the Russian Embassy in London for leading Brexiteers, and his million-pound contribution to an arm’s-length fighting fund for Leavers. She describes a covert meeting that Orson attended in Brussels with six Russian cyber experts suspected of wide-scale hacking into Western democratic forums. All this and more without a tremor of emotion.
Only when she comes to the proposed positioning of hidden microphones in the target duplex does her cool desert her. Ilya’s slideshow is giving us a dozen of them, each marked with its own red spot. Marion begs to interrupt:
‘Florence,’ she says severely, ‘I fail to understand why you are proposing to deploy special facilities against under-age children.’
I don’t think I’d seen Florence struck mute till now. As her substation head I hasten to her assistance.
‘I think Marion must be referring to our recommendation that all rooms in Orson’s duplex should be covered regardless of who occupies them,’ I murmur to her in a stage aside.
But Marion is not to be mollified.
‘I am questioning the ethics of installing audio and visual facilities in a child’s nursery. Also in the nanny’s bedroom, which I find equally questionable, if not more so. Or are we to suppose that Orson’s children and the nanny are of intelligence interest?’
Florence has by now collected herself. Or, if you know her as I do, readied herself for combat. She takes a breath and puts on her sweetest Cheltenham Ladies’ College voice.
‘The nursery, Marion, is where Orson takes his business friends when he’s got something especially secret to tell them. The nanny’s room is where he screws his hookers when the kids are in Sochi having a seaside holiday with Nanny and his wife’s out buying jewellery at Cartier’s. Source Astra tells us that Orson likes to boast to his women about his clever deals while he screws them. We thought we should hear him do that.’
But it’s all right. Everyone’s laughing, Guy Brammel loudest; even Marion is laughing. Dom is laughing, which is to say he’s shaking and smiling, even if no laughter is coming out. We stand, little groups form at the coffee table. Ghita is offering Florence sisterly congratulations. An unseen hand closes on my upper arm, a thing I don’t take kindly to at the best of times.
‘Nat. Such a good meeting. A credit to London General, a credit to the Haven, a credit to you personally.’
‘Glad you enjoyed it, Dom. Florence is a promising officer. Nice to have her authorship recognized. So easy for these things to slip by.’
‘And always that moderating voice of yours in the background,’ Dom returns, affecting not to hear my little sally. ‘I could practically hear it: that fatherly touch of yours.’
‘Well, thank you, Dom. Thank you,’ I reply handsomely, and wonder what he’s got up his sleeve.
*
In the afterglow of a job well done, Florence and I amble back along the river footpath in the sunshine, remarking to each other – but mostly Florence doing the remarking – that if Rosebud yields only a quarter of the dividend we’re predicting, one thing we can be reasonably sure of is it will be curtains for Orson’s role as Russia’s stooge in London and curtains – her most devout wish – for his stockpiles of filthy money stashed around the southern hemisphere by the City of London’s ever-rotating laundromat.
Then, because we haven’t eaten and time is anyway a little unreal after all the night hours we have invested in this moment, we put off taking the tube, dive into a pub, find an alcove to ourselves and over fish pies and a bottle of red burgundy – also Steff’s tipple, as I can’t resist telling her, and both of them fish fanatics – we review in suitably oblique language the morning’s proceedings, which were actually a lot longer and more technical than I’ve given here, with contributions from Percy Price and Eric the pompous burglar about such matters as the marking and monitoring of surveillance targets, impregnating the target’s shoes or clothing, the use of a helicopter or drone, and what will happen in the event of an unscheduled return by Orson and his entourage to the target duplex while the stealth team is still inside. Answer, they will be politely informed by a uniformed police officer that intruders have been reported in the building, so will the good ladies and gentlemen kindly avail themselves of the police van and enjoy a nice cup of hot tea while investigations proceed?
‘So that’s really it, is it?’ Florence muses over