'But we're offering him a nice comfortable life. And, from what you say about his wanting a divorce, the offer comes at exactly the right time.'

'Giving up such power will not be easy. As a defector he'll be a nobody. 'He's probably seen defectors and the way they live in the Soviet Union. He'll have no illusions about what it will be like.'

'How can you compare the life of a defector going to the East with that of a defector coming to the West? All they have to offer is a perverted ideology and a medieval social system based on privilege and obedience. We have a free society; a free press, freedom to protest, freedom to say anything we like.'

'Stinnes has spent a long time in the upper layers of an authoritarian society. He won't want to protest or demonstrate against government – whatever its creed – and he'll have precious little sympathy for those who do.'

'Then give him a handful of cash and take him round the shops and show him the material benefits that come from free enterprise and competition.'

'Stinnes isn't the sort of man who will sell his soul for a mess of hi-fi components and a micro-wave oven,' I said.

'Sell his soul?' said Dicky indignantly.

'Don't turn this into a political debate, Dicky. You asked me what chance we stand, and I'm telling you what I think is in his mind.'

'So what sort of chance do we stand?' persisted Dicky. 'Fifty fifty?'

'Not better anyway,' I said.

'I'll tell the old man fifty fifty,' said Dicky as he mentally ticked off that question. I don't know why I tried to explain things to Dicky. He preferred yes-or-no answers. Explanations confused him.

'And what about this Biedermann chap?'

'I don't know.'

'He's as rich as Croesus. I looked him up when I got to Los Angeles.'

'I can't see how he can be important to us, so how can he be important to Stinnes? That's what puzzles me.'

'I'll put him into my report,' said Dicky. Although it sounded like a statement of intent, it was Dicky's way of asking me to okay it.

'By all means. I've got the list of people he forwarded the money to. You could probably get one of the bright young probationers to build that into something that sounded impressive.'

'Are we going to do anything about Biedermann?'

There's not much we can do,' I said doubtfully, 'except keep an eye on him, and rough him up from time to time to let him know he's not forgotten.'

'Gently does it,' said Dicky. 'A man like that could make trouble for us.'

'I've known him since I was a kid,' I said. 'He's not going to make trouble for us, unless he thinks he can get away with it.'

'Getting Stinnes is the important thing,' said Dicky. 'Biedermann is nothing compared with the chance of bringing Stinnes over to us.'

'I'll stroke my lucky rabbit's foot,' I said.

'If we do manage to land Stinnes, you'll get all the credit for it.'

'Will I?' I said. It seemed unlikely.

'That's one of the things I told Bret before we left London. I told him that this was really your operation. You let Bernard handle things his way, I told him. Bernard's got a lot riding on this one.'

'And what did Bret say to that?' I found that, if you scraped the ancient airline caviar off the little discs of toast, the toast didn't taste too bad.

'Have you upset Bret?'

'I'm always upsetting him.'

'You've got a lot riding on this one, Bernard. You need Bret. You need all the help you can get. I'm right behind you all the way, of course, but if Bret takes over my desk you'd get no support from him.'

'Thanks, Dicky,' I said doubtfully. It was just Dicky's way of getting me to help him in his power struggle against Bret, but I was flattered to think that Dicky thought I had enough clout to make any difference.

'You know what I'm talking about, don't you, Bernard?'

'Sure,' I said, although in fact I didn't know. I settled back in my seat and looked at the menu. But from the corner of my eye I could see Dicky wrapping his fountain pen in a Kleenex tissue, although we were already at 35,000 feet and if his pen was going to leak it would have leaked already.

'Yes,' said Dicky. 'This one will be make or break for you, Bernard.' He laid the bandaged pen to rest in his handbag, like a little Egyptian mummy that was to stay in its tomb for a thousand years.

Thank God there's no in-flight movie,' said Dicky. 'I hate in-flight movies, don't you?'

'Yes,' I said. It was one of the very few things upon which Dicky and I could have unreserved agreement.

Now that we were above the clouds, the sunlight was blinding. Dicky, seated at the window, pulled down the tinted shield. 'You don't want to read or anything, do you?'

I looked at Dicky and shook my head. He smiled, and I wondered what sort of game he was playing with all his talk of this being my operation. He'd certainly taken his time before revealing this remarkable aspect of our jaunt to me.

We reached London Sunday mid-morning. The sun was shining in a clear blue sky but there was a chilly wind blowing. In response to two telex messages and a phone call made from Mexico, the duty officer had arranged for a car to meet us. We loaded it to the point where its suspension was groaning and went to Dicky's house. Once there I accepted Dicky's offer to go inside for a drink.

Dicky's wife was waiting for us with a chilled bottle of Sancerre in the ice bucket and coffee on the warmer. Daphne was an energetic woman in her early thirties. I found her especially attractive standing there in the kitchen surrounded by wine and food. Daphne had radically changed her image; floral pinafores and granny glasses were out, and pale-yellow boiler suits were in. Her hairstyle had changed too, cut in a severe pageboy style with fringe, so that she looked like the an student Dicky had married so long ago. 'And Bernard, darling. What a lovely surprise.' She had the loud voice and upper-class accent that go with weekends in large unheated country houses, where everyone talks about horses and reads Dick Francis paperbacks.

Daphne was in the middle of preparing lunch. She had a big bowl on the table in front of her and a spring scale upon which half a pound of warm butter was being weighed. Her hands were covered in flour, and she was wiping them on a towel that bore a printed picture of the Eiffel Tower. She picked up a collection of bracelets and bangles and slipped them all on to her wrist before embracing Dicky.

'You're early, darling,' she said as she kissed him and gave me a peck too.

Dicky brushed flour from his shirt and said, 'The plane arrived on time. I didn't allow for that.'

She asked Dicky if he wanted coffee or wine but she didn't ask me. She took a glass from the cupboard and an opened bottle of chilled wine from the ice bucket and poured me a generous measure. It was delicious.

Dicky, rummaging through the kitchen cupboard, said, 'Where are the blue Spode cups and saucers?'

'They're in the dishwasher. We only have three left now. You'll have to use a mug.'

Dicky sighed the way he did when one of the clerks returned to him top-secret papers he'd left in the copying machine. Then he poured himself a mug of black coffee and we sat down round the kitchen table.

'I'm sorry we can't go into the sitting room,' said Daphne. 'It's out of use for the time being.' She looked up at the kitchen clock before deciding it was okay to pour a glass of wine for herself.

'Daphne's left her ad agency,' said Dicky. 'I didn't tell you, did I? They lost the breakfast food account and had to cut staff. They offered Daphne a golden handshake; five thousand pounds. Not bad, eh?' Dicky was pressing his ears and gulping, the way he always did after a flight.

'What are you doing now, Daphne?' I asked.

Dicky answered for her. 'She's stripping. She's gone into it with another girl from the agency.' Daphne smiled the sort of smile that showed she'd heard this joke before but she let Dicky squeeze it dry. 'There's money in stripping, Daphne says.' Dicky smiled broadly and put his arm on his wife's shoulder.