there – relaxed and cooperative – he'll sing. I'm telling you that there might be people, not a thousand miles from here, who are not musically inclined.'

'It's worth thinking about, Bret,' said Frank. I had voiced what Frank had already said to me in Berlin. He looked at me and gave an almost imperceptible wink.

'You're not including me?' Bret said.

'I don't know, Bret. Talk it over with your analyst. I only deal in facts.'

'No one is trying to muzzle you, wise guy,' said Bret. He was talking directly to me now, as if there was no one else in the room.

'You could have fooled me, Bret. The way I was hearing it, I'd handled the Stinnes enrolment with fumbling incompetence. People are throwing money at him, without even keeping me informed. I'd begun to think that perhaps I was not doing this exactly the way you wanted it done.'

'Don't talk to me like that,' said Bret.

'You listen to me, Bret old buddy,' I said. 'I'll talk to you any way I choose to talk. Because I'm the file officer on the Stinnes investigation. And, just in case you've forgotten, we have an old-fashioned system in this department; once an agent is assigned to a file he has full powers of decision. And he continues with his task until he closes the file or hands it over. Either way he does it of his own volition. Now you put me here in the hot seat and rig this kangaroo court to intimidate me. But I've been over there where intimidation is done by experts. So you don't frighten me, Bret. You don't frighten me at all. And if this pantomime was staged to make me abandon the Stinnes file it's been a waste of time. I'll get Stinnes. And he'll come back here and talk like a rescued castaway.'

They were embarrassed at my outburst. The lower ranks must not complain. That was something any decent school taught a chap in his first term. Frank coughed, Morgan tipped his head back to look at the ceiling, Tiptree stroked his hair, and Dicky had all his fingers arrayed along the edge of the table, selecting one to make a meal from.

'But if anyone present thinks the Stinnes file should be taken away from me, now is the time to stand up and say so.' I waited. Bret looked at me and smiled derisively. No one spoke.

I stood up and said, 'Then I'll take it as unanimously agreed that I remain file officer. And now I'm leaving you gentlemen to write up the minutes of this meeting any way you like, but don't ask me to sign them. If you want me during the next few minutes I'll be with the D-G. I'm exercising my rights under another old-fashioned rule of this department; the right to report directly to the Director-General on matters of vital concern to the service.'

Bret started to get to his feet. I said, 'Don't see me out, Bret. And don't try to head me off from seeing the old man. I made the appointment this morning and he's waiting for me right now.'

I'd got as far as the door before Bret recovered himself enough to think of a rejoinder. 'You'd better get Stinnes,' he said. 'You screw up on Stinnes and I'll have you working as a file clerk in Registry.'

'Why not?' I said. 'I've always wanted to read through the senior staffs personal files.'

I took a deep breath when I got out in the corridor. I'd come out of the belly of the whale, but there was still a rough sea.

The meeting with the D-G was the sort of civilized formality that any meeting with him always was. I wasn't, of course, reporting anything of vital concern to the service. I was just imposing on the D-G's goodwill in order to say hello to him. I always tried to have an important appointment to escape to when I suspected that a meeting would go on too long.

His room was dim and smelted of leather chairs and dusty books that were piled upon them. The D-G sat by the window behind a small desk crowded with family photos, files, trays of paperwork and long-forgotten cups of tea. It was like entering some old Egyptian tomb to chat with an affable mummy.

'Of course I remember you,' said the D-G. 'Your father, Silas Gaunt, was Controller (Europe) when I first came here.'

'No, Silas Gaunt is a distant relative but only by marriage,' I said. 'My father was Colonel Samson; Berlin Resident when Silas was Controller (Europe).'

The D-G nodded vaguely. 'Controller (Europe), the Iberian Desk… such ridiculous titles. I've always thought we sound like people running the overseas service of the BBC.' He gave a little chuckle. It was a joke he'd made many times before. 'And everything is going well, is it?'

The D-G didn't look like a man who would like to hear that anything was going less than well. I had the feeling that if I implied that all was not going well, the D-G would throw himself through the window without pausing to open it. I suppose everyone had the same protective feeling when talking with the D-G. That's no doubt why the department was something of a shambles. 'Yes, sir,' I said. 'Everything is going very well.' A brave man, that Bernard Samson, and truthful to a fault.

'I like to keep in touch with what's happening,' said the D-G. 'That's why I sent for you.'

'Yes, sir,' I said.

'The wretched doctor won't let me drink at all. But it doesn't look as if you're enjoying that lemon tea. Why don't you go and pour yourself a decent drink from my cupboard. What was that you said?'

'Thank you, sir.'

'I've all the time in the world,' said the D-G. 'I'd love to hear what's happening in Washington these days.'

'I've been in Berlin, sir. I work on the German Desk.'

'No matter, no matter. Tell me what's happening in Berlin. What did you say your name was again?'

'Samson, sir. Bernard Samson.'

He looked at me for a long time. 'Samson, yes, of course. You've had this frightful problem about your wife.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Mr Harrington explained your difficulties to me. Did he tell you we're hoping to get some supplementary payment for you?'

'Yes, sir. That would be most helpful.'

'Don't worry about the children. They'll come to no harm, I guarantee it.' The D-G smiled. 'Promise, now. You'll stop worrying about the children.'

'Yes, sir. I promise.'

'Samson. Yes, of course. I've always had a knack for remembering names,' he said.

After leaving the D-G's office I went into the toilet and found myself sharing a hot-air drier with Frank Harrington.

'Feeling better now, Bernard?' he said humorously.

'Better than I was before? Or better than the people at that meeting of Bret's?'

'Oh, you left us in no doubt about that, my dear fellow. You made your superiority more than clear to everyone present. What did you do to the D-G, ask him for his resignation?' He saw me look round and added. 'It's quite all right; there's no one else here.'

'I said what needed saying,' I said defensively.

'And you said it very well. Bret went home to change his underpants.'

'That will be the day,' I said.

'You underestimate the effect of your passionate outbursts, Bernard. Bret has only himself to blame. Your little dig about a kangaroo court went home. Bret was distressed; he even told us he was distressed. He spent ten minutes singing your praises to convince us all that it wasn't anything of the kind. But, Bernard, you're inclined to the overkill.'

'Is that a warning, Frank?'

'Advice, Bernard. Advice.'

'To guard my tongue?'

'Not at all. I always enjoy your tantrums except when I'm on the receiving end of them. I enjoyed seeing you scare them half to death in there.'

'Scare them?'

'Of course. They know how easily you can make a fool of them. Bret still hasn't forgotten that joke you made about his visit to Berlin last year.'

'I've forgotten what I said.'

'Well, he hasn't forgotten. You said he went up the steps at Checkpoint Charlie and looked over the Wall. He didn't like that, Bernard.'

'But that's what he did do. He lined up behind a busload of tourists and went up the steps to look over the God-damned Wall.'

'Of course he did. That's why he didn't join in the laughter. If Dicky had said it, or anyone else in the office without field experience, it wouldn't have mattered. But coming from you it caused Bret a loss of dignity; and dignity means a lot to Bret.' All the time Frank was smiling to show me what a good joke it all was.

'But?'

'But one at a tune, Bernard, old friend. Don't antagonize a whole roomful of people all at once. It's a dangerous sport, old lad. They get together when they have something in common. Just one at a time in future. Right?'

'Right, Frank.'

'Your father would have enjoyed that shindig you put on for us. He wouldn't have approved, of course. Not your father's style; we both know that. But he would have enjoyed it, Bernard.'

Why did that last remark of Frank's please me so much? Do we never shed the tyranny of our father's love?