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going outside the regular banking network, by raising money from the money market. But that means trimming his agent’s fee. It’s making life tough for him. If he gives up the forfaiting business, we’ll lose a good opportunity and a useful contact.’

      ‘Suppose he fouls up on one of these deals and the bank doesn’t get its money.’

      ‘Oh, for Christ’s sake, Bret. The boys in the bank are big enough to change their own nappies.’

      ‘And they’ll squeal bloody murder.’

      ‘What do we have those lousy banks for, unless it’s for this kind of job?’

      ‘What kind of dough are we talking about?’

      ‘A million Deutschemark rolling over would be about right.’

      ‘Are you out of your tiny mind?’ said Bret. ‘A million D-mark? For that no good son of a bitch? No, sir.’ He scratched the side of his nose. ‘Did Volkmann put you up to all this?’

      ‘Not a word. He likes to show me what a big success he is.’

      ‘So how do you know he’s strapped for cash?’

      ‘In this business,’ I said, ‘it does no harm to flip the pages of someone’s bank account from time to time.’

      ‘One of these days you’ll come unstuck doing one of your unofficial investigations into something that doesn’t concern you. What would you do if the bells started ringing?’

      ‘I’d just swear it was an official investigation,’ I said.

      ‘The hell you would,’ said Rensselaer.

      I started to leave the room. ‘Before you go,’ he said, ‘what would you say if I told you that Brahms Four asked for you? Suppose I said he won’t trust anyone else in the Department? What would you say about that?’

      ‘I’d say he sounds like a good judge of character.’

      ‘Okay, smart ass. Now let’s have an answer for the record.’

      ‘It could simply mean he trusts me. He doesn’t know many Department people on personal terms.’

      ‘Very diplomatic, Bernard. Well, downstairs in Evaluation they are beginning to think Brahms Four has been turned. Most people I’ve spoken with downstairs are now saying Brahms Four might have been a senior KGB man from the time Silas Gaunt first encountered him in that bar.’

      ‘And most people downstairs,’ I said patiently, ‘wouldn’t recognize a senior bloody KGB officer if he walked up to them waving a red flag.’

      Rensselaer nodded as if considering this aspect of his staff for the first time. ‘Could be you’re right, Bernard.’ He always said Bernard with the accent on the second syllable; it was the most American thing about him.

      It was at that moment that Sir Henry Clevemore came into the room. He was a tall aloof figure, slightly unkempt, with that well-worn appearance that the British upper class cultivate to show they are not nouveau riche.

      ‘I’m most awfully sorry, Bret,’ said the Director-General as he caught sight of me. ‘I had no idea you were in conference.’ He frowned as he looked at me and tried to remember my name. ‘Good to see you, Samson,’ he said eventually. ‘I hear you spent the weekend with Silas. Did you have a good time? What has he got down there, fishing?’

      ‘Billiards,’ I said. ‘Mostly billiards.’

      The D-G gave a little smile and said, ‘Yes, that sounds more like Silas.’ He turned away to look at Bret’s desk top. ‘I’ve mislaid my spectacles,’ he said. ‘Did I leave them in here?’

      ‘No, sir. You haven’t been in here this morning,’ said Bret. ‘But I seem to remember that you keep spare reading glasses in the top drawer of your secretary’s desk. Shall I get them for you?’

      ‘Of course, you’re right,’ said the D-G. ‘The top drawer, I remember now. My secretary’s off sick this morning. I’m afraid I simply can’t manage when she’s away.’ He smiled at Bret, and then at me, to make it perfectly clear that this was a joke born out of his natural humility and goodwill.

      ‘The old man’s got a lot on his plate right now,’ said Bret loyally after Sir Henry had ambled off along the corridor muttering apologies about interrupting our ‘conference’.

      ‘Does anyone know who’ll take over when he goes?’ I asked Bret. Goes gaga, I almost said.

      ‘There’s no date fixed. But could be the old man will get back into his stride again, and go on for the full three years.’ I looked at Bret and he looked back at me, and finally he said, ‘Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t know, Bernard.’

       6

      The two sisters were not much alike. My wife, Fiona, was dark with a wide face and a mouth that smiled easily. Tessa, the younger one, was light-haired, almost blonde, with blue eyes and a serious expression that made her look like a small child. Her hair was straight and long enough to touch her shoulders, and she sometimes flicked it back behind her, or let it fall forward across her face so that she looked through it.

      It was no surprise to find Tessa in my drawing room when I got back from the office. The two of them were very close – the result perhaps of having suffered together the childhood miseries that their pompous autocratic father thought ‘character forming’ – and Fiona had been working hard over the past year to patch together Tessa’s marriage to George, a wealthy car dealer.

      There was an open bottle of champagne in the ice bucket, and already the level was down as far as the label. ‘Are we celebrating something?’ I asked as I took off my coat and hung it in the hall.

      ‘Don’t be so bloody bourgeois,’ said Tessa, handing me a champagne flute filled right to the brim. That was one of the problems of marrying into wealth; there were no luxuries.

      ‘Dinner at eight-thirty,’ said Fiona, embracing me decorously, her champagne held aloft so that she would spill none of it while giving me a kiss. ‘Mrs Dias has kindly stayed late.’

      Mrs Dias, our Portuguese cook, housekeeper and general factotum, was always staying late to cook the dinner. I wondered how much her labour was costing us. The cost, like so many other household expenses would end up buried somewhere deep in the accounts and paid for out of Fiona’s trust-fund income. She knew I didn’t like it, but I suppose she disliked cooking even more than arguing with me about it. I sat down on the sofa and tasted the champagne. ‘Delicious,’ I said.

      ‘Tess brought it with her,’ explained Fiona.

      ‘A gift from an admirer,’ said Tessa archly.

      ‘Am I permitted to ask his name?’ I said. I saw Fiona glaring at me but I pretended not to be aware of it.

      ‘All in good time, darling,’ said Tessa. ‘For the moment he remains incognito.’

      ‘In flagrante delicto, did you say?’

      ‘You sod!’ she said, and laughed.

      ‘And how’s George?’ I said.

      ‘We live our own lives,’ said Tessa.

      ‘Don’t upset Tessa,’ Fiona told me.

      ‘He’s not upsetting me,’ Tessa said, tossing her hair back with her bejewelled white hand. ‘I like George and I always will like him. We’re simply not able to live together without quarrelling.’

      ‘Does that mean you’re getting a divorce?’ I asked, drinking a little more of the champagne.

      ‘George doesn’t want a divorce,’ she explained. ‘It suits him to use the house like a hotel during the

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