he complains thoughtfully. ‘Every time we turn over a shifty billionaire with his finger in the Russian pie, Orson pops up. We’re not case officers, we’re watchers. We watch what we’re told to watch. But I’m very glad somebody’s decided to go after him at last, because him and his lot have been bothering me for a very long time.’
Percy will see if he can give us a window. It will be touch-and-go, mind, Nat. If Ops Directorate decide at the eleventh hour that another bid is stronger, there’s nothing Percy or anyone else can do about it.
‘And of course everything goes through me, Percy,’ says Dom, and we both say, yes, Dom, of course.
Three days later, Percy calls me on my Office mobile. Looks like there’s a bit of slack coming up, Nat. Could be worth a punt. Thanks, Percy, I say, I’ll pass the word on to Dom as appropriate, by which I mean as late as possible or not at all.
Florence’s cubbyhole is one step from my office. From now on, I inform her, she will spend as much quality time as needed with Orson’s disenchanted mistress, codename Astra. She will take her for country drives, escort her on her shopping expeditions and have girly lunches with her at Fortnum’s, Astra’s favourite. She will also up her cultivation of the night porter at the target building. Disregarding Dom, I authorize a sweetener of five hundred pounds to that end. Under my guidance Florence will also draft a formal application for a first covert reconnaissance of the interior of Orson’s duplex to be conducted by a stealth team from Operations Directorate. By involving the Directorate at this early stage, we are signalling serious intent.
*
My initial instinct has been to enjoy Florence with caution: one of those upper-class girls who’ve grown up with ponies and you never quite know what’s going on inside. Steff would loathe her on sight, Prue would worry. Her eyes are large, brown and unsmiling. To cover her shape in the workplace she favours baggy woollen skirts, flat shoes, no make-up. According to her file, she lives with her parents in Pimlico and has no designated partner. Her sexual orientation is by her own wish undeclared. As what I take to be a keep-out sign, she sports a man’s gold signet ring on her wedding finger. She has a long stride and a slight lilt with every step. The same lilt is replicated in her voice, which is pure Cheltenham Ladies’ College laced with bricklayers’ expletives. My first experience of this unlikely pairing occurs during a discussion of Operation Rosebud. We are five: Dom, Percy Price and myself, a pompous Office burglar named Eric and Florence, probationer. The issue of the moment is whether a power cut might usefully be staged as a diversion while Eric’s boys and girls are conducting their reconnaissance inside Orson’s duplex. Florence, who until now has remained quiescent, springs to life:
‘But Eric,’ she objects. ‘Whatever do we think Orson’s computers run on? Fucking torch batteries?’
An urgent problem awaiting me is to excise the note of moral outrage that permeates her draft submission to Operations Directorate. I may not be the Office’s uncrowned king of paperwork – my personal reports suggest the opposite – but I do know what raises the hackles of our dear planners. When I tell her this in plain English she flares. Is this Steff I’m dealing with, or my number two?
‘Oh Jesus,’ she sighs. ‘You’re about to tell me you’ve got a thing about adverbs.’
‘I’m telling you nothing of the kind. I’m telling you that it’s a matter of embuggerance, as you would say, to Ops Directorate and Russia department whether Orson is the most debased man on the planet or a paragon of the virtues. We therefore delete all references to just causes and obscene sums of money stolen from the world’s oppressed. We do intent, dividend, risk level and deniability and we make bloody sure the Haven’s symbol is watermarked on every page and not mysteriously replaced by anyone else’s.’
‘Such as Dom’s?’
‘Such as anybody’s.’
She stalks back to her cubbyhole and slams the door. No wonder Giles fell in love with her: he hasn’t got a daughter. I call Percy, tell him the Rosebud draft proposal is in the pipeline. When all my excuses for delay have run out, I give Dom a full and frank account of our progress to date – by which I mean, enough to keep him quiet. On the Monday