as normal, a forlorn hope, I step back into the street, turn down a side alley and walk hard for ten minutes before settling in a café and ordering myself a double espresso. Breathe slowly. Get your priorities sorted. I try Florence’s mobile once more on the off-chance. Dead as a dodo. Her Hampstead phone number has a new message. It is delivered by a young, contemptuous, upper-class male: ‘If you’re calling for Florence, she’s no longer at this number, so get lost.’ I call Dom and get Viv:
‘Unfortunately Dom has back-to-back meetings all day, Nat. Can I be of any help at all?’
Oh, I don’t think so, thanks, Viv, no. Are his back-to-backs on home ground, would you say, or are they out and about town?
Is she wavering? Yes, she is:
‘Dom is not taking calls, Nat,’ she says, and rings off.
*
‘Nat, my dear fellow,’ Dom says in a tone of high surprise, indulging his new habit of using my name as a weapon. ‘Always welcome. Do we have an appointment? Would tomorrow suit? I’m a bit snowed under, to be frank.’
And he has the papers strewn across his desk to prove it, which only tells me that he’s been expecting me all morning. Dom doesn’t do confrontation, which is something we both know. His life is a sideways advance between things he can’t face. I drop the latch on his door and sit myself down in a prestige chair. Dom remains at his desk, deep in paperwork.
‘You’re staying, are you?’ he enquires after a while.
‘If that’s all right with you, Dom.’
He picks another file from his in-tray, opens it, absorbs himself intently in its contents.
‘Sad about Rosebud,’ I suggest after a suitable silence.
He can’t hear me. He’s too absorbed.
‘Sad about Florence, too,’ I reflect. ‘One of the best Russian officers the Service ever lost. Can I see the report? Maybe you’ve got it there?’
The head still down. ‘Report? What are you blathering about?’
‘The Treasury sub-committee’s report. The one about the disproportionate risk. Can I see it please?’
The head up a bit, but not too far. The open file in front of him still matters more.
‘Nat, I have to inform you that, as a provisional employee of London General, you are not cleared to anything like the appropriate level. Do we have any further questions?’
‘Yes, Dom. We do. Why did Florence resign? Why did you pack me off to Northwood on a fool’s errand? Were you planning to make a pass at her?’
On the last, the head comes up with a jolt.
‘I’d have thought that possibility rather more in your line than mine.’
‘So why?’
Lean back. Let the fingertips find each other and form their wedding arch. They do. The prepared speech may now begin.
‘Nat, as you may suppose, I did receive, on a strictly one-to-one confidential basis, advance warning of the sub-committee’s decision.’
‘When?’
‘That is neither here nor there as far as you are concerned. May I go on?’
‘Please do.’
‘Florence, we both know, is not what you and I might call a mature person. That is the core reason why she was held back. Talented, nobody contests that, least of all myself. However, it was apparent to me from her presentation of Operation Rosebud that she was emotionally – I dare say too emotionally – engaged in its outcome for her own good and ours. I had hoped that by giving her an informal heads-up ahead of the official announcement of the sub-committee’s decision I might mitigate her disappointment.’
‘So you sent me to Northwood while you dabbed her brow. Very considerate.’
But Dom doesn’t do irony, least of all when he is the butt of it.
‘However, on the larger issue of her abrupt departure from the Office, we should congratulate ourselves,’ he continues. ‘Her response to the sub-committee’s decision to disallow Rosebud for reasons of national interest was disproportionate and hysterical. The Service may count itself well rid of her. Now tell me about Pitchfork yesterday. A virtuoso performance by the Nat of old, if I may say so. How do you construe his instructions from Moscow?’
Dom’s habit of hopping from one subject to another as a means of avoiding unfriendly fire is also familiar to me. However, on this occasion he has done me a favour. I don’t think of myself as sly in a general way but Dom raises my game. The only person who is ever going to tell me what took place between him and Florence is Florence, but she’s unavailable. So go for goal.
‘How do I construe