work is she engaged in?
ED: Actually, shut up about her, d’you mind?
GAMMA: Of course. And you have not called attention to yourself?
ED: How am I supposed to have done that?
GAMMA: You haven’t stolen your employer’s money; you are not conducting a forbidden love affair like ours? [Waits for Ed to get the joke. Eventually he does and manages a stiff grin] You have not argued with your senior staff, they do not regard you as subversive or undisciplined, you are not the subject of an internal investigation as a result of some act you have committed or failed to commit? They are not aware that you object to their policies? No? Yes?
(Ed has again withdrawn into himself. His face is set in a dark frown. If Gamma knew him better she would wait patiently until he emerges.)
GAMMA: [Playful] Are you concealing something embarrassing from me? We are tolerant people, Ed. We have a long tradition of humanism.
ED: [After further reflection] I’m just ordinary, right? There’s not many of us about, if you want my personal opinion. Everyone else sits with the fence halfway up his arse waiting for someone to do something. I’m doing it. That’s all.
*
The pottery Staffordshire dog is the safety signal, she is telling him – or I think she is, because my ears are blurring. If there’s no doggie in the window, it means abort, she’s telling him. Or maybe she’s saying it means come on in. This ‘No Nukes’ poster means we have a vital message for you. Or maybe it says we will have one next time you pass, or alternatively: never pass this way again. Sound tradecraft requires that the agent leaves first. Ed and Valentina stand facing each other. Ed looks dazed, very tired and hangdog, the way he used to look when I was still able to beat him in a do-or-die best of seven games before we settled to our lagers. Valentina takes his hand in both of hers, draws him to her and awards a purposeful kiss to each cheek but abstains from the third Russian kiss. Ed churlishly submits. An exterior camera picks him up as he climbs the iron staircase, briefcase in hand. An aerial camera watches him unchain his bicycle, fit the briefcase into the front basket and ride off in the direction of Hoxton.
*
The double doors to the Operations room open. Marion and her spear-carriers return. Doors close, lights please. Behind the soundproofed glass walls of his eagle’s nest Percy Price is apportioning his troops in ways not hard to guess: one team stays on Gamma, another stays on Ed and houses him, remote surveillance only. A female voice from space advises us that subject Gamma has been ‘successfully marked’, we may only guess what with. So also apparently have Ed and his bicycle. Percy is well satisfied.
The screens flicker and go blank. No Lake Windermere in autumn. Marion stands upright as a Guardsman at the end of the long table. She is wearing spectacles. Her dark-suited spear-carriers stand either side of her. She takes a breath, raises a document from her right side and reads aloud to us in a slow deliberate voice.
‘We regret to inform you that the man identified as Ed in the surveillance footage you have just witnessed is a full-time member of my Service. His name is Edward Stanley Shannon and he is a qualified Category A clerical officer with clearance to top secret and above. He has a second-class honours degree in Computer Sciences. He is a Grade 1 digital specialist currently earning a basic annual salary of £32,000 with incentive bonuses available to him for overtime, weekends and language skills. He is a Class 3 German linguist on assignment to the European element of a highly classified inter-services department under Whitehall’s aegis. From 2015 to 2017 he served in Berlin in his department’s liaison office. He is not and never was considered suitable for operational duties. His present duties include the weeding or sanitizing of top-secret materials destined for our European partners. In effect this entails excising, under advisement, intelligence material destined exclusively for the United States. Some of this material may also be construed as contrary to European interests. As Shannon correctly stated in the footage you have just seen, he is one of only two Grade 1 specialists entrusted with the task of copying documents of exceptional sensitivity. Shannon has successfully undergone developed vetting and one subsequent top-up.’
Her lips have stuck. She purses them, discreetly moistens