'Is Martin Euan Pryce-Hughes his real name?' asked Bret, who was unfamiliar with Welsh names. He had to look down at the papers to remember it.

'His old man was Hugh Pryce-Hughes.' Bernstein was a short potbellied man wearing a grey three-piece suit that he'd been heard to describe as 'native costume'. It was more or less like the suit that Bret Rensselaer wore – and which gave him the urbanity one expected of a diplomat or surgeon – but the suit looked wrong on Bernstein, for his features, complexion and demeanour suggested a manual labourer, or maybe an infantryman. He was not now, however, in the right physical shape to be either; his face was red, the sort of complexion that comes with high blood-pressure, and he had a wheeze that smoking aggravated. Enough grey hair remained to see that it had once been brown and curly, and his hands were strong with short thick fingers upon one of which he wore a fraternity ring and upon another a flashy diamond. With ramrod spine, he sat splayfooted on a little bentwood chair. One black sock had sagged to reveal a section of bare leg. He was aware of his stiff unnatural pose but it reconciled his legs with the fragments of Vietnamese metal embedded in them. His voice was low and firm; unmistakably American but not stridently so. 'The famous Pryce-Hughes.'

Bret looked down and furrowed his brow.

'The writer,' said Bernstein. 'Internationally famous… the one who wrote those books about the Fabian Society. His memoirs created all the fuss about Wells and Shaw. You must have heard of him.' Bernstein was a great reader. The bookcase held Dreiser, Stendhal, Joyce, Conrad and Zola – he was not too fond of the Russian novels – and he'd read them all not once but several times. He was proud to be a graduate of Princeton but he was also aware that Bret, and others like him, regarded Bernstein as reassuring proof that an Ivy League education did not guarantee success in what Bret called 'the real world'.

'No, Sylvy, I've never heard of him,' said Bret. 'For these Brits, internationally famous means known in England, Scotland, Ireland and Wales. How many books?'

Bernstein smiled briefly. 'Maybe half a dozen.'

'You'd better get them for me.'

'His father's books? What for? You're not going to read them?'

'Of course I am.' Bret was thorough, and he wanted Bernstein to be reminded of that.

'As long as you don't ask me to read them,' said Bernstein.

'No,' said Bret. 'There is no call for you to read them, Sylvy.'

'You haven't suddenly taken against smoking, have you?' When Bret shook his head Bernstein took out a packet of Lucky Strike and shook one loose.

Bret said, 'Could you initiate a file for me?'

Bernstein flicked open a well-worn Zippo lighter with an inscription that read 'Rung Sat Special Zone', a souvenir of an unhealthy trip into a mangrove swamp southeast of Saigon during the Vietnam war. He kept it to remind himself, and anyone else who had to be reminded, that he'd had another sort of life not so long ago. He took his time lighting a cigarette and then said, 'What's on your mind?'

'A secret file, recording meetings, reports and payments and so on. A file of stuff coming in from one of our own people.'

'We don't work like that. No one works like that. No one keeps all the information from one agent in the same file. The Coordination people take it and distribute it. They make damn sure no name, nor any clue to the source, is on it.'

'I didn't ask you how we work,' said Bret.

Bernstein blew smoke while looking at Bret. Bret stared back. 'Oh, I see what you mean. A bogus file.' Bret nodded. 'A file to prove that someone was one of our people when actually he wasn't one of our people.'

'Don't let's get too deeply into existentialism,' said Bret.

'A file with real names?'

'A few real names.'

'You want to frame Martin Pryce-Hughes? You want to make someone think he's reporting to us?'

'That's what I want.'

Sylvy blew more smoke. 'Sure. It can be done; anything can be done. How far back would you want to go?'

'Ten years?'

'That would take us back to the days of mechanical typewriters.'

'Maybe.'

'You're not thinking of something they could take back to Moscow and put under the microscope?'

'No. Something to show someone briefly.'

' 'Cause real good forgeries cost. We'd need real letterheads and authentic department names.'

'Not that ambitious.'

'And I get it back?'

'What for?'

'To feed it into the shredder.'

'Oh, sure,' said Bret.

'Why don't I throw something together then? I'll sort out some photocopies and provide a sequence of material the way it would be if we filed it that way. It will give us something to look at and talk about. When we get that the way you want it, I'll find someone good to do the forgeries.'

'Great,' said Bret. He wished Bernstein wouldn't use words such as forgeries, it made him feel uneasy. 'Keep it very circumstantial. We're not trying to produce exhibit A for Perry Mason.'

'A subtle, tasteful kind of frame-up. Sure, why not? But I'd need to know more.'

'You take it and show it to this creep and lean on him,'

'How's that?'

'Lean on him. Say you're from a newspaper. Say you're from the CIA, say anything but scare the shit out of him.'

'Why?'

'I want to see which way he jumps.'

'I don't see your purpose. He'll know it's a fake.'

'Do it.'

Bernstein looked at him. He knew Bret because he knew other men like him. Bret didn't have any operational purpose for frightening the old man: he just felt vindictive. 'It would be cheaper just to beat him up,' said Bernstein.

Bret scowled. He knew exactly what Bernstein was thinking. 'Just do it, Sylvy. Don't second-guess me.'

'Whatever you say, doc.'

Bret smiled politely. 'Anything more on the woman?'

'No. She hasn't seen the boyfriend for a week. Maybe they had a fight.'

'Boyfriend? Is that it?' said Bret as casually as he could.

'Oh, sure. She doesn't go along to his fancy apartment in Maida Vale to play chess.'

help them. And look at her husband. I've met him a few times. He's a really rough diamond, isn't he?'

'You said…'

'That I liked him. And I do up to a point. He's dead straight: I wouldn't like to cross him.' It was quite an accolade coming from Bernstein. 'He's a man's man: not the sort you'd expect to find hitched to a twin-set and pearls lady like that.'

Bret bit his lip and was silent for a moment before saying, 'Sometimes things are not…'

'Oh, I know what you're going to say. But I've been doing this kind of work for a long time now. Two people like that… She goes to his apartment: alone, never with her husband… He never goes to her place. And you only have to see them together to know he's crazy about

'He's a psychiatrist,' said Bret.

'I'll bet he is.'

Bret found that offensive. He didn't want that kind of wisecrack; this was strictly business. 'Just four beats to the bar, Sylvy,' he said. It was the nearest he got to a reprimand.

Bernstein smoked and didn't reply. So this wasn't just a job, there was more to it. Was this guy Kennedy a relative of Bret Rensselaer, or what? 'If she wanted to consult him, why wouldn't she go and consult him at the hospital?'

'She would have to report any kind of medical treatment, especially a visit to a psychiatrist,' said Bret. 'Remember the way it goes?'

'So this might be a way of seeing a shrink in secret? Is that what you mean?'

'She's under a lot of strain.'

Bernstein took a quick drag at his cigarette. 'Yeah, well, I'm not asking you too many questions about this one, Bret, because you told me it's touchy, but…'

'But what?'

'Kennedy isn't that kind of shrink. Not any more he's not. At the clinic he's doing work on crowd hysteria and hallucination. He doesn't see patients; he analyses figures, gives lectures and writes dissertations on the herd instinct and that kind of junk. The clinic is paid by some big US foundation and the work they publish is studied by various police departments.'