fifty seconds we watch him, head down, toying with his beaker of tea exactly as he likes to toy with his frosted glass of lager at the Athleticus. If I know him at all, he is trying to decide whether to do as she suggests or forget it and hightail home. At one minute fifty-one he makes a grab for his briefcase, stands, ponders and eventually picks up his tray and ambles over to a rubbish bin. He deposits his rubbish like a good citizen, adds his tray to the stack, and after screwing up his face for further reflection, decides to follow Valentina down the concrete path.
*
The second reel, as I will call it for convenience, is set in Sergei’s semi-basement, but Sergei himself plays no part in it. His orders, received over his new ‘uncontaminated’ mobile phone and covertly copied to the Haven and Head Office, are to check the park once more for ‘indications of hostile surveillance’, then make himself scarce. It is therefore a safe presumption on the surveillance team’s part that Sergei has been cast as cut-out and will not be permitted direct contact with Ed. Tadzio on the other hand, being already conscious to Ed and vice versa, will provide for his operational needs. But Tadzio, like Sergei, will not be present for the intimate conversation about to take place between Moscow Centre’s distinguished emissary and my Monday badminton and conversation partner Edward Shannon in Sergei’s semi-basement flat.
*
GAMMA: So, Ed. Hullo again. We are alone, we are safe and private and we may talk. First I have to thank you on behalf of all of us for your offer of help in our time of need.
ED: That’s all right. Long as it really helps.
GAMMA: I have certain obligatory questions for you. Do you allow me? Do you have any like-minded colleagues in your department who are assisting you? Kindred spirits to whom we should also be grateful?
ED: It’s just me. And I’m not proposing to bother anyone else for stuff. It’s not like I’ve got accomplices, right?
GAMMA: Then can we please talk a little more about your modus operandi? You said many things to Maria and of course we have them well recorded. Maybe tell me a little more about your special work with the copier. You told Maria you work it alone sometimes.
ED: Yeah, well, that’s the point, isn’t it? If stuff is sensitive enough, I get to do the handling on my own. I go in, the normal crew has to get out and stay out. They haven’t been through the sheep-dip.
GAMMA: Sheep-dip?
ED: Developed vetting. There’s only this one other clerk cleared apart from me, so we take turns. Her and me. Nobody trusts electronic any more, do they? Not for the really delicate stuff. It’s all paper and hand-carry, like going back in time. If copies have got to be made, it’s back to the old steam copier.
GAMMA: Steam?
ED: Old-fashioned. Basic. It’s a joke.
GAMMA: And while you were operating the steam copier, you had your first sight of the papers called Jericho. Yes?
ED: More than a first sight. Like about a minute’s worth. The machine stuck. I just stood there looking at it.
GAMMA: So that was your moment of epiphany, we may say?
ED: Of what?
GAMMA: Of revelation. Of enlightenment. The moment when you decided you must take the heroic step and contact Maria.
ED: Well, I didn’t know it was going to be Maria, did I? Maria’s who they gave me.
GAMMA: Was your decision to come to us instantaneous, would you say, or did it grow on you over the next hours or days?
ED: I saw the stuff and I just thought, Christ, that’s it.
GAMMA: And the vital passage you saw was marked Topsecret Jericho. Yes?
ED: I told her all this.
GAMMA: But I am not Maria. The passage you saw had no addressee, you say.
ED: It couldn’t have, could it? I only saw a middle bit. No addressee, no signature. Just the header:Topsecret Jericho and the reference.
GAMMA: Nevertheless, you told Maria that the document was addressed to the Treasury.
ED: Seeing there was a Treasury goon standing like a foot away from me waiting for me to run the stuff off, it seemed pretty obvious it was addressed to the Treasury. Are you testing me?
GAMMA: I am confirming that, as Maria reported, you have excellent recall and you do not decorate your information for greater effect. And the reference was—
ED: KIM stroke one.
GAMMA: KIM being the symbol of which entity?
ED: British joint intelligence