'Yes, about your wife,' said Frank. I noticed he always said 'your wife' since her defection. He couldn't bring himself to use her name any more. 'And about you.'

'And about me?'

'How long before the penny drops, Bernard? How long is it going to take you to understand that you must remain a suspect until you are cleared by first-class corroborative evidence?'

'Wait a minute, Frank. Remember me? The one who tipped off the department about Fiona's activities.'

'But she'd made mistakes, Bernard. If you hadn't raised the alarm, someone else would have done so sooner or later. So why not have you tell the department about her. And have it done the way Moscow Centre wanted it done?'

I thought about it for a moment. 'It doesn't hold water, Frank.'

'The way you did it gave her a chance to escape. She got away, Bernard. You sounded the alarm but don't forget that in the event she had time enough to make her escape.'

'There were a few sighs of relief at that, Frank. Some people around here would have done anything to avoid all the publicity of another spy trial. And putting Fiona on trial would have blown a hole in the department.'

'Anyone heaving such sighs of relief is a bloody fool,' said Frank. 'She's taken a pot full of gold with her. No secret papers, as far as we know, but her experience here will be worth a lot to them. You know that.'

'And people are saying that I deliberately arranged her escape?' I was indignant and incredulous.

Frank could see how furious I was, and hastily he said, 'No one is accusing you of anything, but we must examine every possibility. Every possibility. That's our job, Bernard. If your wife was due to go into the bag anyway, why not arrange for you to tell us? In that way the KGB lose one highly placed agent but have another in position in the same office. And the second agent's credentials are gilt-edged; didn't he even turn in his own wife?'

'Is that why they want to enrol Stinnes?'

'I thought you'd understand that right from the start. Bringing Stinnes in for interrogation is the one way that you can prove that everything went the way you say it went.'

'And if I don't bring him in?'

Frank tapped the bowl of his pipe against his thumbnail. 'You're not doing yourself any good by saying that Stinnes can't be enrolled. Surely you see that.'

'I'm just saying what I believe.'

'Well, dammit, Bernard, stop saying what you believe. Or the department will think you don't want us to get our hands on Stinnes.'

'The department can think what the hell it likes,' I said.

'That's foolish talk, Bernard. Stinnes would be a plum defector for us. But the real reason that the department is spending all this time and money is because they think so highly of you. It's principally because they want to keep you that they are pushing the Stinnes enrolment.'

Frank had the diplomatic touch, but it didn't change the underlying facts. 'It makes me bloody angry, Frank.'

'Don't be childish,' said Frank. 'No one really suspects you. It's just a formality. They haven't even put you on a restricted list for secret information. So much of the difficulty arises from the way that you and Fiona had such a happy marriage, that's the absurd thing about it. One only had to see you together to know that you were both in love. Happy marriage; promising career; delightful children. If you'd had constant arguments and separations, it would be easier to see you as the wronged party – and politically uninvolved.'

'And if we don't enrol Stinnes? What then, if we don't enrol him?'

'It will be difficult to keep you in Operations if we don't enrol Stinnes.'

'And I know what that implies.' I remembered a few employees whom Internal Security considered unsuitable for employment in Operations. It was chilling to remember those people who'd had their security ratings downgraded in mid-career. The periodic routine checks were usually the cause. That's what turned up the discreet homosexuals who weekended with young Spanish waiters, and lesbians sharing apartments with ladies who turned out not to be their cousins. And there were younger people who'd conveniently forgotten being members of international friendship societies while students. Societies which had the words 'freedom', 'peace' and 'life' in their articles so that anyone who opposed them would be associated with incarceration, war and death. Or had joined other such innocuous-sounding gatherings, which locate themselves conveniently near universities and provide coffee and buns and idealistic talk from respectably dressed foreign visitors. I knew that such downgraded rejects found themselves working the SIS end of an embassy in Central Africa or checking Aeroflot cargo manifests at London Airport.

'I wouldn't worry about having to leave Operations,' said Frank. 'You'll get Stinnes. Now you understand what's involved, you'll get him. I'm confident of that, Bernard.'

There seemed to be nothing more to say. But as I got up from my chair Frank said, 'I had a word with the D-G last night. I was having drinks at his place and a number of things came into the conversation…'

'Yes?'

'We're all concerned about you and the problem of looking after the children, Bernard.'

'The only problem is money,' I said sharply.

'We all know that, Bernard. It's money I'm talking about. The D-G has looked into the possibility of giving you a special allowance. The diplomatic service has something called "Accountable Indirect Representational Supplement". Only a bureaucrat could think up a name like that, eh? It reimburses the cost of a nanny, so that children are taken care of while diplomats and wives attend social functions. Diplomats also have "Boarding School Allowance". I'm not sure how much that would come to, but it would probably ease your financial situation somewhat. It might take a bit of time to come through; that's the only snag.'

'I'm not sending the children to boarding school.'

'Relax, Bernard. You're too damned prickly these days. No one is going to come Snooping round you to find out what kind of school your children are attending. The D-G simply wants to find a way to help. He wants a formula that's already acceptable. An ex gratia payment would not be the way he'd want to do it. If anyone discovered an ex gratia payment going directly to an employee, it could blow up into a scandal.'

'I'm grateful, Frank.'

'Everyone is sympathetic, Bernard.' He put his tobacco pouch in his pocket. His pipe was still unlit. 'And, by the way, Stinnes is back in Berlin. He's been in the West Sector to visit your friends the Volkmanns… Mrs Volkmann, in particular. I thought you'd like to know that.'

Frank Harrington had had an affair with Zena Volkmann and there was bad feeling between him and Werner that dated from long before. I wondered if Frank was telling me about Stinnes as some sort of reproach to Werner, who'd not reported it. 'Yes, I'll follow that up, Frank. I will have to go to Berlin. It's just a matter of fitting it in.'

I left Frank to tell Bret that he'd done what was wanted. He'd drawn a diagram so simple that even I could understand it. Then he'd written detailed captions under all the component parts.

I went to my office and sent for a young probationer named Julian MacKenzie. 'Well?' I said.

'No, the nurses at St Mary Abbots don't wear the uniform you described and they don't change shifts at eight forty-five. And there is no coloured woman, of any age, known to the residents of the block opposite your house.'

'That was very quick, MacKenzie.'

'I thought it was pretty good myself, boss.' MacKenzie was an impertinent little sod who'd come down from Cambridge with an honours in modern languages, got the Al mark that the Civil Service Selection Board usually reserve for friends and relations, and had been a probationer with the department for a few months. It was a record of achievement made even more remarkable by the fact that MacKenzie, despite his Scottish name, had a strong Birmingham accent. His ambition was such that he would work hard and long, and never ask questions nor expect me to give him signed authorizations for each little job. Also his insubordinate attitude to all and sundry amused me.