carnally. Love him for real?’
And that’s Bryn Jordan for you, the river you only cross once. Charms you, listens to your gripes and suggestions, never raises his voice, never judgemental, always above the fray, walks you round the garden until he owns the air you breathe, then skewers you.
*
‘I’m fond of him, Bryn. Or I was, until this blew up,’ I say lightly, after a long pull of whisky.
‘As he is of you, dear boy. Can you imagine him talking to anyone else the way he talks to you? We can use that.’
‘But how, Bryn?’ I insist, with an earnest smile, playing the good disciple despite the chorus of conflicted voices resounding in what Bryn was pleased to call my private head. ‘I keep asking you, but somehow you don’t quite answer. Who’s we in this equation?’
The Father Christmas eyebrows rise to their extremity as he awards me the broadest of smiles.
‘Oh my dear boy. You and I together, who else?’
‘Doing what, if I may ask?’
‘What you’ve always done best! You befriend your man all ways up. You’re halfway there already. Judge your moment and go the other half. Tell him who you are, show him the error of his ways, calmly, undramatically, and turn him. The moment he says “yes I will, Nat,” put a halter round his neck and lead him gently into the paddock.’
‘And when I’ve led him gently in?’
‘We play him back. Keep him beavering away at his day job, feed him carefully concocted disinformation which he passes up the pipeline to Moscow. We run him for as long as he lasts, and once we’ve done with him we let our sister Service wrap up the Gamma network to the sound of trumpets. You get a commendation from the Chief, we cheer you on your way and you’ve done the best you can for your young pal. Bravo. Any less would be disloyal, more would be culpable. And now hear this,’ he goes on vigorously, before I have a chance to object.
*
Bryn has no need of notes. He never did have. He isn’t reeling off facts and figures at me from his Office mobile. He’s not pausing, frowning, searching his mind for that irritating detail he has mislaid. This is the man who learned fluent Russian in one year flat at the School of Soviet Studies in Rome and added Mandarin to his portfolio in his spare time.
‘Over the last nine months, your friend Shannon has formally declared to his employers five visits in toto to European diplomatic missions based here in London. Two to the French Embassy for cultural events solely. Three to the German Embassy, one for their Day of German Unity, one to an award ceremony for British teachers of the German language. And one for social purposes undefined. You said something’ – abruptly.
‘Just listening, Bryn. Just listening.’
If I had said something, it was only in my head.
‘All such visits were approved by his employing department, whether in advance or retrospectively we may not know, but the dates are logged and you have them here’ – conjuring a zip-up folder from beside him. ‘And one unexplained phone call from a public call box in Hoxton to the German Embassy. He asks for a Frau Brandt from their travel department and is correctly told they haven’t got a Frau Brandt.’
He pauses, but only to make sure I am attending. He needn’t bother. I’m transfixed.
‘We also learn, as the street cameras open their hearts to us, that in the course of his cycle ride to Ground Beta yesterday evening, Shannon parked his bike and sat in a church for twenty minutes’ – an indulgent smile.
‘What sort of church?’
‘Low. The only sort that leaves its doors open these days. No silver, no sacred paintings, no raiment worth a damn.’
‘Who did he talk to?’
‘Nobody. There were a couple of rough sleepers, both bona fide, and an old nelly in black across the aisle. And a verger. Shannon didn’t kneel, according to the verger. Sat. Then walked out and cycled off again. So’ – with revived relish – ‘what was he up to? Was he committing his soul to his Maker? Pretty bloody odd moment to choose in my judgement, but every man to his own. Or was he making sure his back was clear? I favour the second. What do you reckon he was up to on his visits to the French and German embassies?’
He tops up our glasses yet again, sits impatiently back and waits for