'I'd really like to get into fieldwork. How can I start on that? Any hints and tips, boss?' This had now become a standard inquiry.

'Yes, comb your hair now and again, change your shirt every day and introduce an obsequious note into your social exchanges with the senior staff.'

'I'm not joking.'

'Neither am I,' I assured him. 'But, while you're here, what's the last name of that girl Gloria. That typist who used to work for Mr Rensselaer?'

'The gorgeous blonde job with the big knockers?'

'You have such a delicate way of phrasing everything, MacKenzie. Yes, that's who I mean. I haven't seen her lately. Where is she working now?'

'Her name's Kent, Gloria Kent. Her father is a dentist. She's very keen on ballroom dancing and water skiing. But she's not a typist, she's a Grade 9 executive officer. She's hoping to fiddle one of those departmental grants to go to university. And what's more she speaks fluent Hungarian.' He grinned. 'Ambition drives us all. I'd say Miss Kent is hankering after a career in the service, wouldn't you?'

'You're a mine of information, MacKenzie. Is her father Hungarian?'

'You guessed. And she lives with her parents, miles out in the sticks. No joy for you there, I'm afraid.'

'You're an impertinent little sod, MacKenzie.'

'Yes, I know, sir. You told me that the other day. She's working in Registry at present, the poor little thing. It's only my daily trips down there to see her among the filing cabinets that keeps her sane.'

'Registry, eh?' It was the most unpopular job in the department and nearly one-third of all the staff were employed there. The theory was that the computer in the Data Centre would gradually replace the thousands of dusty files, and Registry would eventually disappear. But, true to the rules of all bureaucracy, the staff at the Data Centre grew and grew but the staff in Registry did not decrease.

'She'd like working up here with you, sir. I know she'd give anything for a job with any member of the Operations staff.'

'Anything?'

'Almost anything, sir,' said MacKenzie. He winked. 'According to what I hear.'

I phoned the old dragon who ran Registry and told her I wanted Miss Kent to work for me for a few days. When she came up to the office I showed her the great pile of papers due for filing. They'd been stacking up in the cupboard for months, and my own secretary was pleased to see the task taken off her hands.

Gloria Kent was tall. She was slim and long-legged and about twenty years old. Her hair was the colour of pale straw. It was wavy but loose enough to fall across her forehead, short but long enough to touch the roll neck of her dark-brown sweater. She had large brown eyes and long lashes and a wide mouth. If Botticelli had painted the box top for a Barbie doll the picture would have looked like Gloria Kent. And yet she was not doll-like. There was nothing diminutive about her. And she didn't bow her head, the way so many tall women do to accommodate themselves to the egos of shorter men they find around them. And it was her straight-backed posture – for her use of make-up was minimal – that gave her the appearance of a chorus girl rather than a civil servant.

She'd been sorting out the files for about an hour when she said, 'Will I be going back to work in Registry?'

'It's nothing to do with me, Miss Kent,' I said. 'We're both working for Mr Cruyer. He makes all the decisions.'

'He's the Controller of German Stations,' she said, giving Dicky his official title. 'So that's my department, is it?'

'The German Desk, we usually call it,' I said. 'Everything's in a turmoil up here at present, I'm afraid.'

'I know. I was working for Mr Rensselaer. But that only lasted ten days. Then his Economics Intelligence Committee had no more work for me. I did odd bits of typing for people on the top floor, then I was sent down to Registry.'

'And you don't like Registry?'

'No one likes it. There's no daylight and the fluorescent lighting makes me so tired. And you get so dirty handling those files all day. You should see my hands when I go home at night. When I get home I can't wait to strip right off and have a bath.'

I took a deep breath and said, 'You won't get so dirty up here, I hope.'

'It's a treat to see the daylight, Mr Samson.'

'No one round here calls me anything but Bernard,' I said. 'So it might be easier if you did the same.'

'And I'm Gloria,' she said.

'Yes, I know,' I said. 'And by the way, Gloria, Mr Cruyer always likes to meet his staff socially. Every now and again he has a few members of the staff along to his house for an informal dinner and a chat.'

'Well, I think that's very nice,' said Gloria. She smoothed her skirt over her hips.

'It is,' I said. 'We all appreciate it. And the fact is that he has one of these dinners on Thursday. And he made a special point of saying that he'd like you to be there.'

'Thursday. That's rather short notice,' she said. She moved her head to let her hair swing and touched it as if already calculating when to go to the hairdresser's.

'If you have something more important to do, I know he'll understand.'

'It would sound terrible, though, wouldn't it?'

'No, it wouldn't sound terrible. I'd explain to him that you had some other appointment that you couldn't give up.'

'I'd better come,' she said. 'I'm sure I can rearrange things. Otherwise…' She smiled. 'I might spend the rest of my life in Registry.'

'He'd like us there at seventy forty-five, for drinks. They sit down to eat at eight thirty. If you live too far away, I'm sure Mrs Cruyer will be happy to let you have a room to change. Come to that,' I said, 'you could have a drink at my house and change there. Then I could drive you over there. His house is rather difficult to find.'

I saw a look of doubt come into her face. I feared for a moment that I'd overplayed my hand but I busied myself with my work and said no more.

Dicky's dinner party was very successful. Daphne had worked for three days preparing the meal, and I realized that she'd not invited me for lunch the previous Sunday because she had been trying out on Dicky the same cucumber soup recipe, and the same wild rice, and the same gooseberry fool that she served for the dinner party. Only the boiled salmon was an experiment; its head fell on the kitchen floor as it was coming out of the fish kettle.

There were eight of us. If Gloria Kent had expected it to be a gathering of departmental staff she gave no sign of disappointment at meeting the Cruyers' new neighbours and a couple named Stephens, the wife being Liz Stephens who was Daphne's partner in the stripping business. Dicky couldn't resist his joke about Daphne making money from stripping, although it was clear that only Gloria had not been told it before. Gloria laughed.

The conversation at table was confined to the usual London dinner-party small talk; listing foreign ski resorts, local restaurants, schools and cars in descending order of desirability. Then there was talk about the furniture stripping. The first attempt had gone badly. No one had told them not to try it with bentwood furniture and the first lot of chairs had disintegrated in the soda bath. The two women were able to laugh about it but their husbands exchanged looks of mutual resignation.

The neighbours from across the road – whose schoolgirl babysitter had to be home very early – left after the gooseberry fool. The Stephenses departed soon afterwards after just one hurried cup of coffee. This left the four of us sitting in the front room. Dicky had the hi-fi playing Chopin very quietly. Gloria asked Daphne if she could help with the washing up and, being told no, admired the primitive painting of Adam and Eve that was hanging over the fireplace. Daphne had "discovered" it in a fleamarket in Amsterdam. She was always pleased when someone admired it.