'No.'

'There's something different about you.' She combed her long hair and then began putting it up into a chignon. 'I mean, you looked after me absolutely marvellously in the restaurant, but I had the feeling that there was something on tout mind all the time. Have you been fired?'

'Close. I resigned. Leave -'

'What from?'

'Government work. Terribly dull. Leave your number, will you?'

'If you like.'

It was gone midnight when we went down to the street; the rain had stopped at last, and I managed to flag down a cab straight away.

'I hope you get the Concorde job.'

'God, so do I. Imagine:' She reached up and we kissed, while the cab's diesel went on idling. 'Thanks for such a good time, Martin. Give me a ring if you feel like it - I'll be back in London next week. Next Tuesday.'

The flat felt deserted when I went back, which was odd, because I normally enjoyed its space and its silence. She'd scribbled her phone number on the back of a British Airways check slip; it was lying on the dressing table under the lamp, next to a blond tangle of hairs, and I picked it up and tore it in half, and then in quarters, dropping them into the wastepaper basket and turning off the lamp. I wouldn't be in London next week, next Tuesday. God knew where I'd be, but it wouldn't be here.

'Well, well...'

It was Pepperidge, hunched over the bar with a glass of Mescal in front of him, the worm curled at the bottom.

I didn't want to talk to him, or anyone else; I'd come to the Brass Lamp to be alone, as a change from being alone in the flat; but I couldn't just walk away now that he'd seen me. I asked the man for a tonic and bitters, and looked at Pepperidge.

'How are things?'

He squinted under the brass-shaded light. 'I suppose they'll work out somehow.'

I hadn't seen him for months; he specialised in picking up classified info at ground level - cryptographic key lists and cards, message traffic, communications data, operations orders, whatever he could get, working mostly at the Asian desk at the Bureau.

'What happened?' I asked him.

'Bastards fired me.' He watched me with cynical eyes, his thin hair lying untidily across his scalp, his moustache at a kind of angle, sloppily trimmed, his shoulders hunched. 'I'm like you, old boy - sometimes I won't obey orders.' His hand shook a little as he picked up his drink. 'And I don't regret it, you know that? I don't bloody well regret it. Is that all you're going to drink?'

'For the moment.'

He sat gazing into his small amber glass. 'For the moment. I suppose that means you're working.'

'Not really. I walked out.'

He swung his head up to squint at me with his yellow eyes, taking time to focus. 'Walked out?'

'A little disagreement.' I didn't want to talk about it; the whole thing had been tearing at my mind for the last ten days like a pack of dogs.

'Walked out of the Bureau?

'It can happen to anyone, for Christ's sake.'

He went on watching me. 'But you're one of their top shadows.'

'Tell me about yourself.'

He ignored that. 'You'll go back, of course. I mean, after a while. Won't you?'

'No.' I picked up my drink. I'd give him another three minutes for old times' sake, and then out.

'When did you leave?' he asked me.

'Ten days ago.'

'You must have been going mad.'

'Probably.'

'That's what I should've done, before they had a chance to fire me. I know what it feels like. I mean, I know what it feels like to me. What's it feel like to you?'

'None too funny. Aren't you afraid of swallowing that bloody thing?'

He looked into his drink, rather fondly. 'But I always do, old boy. He's my little friend, you see. Poor little perisher, died of drink, and you know something? So will I. Eventually.' He straightened up on the stool, making an effort, glancing across my eyes. 'Of course I don't really mean that. But Christ, you know what I did the day I walked out of there? I put down half a bottle of Black Label and went along to the funfair and bought every bloody seat on the roller-coaster and tried to see if I could hop from the front to the back before it came in again. Fucking near fell off- there's a really rotten bend on that thing. The next day I took a .38 up there with me and had a go at shooting out the bulbs on the tower in the middle. Got most of them. Arrested me for public endangerment, or some such thing.' He gave a short laugh that turned into a cough, 'You should do something like that, you know, get it out of your system.'

'I did.'

'Jolly good show. Stick a piss-pot on top of the palace gates or something? I've always wanted to do that, you know.'

'Nothing so fancy.' The cop hadn't been able to put the actual speed down on the ticket because the needle in the Jensen had been tight against the 120 mark when the front end had started aquaplaning on the wet road somewhere past Windsor and the whole thing had taken off. I'd been lucky the cop had found me: there was a bit of concussion involved.

'I suppose Scobie's after you, is he?'

'What?'

'Scobie.'

'Yes.' I'd got the letter a week ago, three days after I'd left the Bureau. Scobie worked fast. There was an official crest at the top of the paper, and the name of a department which didn't in fact exist: Coordination Staff- Foreign and Commonwealth Office.

It has been suggested to me that you might be interested in a discussion with us about appointments in government service in the field in foreign affairs, which occasionally arise in addition to those covered by the Diplomatic Service Grades 7 and 8.

The letter was signed illegibly over the title Recruiting Officer.

Scobie ran an undercover staffing operation for the British Secret Intelligence Service from Warwick Square, and he'd picked up the vibrations at once when I'd walked out of the Bureau. The next thing would be an invitation to lunch at the Travellers' Club in St James to sound me out.

'You won't take up with that gang, of course.' Pepperidge was watching me steadily now. 'Will you?'

'Not really.'

'Too much bloody red tape.' He finished his drink, and I looked away. He's my little friend, you see... 'But then, where else is there? There is nowhere, of course, or I wouldn't be sitting here .. . sitting here wishing to Christ -' he squeezed his eyes shut and sat rocking gently on his stool for almost half a minute, then let his shoulders go slack and gave a short laugh - 'wishing to Christ I wasn't. Because I had an offer, too. Not from Scobie.' He swung his head to look for the barman. 'Not from Scobie.'

'Same again, Mr Pepperidge?'