A Delicate Truth A Novel - By John Le Carre Page 0,101

Suzanna too, poor girl. Frances, I think I’m speaking for both of us?’

If he was, Frances, our Director in Charge of Security, gave no sign of it. She too was leafing through a photocopy of Kit’s document, but so intently and slowly that he began to wonder whether she was learning it by heart.

‘Did Suzanna ever sign a declaration, Sir Christopher?’ she enquired, without raising her head.

‘Declaration of what?’ Kit demanded, for once not appreciating the Sir Christopher. ‘Sign what?’

‘An Official Secrets Act declaration’ – her head still buried in his document – ‘stating that she’s aware of its terms and penalties.’ And to Lionel, before Kit could answer: ‘Or didn’t we do that for partners and significant others in his day? I forget when that came in, precisely.’

‘Well now, I don’t think I’m totally sure either,’ Lionel replied keenly. ‘Kit, what’s your take on this?’

‘No idea,’ Kit growled. ‘Never saw her sign any document of that sort. She certainly never told me she’d signed one.’ And as the sick fury he had been suppressing for too long came to the surface: ‘Hell does it matter what she signed or didn’t sign? Not my fault she knows what she knows. Not hers either. The girl’s desperate. I’m desperate. She wants answers. We all do.’

‘All?’ Frances repeated, lifting her pallid face to him in a kind of frigid alarm. ‘Who is all in this equation? Are you telling us there are other people who are aware of the content of this paper?’

‘If they are, it’s none of my doing,’ Kit retorted angrily, turning to Lionel for the male relief. ‘And not Jeb’s either. Jeb wasn’t gabby, Jeb stuck to the rules. Didn’t go to the press or any of that stuff. Stayed strictly inside the camp. Wrote to his MP, his regiment – and probably to you people, for all I know,’ he ended accusingly.

‘Yes, well, it’s all very painful and very unfair,’ Lionel agreed, delicately touching the top of his frizzy grey hair with his open palm as if to console it. ‘And I think I may say that we have gone to very serious lengths over the last years to get to the bottom of what was obviously a very controversial, very complex, many-faceted – what can we say, Frances? – episode.’

‘We being who?’ Kit grunted, but the question seemed to go unheard.

‘And everyone’s been very helpful and forthcoming – wouldn’t you agree, Frances?’ Lionel continued, and transferring his hand to his lower lip gave it too a consoling tweak. ‘I mean, even the Americans, who are normally very tight indeed about these things – and of course had no official locus at all, let alone unofficial – came through with a very clear statement distancing themselves from any hint that the Agency might have provided support-in-aid – for which we were duly grateful, weren’t we, Frances?’

And turning to Kit again:

‘And of course we did hold an inquiry. Internally, obviously. But with due diligence. And as a result, poor Fergus Quinn fell on his sword, which – and I think, Frances, you would share this view – was absolutely the decent thing to do at the time. But these days, who does the decent thing? I mean, when one thinks of the politicians who haven’t resigned and should have done, poor Fergus comes over like a shining knight. Frances, I believe you had a point?’

Frances had:

‘What I don’t understand, Sir Christopher, is what this document is supposed to be? Is it an accusation? A witness statement? Or simply a minute of what somebody said to you, and you have reported it on a take-it-or-leave-it basis, with no commitment on your own part either way?’

‘It’s what it is, for Christ’s sake!’ Kit retorted, his flame now fully lit. ‘Operation Wildlife was an utter cock-up. Total. The intelligence that prompted it was a lot of balls, two innocent people were shot dead, and there’s been a three-year cover-up by all parties involved – including, I strongly suspect, this place. And the one man who was willing to speak up has met an untimely death, which needs some very serious looking into. Bloody serious,’ he ended, on a bark.

‘Yes, well, I think we could just settle for unsolicited document of record, actually,’ Lionel murmured to Frances helpfully.

Frances was not to be appeased:

‘Would I be overstating the case, Sir Christopher, if I suggested that the whole burden of your testimony against Mr Crispin and others is derived from what Jeb Owens said to