'Perhaps,' said Frank.

'Has the idea been mentioned?' I persisted.

'With varying degress of seriousness,' admitted Frank. 'But I've set my mind on retirement, Bernard. I don't think I could take on the job of running the whole department at my age. I've said that if the old man got really sick I'd go in and hold the fort until someone permanent was appointed. It would be simply a way of keeping a political nominee out. But I couldn't do the reorganization job that is really required.'

'That is desperately overdue,' I said.

'That some think is desperately overdue,' agreed Frank. 'But the general consensus is that, if the worst came to the worst, the department can manage better with an empty D-G's office than with no Berlin Resident.'

'The D-G's office is already empty a lot of the time,' I said. 'And the Deputy D-G has an ailing wife and a thriving law business. It's a time-consuming combination. Not much sign of him on the top floor nowadays.'

'And what does the gossip say will happen?' said Frank.

'Now that Bret Rensselaer has lost his empire he's become one of the hopefuls.'

Frank took the pipe from his mouth and grimaced. 'Bret will never become D-G. Bret is American. It would be unacceptable to the government, to the department, and to the public at large if it ever got out.'

'Bret is a British subject now. He has been for some years. At least that's what I've heard.'

'Bret can arrange what paperwork he likes. But the people who make the decisions regard Bret as an American, and so he's American. And he'll always remain American.'

'You'd better not tell Bret.'

'Oh, I don't mean he won't get his knighthood. Actors, comics and footballers get them nowadays, so why not Bret? And that's what he really wants. He wants to go back to his little New England town and be Sir Bret Rensselaer. But he wouldn't be allowed to go back and tell them that he's just become Director-General of MI6, would he? So what's the point?'

'You're a bit hard on Bret,' I said. 'He's not simply in it for a K.' I wondered whether Frank's sudden dislike of Bret had something to do with his becoming a contender for the D-G's job. I didn't believe Frank's modest disclaimers. Given a chance, Frank would fight tooth and nail for the D-G's chair.

Frank sighed. 'A man has no friends in this job, Bernard. The Berlin Field Unit is the place where London sends the people it wants to get rid of. This is the Siberia of the service. They send you over here to handle an impossible job, with inadequate staff and insufficient funding. And, all the time you're trying to hold things together, London throws shit at you. There is one thing upon which London Central Policy Committee and Controller Europe always agree. And that is that every damn cock-up in London is because of a mistake made here in the Berlin Field Unit. Bret only put me here to get me out of the way when it looked as if I might be getting the Economics Desk which he later parlayed into an empire.'

'All gone now, Frank,' I said. 'You had the last laugh on that one. Bret lost everything when they brought Brahms Four out and closed him down. These days Bret is fighting for a piece of Dicky's desk.'

'Don't write Bret off. He won't become D-G, but he's smooth, very bright and well provided with influential supporters.' Frank got up from behind his desk and went over to switch on the lamp that was balanced over his ancient typewriter. The lampshade was green glass and the light coming through it made Frank's pinched face look sepulchral. 'And if you enrol Stinnes there will be a mighty reassessment of everyone's performance over the last decade.' Frank's voice was more serious now, and I had the feeling that he might at last tell me what had prompted this urgent meeting.

'Will there?' I said.

'You can't have overlooked that, Bernard. His interrogation will go on for ever. They'll drag out every damned case file that Stinnes ever heard of. They'll read every report that any of us ever submitted.'

'Looking for another mole?'

That might well be the excuse they offer. But there is no mole. They will use Stinnes to find out how well we've all done our jobs over the past decade or so. They'll be able to see how well we guessed what was going on over the other side of the hill. They'll read our reports and predictions with all the advantage of hindsight. And eventually they will give us our end-of-term school reports.'

'Is that what the D-G plans to do with Stinnes?' I said.

'The D-G is not quite the crackpot you like to think he is, Bernard. Personally I'm too near to retirement for it to affect me very much. But the Stinnes debriefing will leave a lot of people with egg on their faces. It will take time, of course. The interrogators will have to check and double-check and then submit their reports. But eventually the exam results will arrive. And some of them might be asked to see the headmaster and discreetly told to find another school.'

'But everyone at London Central seems to want Stinnes enrolled.'

'Because they are all convinced that Stinnes will show how clever they are. You have to be an egomaniac to survive in the London office. You know that.'

'Is that why I've survived there?' I asked.

'Yes.' Frank was still standing behind me. He hadn't moved after switching on the lamp. On the wall there was a photograph – a signed portrait of Duke Ellington. It was the only picture in the room apart from the portrait of the Queen. Frank had one of the world's largest collections of Ellington recordings, and listening to them was the only leisure activity he permitted himself, apart from his sporadic love affairs with unsuitable young women. 'How it will affect you I don't know,' said Frank. He touched my shoulder in a gesture of paternal reassurance.

'Nothing will come to light that might affect my chances of becoming D-G,' I said.

'You're still angry about Dicky Cruyer getting the German Desk, aren't you?'

'I thought it would go to someone who really knew the job. I should have known that only Oxbridge men would be short-listed.'

'The department has always been like that. Historically it was sound. Graduates from good universities were unlikely to be regicides, agrarian reformers or Luddites. One day it will all change, but change comes slowly in England.'

'It was my fault,' I said. 'I knew the way it worked but I told myself that this time it would be different. There was no reason for thinking it would.'

'But you never thought of leaving the service?' said Frank.

'For a week I thought of nothing else except leaving. Twice I wrote out my resignation. I even talked to a man I used to know about a job in California.'

'And what made you decide to stay?'

'I never did decide to stay. But I always seemed to be in the middle of something that had to be finished before I could leave. Then when that was done I'd already be involved with a new operation.'

'You talked to Fiona about all this?'

'She never took it seriously. She said I'd never leave the department. She said that I'd been threatening to leave since the first time she found out what I did for a living.'

'You've always been like a son to me, Bernard. You know that. I daresay you're fed up with hearing me tell you. I promised your Dad I would look after you, but I would have looked after you anyway. Your Dad knew that, and I hope you know it too.' Frank was still behind me. I didn't twist round; I stared at Duke Ellington dressed in white tails some time back in the thirties. 'So don't be angry at what I'm going to say,' said Frank. 'It's not easy for me.' The photo was of a very young Duke but it had been signed for Frank during Ellington's West Berlin visit in 1969. So long ago. Frank said, 'If you have any doubts about what the Stinnes debriefing will turn up… better perhaps to get out now, Bernard.'