'But I work work for them,' she retorts. 'I thought you'd have guessed by now!' Her sarcasm goes nowhere. for them,' she retorts. 'I thought you'd have guessed by now!' Her sarcasm goes nowhere.

'I just thought, maybe somebody in your Chambers has a line to them,' Perry says in a hangdog voice.

'Oh. And how would that be?' Gail snaps, feeling the heat rise to her face.

'Well' over-innocent shrug 'it just occurred to me that, with all the stuff going on about extraordinary rendition and torture public inquiries, lawsuits and all that the spies must be needing all the legal help they can get.'

It was too much. With a resounding 'f.u.c.k you, Perry', she ran down the path to the cabin, where she collapsed in tears.

And yes she was terribly sorry. And he was terribly sorry too. Mortified. They both were. It was all my fault. No, mine. Let's go home to England and get this whole b.l.o.o.d.y business over. Temporarily reunited, they grab for each other like drowning swimmers and make love with the same desperation.

She is back at the long window, scowling into the street. No b.l.o.o.d.y taxi. Not even the wrong one.

'b.a.s.t.a.r.ds,' she says out loud, mimicking her father. And to herself or to the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds silently: What the h.e.l.l are you doing with him?

What the h.e.l.l do you want from him?

What's he saying no-but-yes to as you watch him perform his moral duck shuffle?

How would you feel if Dima had chosen me as his confessor instead of Perry? If instead of man-on-man, it had been man-on-woman?

How would Perry be feeling, sitting here like a b.l.o.o.d.y cast-off, waiting for me to come back with still more secrets that 'alas, alas, I can't possibly share with you, it's for your own good'?

'Is that you, Gail?'

Is it?

Someone has put the phone into her hand and told her to speak to him. But someone hasn't. She's alone. It's Perry in prime time, not flashback, and she's still standing, one hand for the window frame, staring into the street.

'Look. I'm sorry it's late and everything.'

Everything?

'Hector wants to talk to both of us tomorrow morning at nine.'

'Hector does?' does?'

'Yes.'

Stay rational. In a mad world, stick to what you know. 'I can't. I know it's Sunday, but I'm working. Samson v. Samson Samson v. Samson never sleeps.' never sleeps.'

'Then call Chambers and say you're sick. It matters, Gail. More than Samson v. Samson Samson v. Samson. Truly.'

'According to Hector?'

'According to both of us, actually.'

6.

'His name will be Hector, by the way,' said adept little Luke, glancing up from his copy of the buff folder.

'Is that a warning or a divine ordinance?' Perry asked from inside his spread hands, long after Luke had given up expecting a reply.

In the age since Gail's departure, Perry had not moved from the table, neither lifting his head nor stirring from his place beside her empty chair.

'Where's Yvonne?'

'Gone home,' said Luke, back in his folder.

'Sent or gone?'

No answer.

'Is Hector your supreme leader?'

'Let's say I'm B-list, he's A-list' pencilling a mark.

'So Hector's your boss?'

'Another way of putting it.'

And another way of not answering the question.

Actually, Perry had to concede, on all the evidence available so far, Luke was someone he could get along with. No high-flyer, maybe. B-list, just as he had said of himself. A bit plummy, perhaps, a bit public school, but a good man on a rope for all that.

'Has Hector been listening to us?'

'I expect so.'

'Watching us?'

'Sometimes it's better just to listen. Like a radio play.' And after a pause: 'Smashing girl, your Gail. Been together long?'

'Five years.'

'Wow.'

'Why wow wow?'

'Well, I suppose I feel a bit Dima-like. Marry her quick.'

This was holy ground, and Perry considered telling him so, then forgave him.

'How long have you been doing this work?' he asked Luke instead.

'Twenty years, give or take.'

'Home or abroad?'

'Abroad mainly.'

'Is it distorting?'

'Come again?'

'The work. Does it warp your mind? Are you aware of well deformation professionnelle deformation professionnelle?'

'You mean, am I psycho?'

'Nothing as drastic as that. Just well, how it affects you over the long term?'

Luke's head remained down, but his pencil had stopped roaming, and there was challenge in his stillness.

'In the long term long term?' he repeated, in studious puzzlement. 'In the long term we'll all be dead, I imagine.'

'I simply meant: how does it grab you, representing a country that can't pay its bills?' Perry explained, aware too late that he was slipping out of his depth. 'Good intelligence being about the only thing that gets us a seat at the international top table these days, I read somewhere,' he blundered on. 'It must be rather a strain on the people who have to provide it, that's all. Punching above one's weight,' he added, in an unintentional reference to Luke's diminutive stature which he immediately regretted.

Their troubled exchange was interrupted by the shuffle of slow, soft footsteps like bedroom slippers along the ceiling before beginning a cautious descent of the bas.e.m.e.nt stairs. As if to order, Luke stood up, strode over to a sideboard, picked up a tray of malt whisky, mineral water and three gla.s.ses, and set it on the table.

The footsteps reached the bottom of the stairs. The door opened. Perry rose instinctively to his feet. A mutual inspection ensued. The two men were of equal height, which for both was unusual. Without his stoop, Hector might have been the taller. With his cla.s.sic broad brow and flowing white hair tossed back in two untidy waves, he resembled to Perry's eye a Head of College of the old, dotty sort. He was in his mid-fifties, by Perry's guess, but dressed for eternity in a mangy brown sports coat with leather patches at the elbow and leather edges to the cuffs. The shapeless grey flannels could have been Perry's own. So could the battered Hush Puppy shoes. The artless, horn-rimmed spectacles could have been rescued from Perry's father's attic box.

Finally, but long after time, Hector spoke: 'Wilfred b.l.o.o.d.y b.l.o.o.d.y Owen,' he p.r.o.nounced, in a voice that contrived to be both vigorous and reverential. 'Edmund Owen,' he p.r.o.nounced, in a voice that contrived to be both vigorous and reverential. 'Edmund b.l.o.o.d.y b.l.o.o.d.y Blunden. Siegfried Blunden. Siegfried b.l.o.o.d.y b.l.o.o.d.y Sa.s.soon. Robert Sa.s.soon. Robert b.l.o.o.d.y b.l.o.o.d.y Graves. Et al.' Graves. Et al.'

'What about them?' the bewildered Perry asked, before he had given himself time to think.

'Your fabulous f.u.c.king article about them in the London Review of Books London Review of Books last autumn! " last autumn! "The sacrifice of brave men does not justify the pursuit of an unjust cause. P. Makepiece scripsit." b.l.o.o.d.y marvellous!' scripsit." b.l.o.o.d.y marvellous!'

'Well, thank you,' said Perry helplessly, and felt an idiot for not having made the connection fast enough.

The silence returned while Hector continued his admiring inspection of his prize.

'Well, I'll tell you what you are, Mr Perry Makepiece, sir,' he a.s.serted, as if he'd reached the conclusion they had both been waiting for. 'You're an absolute f.u.c.king hero, is what you are' seizing Perry's hand in a flaccid double grip and giving it a limp shake 'and that's that's not smoke up your a.r.s.e. We know what you think of us. Some of us think it too, and we're right. Trouble is, we're the only show in town. Government's a f.u.c.k-up, half the Civil Service is out to lunch. The Foreign Office is as much use as a wet dream, the country's stony-broke and the bankers are taking our money and giving us the finger. What are we supposed to do about it? Complain to Mummy or fix it?' not waiting for Perry's answer 'I'll bet you s.h.i.tted blood before you came to us. But you came. Just a token' he had released Perry's hand and was addressing Luke on the subject of malt whisky 'for Perry, minimal. Lot of water and enough of the hard stuff to loosen his girdle. Mind if I squat next to Luke or are we too much like not smoke up your a.r.s.e. We know what you think of us. Some of us think it too, and we're right. Trouble is, we're the only show in town. Government's a f.u.c.k-up, half the Civil Service is out to lunch. The Foreign Office is as much use as a wet dream, the country's stony-broke and the bankers are taking our money and giving us the finger. What are we supposed to do about it? Complain to Mummy or fix it?' not waiting for Perry's answer 'I'll bet you s.h.i.tted blood before you came to us. But you came. Just a token' he had released Perry's hand and was addressing Luke on the subject of malt whisky 'for Perry, minimal. Lot of water and enough of the hard stuff to loosen his girdle. Mind if I squat next to Luke or are we too much like when-did-you-last-see-your-father when-did-you-last-see-your-father? b.u.g.g.e.r Adam, my name's Meredith. Hector Meredith. We talked on the phone yesterday. Flat in Knightsbridge, wife and two veg, now grown up. Arctic cottage in Norfolk and I'm in the phone book in both places. Luke, who are you you when you're not being some other swine?' when you're not being some other swine?'

'Luke Weaver, actually. We live up beyond Gail on Parliament Hill. Last posting Central America. Second marriage, one common son aged ten just got into University College School, Hampstead, so we're thrilled to bits.'

'And no tough questions till the end,' Hector ordered.

Luke poured three minuscule shots of whisky. Perry sat sharply down again and waited. A-list Hector sat directly opposite him, B-list Luke a little to one side.

'Well, f.u.c.k f.u.c.k,' said Hector happily.

'f.u.c.k indeed,' Perry agreed, bemused.

But the truth was, Hector's rallying cry could not have been more timely or invigorating for Perry, nor his ecstatic entry better calculated. Consigned to the black hole left by Gail's enforced departure enforced by himself, never mind the reasons his divided heart had abandoned itself to every shade of self-anger and remorse.

He should never have agreed to come here, with or without her.

He should have handed over his doc.u.ment and told these people: 'That's it. You're on your own. I am am, therefore I don't spy.'

Did it matter matter that for a whole night long he had pounded the threadbare carpet of his Oxford digs, debating the step he that for a whole night long he had pounded the threadbare carpet of his Oxford digs, debating the step he knew knew but didn't wish to know he was bound to take? but didn't wish to know he was bound to take?

Or that his late father, low churchman, freethinker and embattled pacifist, had marched, written and raged against all things evil, from nuclear arms to the war on Iraq, more than once ending up in a police cell for his trouble?

Or that his paternal grandfather, a humble mason by trade and avowed Socialist, had lost a leg and an eye fighting on the Republican side in the Spanish Civil War?

Or that Irish colleen Siobhan, the Makepiece family treasure of twenty years and four hours a week, had been bullied into making deliveries of the contents of his father's wastepaper basket to a plainclothes detective of the Hertfordshire constabulary? a burden that had weighed so heavily on her that one day in floods of tears she had confessed all to Perry's mother, never to be seen near the house again, despite his mother's entreaties?

Or that only a month ago Perry himself had composed a full-page advertis.e.m.e.nt in the Oxford Times Oxford Times, endorsed by a hastily a.s.sembled body of his own creation calling itself 'Academics against Torture', urging action against Britain's Secret Government and the a.s.sault-by-stealth on our most hard-fought civil liberties?

Well, to Perry these things had mattered immensely.

And they had continued to matter on the morning after his long night of vacillation when, at eight o'clock, with a ring-bound lecture notebook jammed under his armpit, he had willed himself to set course across the quadrangle of the ancient Oxford college he was shortly to leave for ever, and ascend the worm-eaten wooden staircase leading to the rooms of Basil Flynn, Director of Studies, Doctor of Law, ten minutes after requesting a quick word with him on a private and confidential matter.

Only three years divided the two men, but Flynn, in Perry's judgement, was already the ultimate university committee wh.o.r.e. 'I can squeeze you in if you come at once,' he had said officiously, 'I've a meeting of Council at nine, and they tend to last.' He was wearing a dark suit and black shoes with polished side-buckles. Only his carefully brushed shoulder-length hair separated him from the full-dress uniform of orthodoxy. Perry had not considered how he would begin his conversation with Flynn, and his opening words, he would now concede, were hastily chosen: 'Last term you solicited one of my students,' he blurted, barely across the threshold.

'I did what what?'

'A half-Egyptian boy. d.i.c.k Benson. Egyptian mother, English father. Arabic speaker. He wanted a research grant but you suggested he might like to talk to certain people you knew in London instead. He didn't grasp what you meant. He asked my advice.'

'Which was?'

'If the certain people in London were who I thought they were, tread carefully. I wanted to tell him not to touch them with a bargepole, but didn't feel I could say that. It was his choice, not mine. Am I right?'

'What about?'

'That you recruit for them. You talent-spot.'

'Them being who, exactly?'

'The spies. d.i.c.k Benson didn't know which lot he was up for, so how should I? I'm not accusing you. I'm asking you. Is it true? That you're in touch with them? Or was Benson fantasizing?'

'Why are you here and what do you want?'

At this point Perry nearly left the room. He wished he had. He actually turned and headed for the door, then stopped himself and turned back.