them, and continues:
‘In Berlin Shannon was the subject of an episode attributed to drink and the unwanted termination, on his side, of a love affair with a German woman. He received counselling and was judged to have made a full recovery to his mental and physical health. There is no further example of ill-discipline, dissident or suspect behaviour recorded against him. In the workplace he is regarded as a loner. His line manager describes him as “friendless”. He is unmarried and listed as heterosexual with no known current partner. He has no known political affiliations.’
Another moistening of the lips.
‘An immediate damage assessment is under way, as is an enquiry into Shannon’s past and present contacts. Pending the outcome of such enquiries, Shannon will not, repeat not, be made aware that he is under observation. Given the background and evolving nature of the case I am authorized to state that my Service is amenable to the formation of a joint task force. Thank you.’
‘Can I just add a word to that?’
To my surprise I am standing, and Dom is staring up at me as if I’ve gone mad. I am also speaking in what I firmly believe is a confident and relaxed tone:
‘I happen to know this man personally. Ed. We play badminton together most Monday evenings. In Battersea, actually. Close to where I live. At our club. The Athleticus. And we usually have a couple of beers together after the game. Obviously I’m happy to help in any way I can.’
Then I must have sat down too abruptly and lost my bearings in the process, because the next thing I remember is Guy Brammel suggesting we all take a short natural break.
16
I’ll never know how long they kept me waiting in that little room, but it can’t have been short of an hour with nothing to read and just a blank, pastel-painted yellow wall to stare at because they had taken away my Office mobile. And to this day I can’t fathom whether I had been sitting or standing in the Operations room or just wandering around when a janitor touched my arm and said ‘If you’d kindly follow me, sir’ without completing the sentence.
But I do remember that there was a second janitor waiting at the door, and that it took the two of them to walk me to the lift while we chatted about the shocking heat we were having to put up with and was it going to be like this every summer from now on? And I know the word friendless kept going through my mind like an accusation: not because I blamed myself for being Ed’s friend, but because it seemed I was the only one he had, which placed a larger responsibility on me – but for what? And of course with those unmarked lifts your stomach never knows whether you’re going up or down, particularly when its churning away on its own account, which mine was now that I had been escorted from the confinement of the Operations room and released into captivity.
But call it an hour before the janitor who had been standing the other side of the glass door all this time – Andy, his name was, fond of his cricket – popped his head round and said ‘You’re on, Nat,’ then in the same cheery spirit led me to another much larger room, again with no windows, not even fake ones, and a ring of nice padded chairs with no distinction between them because we’re a Service of equals, and told me to sit in whichever chair I wanted because the others would be here in a jiffy.
So I picked a chair and sat on it and cupped the ends of the arms with my hands and fell to wondering who the others would be. And I believe I have a memory from somewhere at the start of my escorted passage out of the Operations room of a cluster of top-floor grandees murmuring in a corner and Dom Trench trying to get his nose under the wire as usual, and being told ‘No, not you, Dom’ rather firmly by Guy Brammel.
And sure enough when my chers collègues filed in, Dom was not one of the party, which caused me briefly to speculate again about his concern that I should speak up for him regarding the chauffeured car he’d ordered for me. First into the room came Ghita Marsden who gave me a kindly smile and a ‘hullo again, Nat’ that