A Delicate Truth A Novel - By John Le Carre Page 0,38

but something a bit urgent’s come up, and I wondered whether I could have a quick word with Giles.’

‘Well, I’m afraid you can’t have a quick word with Giles, or a slow one, for that matter, Toby. As I suspect you’re thoroughly aware.’

‘It’s just work, Hermione. Something urgent’s cropped up,’ he repeated.

‘All right, play your little games. Giles is in Doha, and don’t pretend you didn’t know. They packed him off at crack of dawn for a conference that’s supposed to have blown up. Are you coming round to see me or not?’

‘They? Which they?’

‘What’s it to you? He’s gone, hasn’t he?’

‘How long will he be gone for? Did they say?’

‘Long enough for what you’re after, that’s for sure. We’ve no live-in servants any more. I expect you knew that too, didn’t you?’

Doha: three hours ahead. Brutally, he rings off. To hell with her. In Doha they eat late, so it’s still the dinner hour for delegates and princelings. Huddled in the alleyway, he gets through to the Foreign Office resident clerk and hears the ponderous voice of Gregory, unsuccessful contender for his job.

‘Gregory, hullo. I have to get in touch with Giles Oakley rather urgently. He’s been rushed to Doha for a conference and for some reason he’s not picking up his messages. It’s a personal thing. Can you get word to him for me?’

‘If it’s personal? Tricky, I’m afraid, old sport.’

Don’t go there. Stay calm:

‘Do you happen to know if he’s staying with the ambassador?’

‘Up to him. Maybe he prefers big, expensive hotels like you and Fergus.’

Exert Herculean restraint:

‘Well, kindly give me the number of the residence anyway, will you? Please, Gregory?’

‘I can give you the embassy. They’ll have to put you through. Sorry about that, old sport.’

Delay, which Toby perceives as deliberate, while Gregory hunts for the number. He dials it and gets a laborious female voice telling him, first in Arabic and then in English, that if he wishes to apply for a visa he should present himself in person at the British Consulate between the following hours and be prepared for a long delay. If he wishes to contact the ambassador or a member of the ambassador’s household, he should leave his message now.

He leaves it:

‘This is for Giles Oakley, currently attending the Doha Conference.’ Breath. ‘Giles, I sent you several messages, but you don’t seem to have picked them up. I’m having serious personal problems, and I need your help as soon as possible. Please call me any time of day or night, either on this line or, if you prefer, on my home number.’

Returning to his flat, he realizes too late that he has forgotten to buy the bottle of red wine that he went out to get. Isabel notices, but says nothing.

*

Somehow, morning has broken. Isabel lies asleep beside him, but he knows that one careless move on his part and they will either quarrel or make love. In the night they have done both, but this has not prevented Toby from keeping his BlackBerry at his bedside and checking it for messages on the grounds that he is on call.

Neither have his thought processes been idle during this time, and the conclusion they have reached is that he will give Oakley until ten o’clock this morning, when he is pledged to perform the antics required of him by his minister. If by that time Oakley has not responded to his messages he will take the executive decision: one so drastic that at first glance he recoils at the prospect, then cautiously tiptoes back to take a second look.

And what does he see in his mind’s eye, lying in wait for him in the deep right-hand drawer of his very own desk in the ministerial anteroom? Covered in mildew, verdigris and, if only in his imagination, mouse droppings?

A Cold War-era, pre-digital, industrial-sized tape recorder – an apparatus so ancient and lumbering, so redundant in our age of miniaturized technology as to be an offence to the contemporary soul: for which reason, if for no other, Toby has repeatedly requested its removal on the grounds that if any minister wished for a secret recording of a conversation in his Private Office, the devices available to him were so discreet and varied that he would be spoiled for choice.

But thus far – providentially or otherwise – his pleas have gone unanswered.

And the switch that operates this monster? Pull out the drawer above, hunt around with your right hand, and there it is: a sharp,