'Had a good trip?' said the driver.

'Not too bad,' I said. At least I didn't get accused of smuggling the pooch.

*

When Dicky first got planning permission to build the extra room above his garage, the girls in the office were whispering that it was because Daphne was pregnant again. They said the new room would be ready in time to make a warm little nursery, or into a self-contained unit for a live-in children's nurse.

But those who knew Dicky better were less ready to make such assumptions. Daphne wasn't pregnant — just overweight — and the new extension became what Dicky called his 'den.' Into this room, with its commanding view of the next-door neighbor's garden shed and frostbitten vegetable patch, Dicky had brought everything he needed for comfortable seclusion. The family's biggest TV and the newest stereo VCR, and the only hi-fi he had that could be operated by a remote control. As Dicky explained, once you get stretched out in a big recliner, you don't want to be jumping up and down adjusting the graphic equalizer. The den's wallpaper was a pink and mauve Liberty pattern, although there wasn't much wall to be seen since Dicky had become smitten by Baron von Richthofen.

Looking back, I can see that Dicky and the Baron were made for each other. What, I had mistaken for a Polish proletarian theme was a tribute to Snoopy's other half. But I still wasn't ready for the devotion and dedication that Dicky had brought to this new interest of his. On the walls he had large beautifully framed reproductions of aviation art. The detail in the paintings was remarkable: the fields and trees, the fluffy clouds, and even the dents in the engine cowling, all faithfully recorded. The scarlet three-winged job I recognized immediately, but here on Dicky's wall, the leather-helmeted Baron was also to be seen at the controls of three other brightly colored planes. Apparently the Baron, while jealously keeping the triplane for his own exclusive use, felt free to borrow any of the planes belonging to subordinates assigned to his squadrons, or even visitors just passing through. In this respect he reflected something of Dicky's attitude to the Departmental motor cars.

I arrived little short of midnight, and Bret was there already. He'd just flown back from Washington and had stopped off only long enough to change into his official undress uniform. The Savile Row outfit, obligatory in the halls of power, had been exchanged for what Bret liked to think was 'leisure wean' tailored gray flannel pants, silk kerchief escaping from an open-neck white tennis shirt and a dark blue blazer. It made him look like he'd been washed ashore from some long-ago summer's Jazz Festival. On his knees he was balancing a lovingly framed section of weather-worn fabric bearing the national emblem of Imperial Germany.

'Part of the tailplane from von Richthofen's Albatross,' explained Dicky, tapping it so energetically that it almost slipped from Bret's grasp. 'Should be in a museum really.' He glanced up at me and waved a greeting.

'I can see that,' said Bret.

I dumped my coat on the chair. The house was silent — I suppose Daphne had long since gone up to bed. 'All right if I help myself to a drink?' I knew that Bret and Dicky both thought I drank too much. Had I been born with half of Dicky's natural guile, I would have spent the meeting sipping Perrier water, looking alert and dependable, and leaning forward poised to laugh at the jokes. But I could never resist reinforcing their stupid prejudices. 'I really need one.'

'What the hell happened to you?' Dicky inquired as he noticed my bruises.

'I fell downstairs.'

'Help yourself,' said Dicky, rebuffed by what he thought a flippant reply. For a moment I thought he was going to insist upon taking my temperature, a device he had more than once wielded on office staff to exercise his tiresome sense of humor. 'But hurry, Bernard. We've been waiting for you.' He was dressed in khaki gabardine pants and a forest-green British army style woolen sweater, its elbows and shoulders reinforced with leather patches.

'Yes,' I said and, malt whiskey bottle in hand, raised an eyebrow at Bret.

Bret shook his head sternly and reached out to the side table, covering his Pepsi, to indicate that he didn't want any. It was not a good omen.

So I smiled at Rupert — a malt whiskey drinker if I've ever seen one — and he smiled in return. He used a finger and thumb to indicate a moderate refill and I gave him a dash of booze.

Rupert Copper, 'our man from the Warsaw embassy,' was the only other person at our meeting. He was about forty, a constipated stuffed shirt but a very able linguist. As well as Polish he had a good grasp of those Balkan languages which I'd seen defeat some of the brightest and most ambitious of our Foreign Office colleagues. He was particularly up to date on the intricate details of Greek political extremists. He wasn't a close friend: we'd chatted together at dull conferences and meetings. He'd started off with the diplomatic people and then transferred to SIS as a way of staying in Warsaw. Married with two teenage children, he was the subject of persistent rumors that his real love affair with Poland came in the shape of a middle-aged Polish countess who'd been seen in close attendance on him for at least ten years.

Rupert was elegantly perched, legs crossed, on the chair where the Cruyers' cat was usually curled up asleep. Rupert had just been taken out of his box: dark blue suit, crisp striped shirt, Wykehamist tie and polished black brogues. He had dark deep-set eyes, thin bloodless lips and a hairline moustache that looked as if it had been applied with an eyebrow pencil. Even more than other FO employees, he had the sleek and shiny look of a prosperous pimp. But it had to be said that he was competent, cautious and precise; qualifications so rarely found among employees of the Foreign Office that I was reassured by his presence.

After sampling the whiskey I added an extra measure and settled down on the sofa alongside a brightly lit glass case containing model aircraft. Dicky was still explaining something about Richthofen's military funeral to Bret. Rupert caught my eye but his face was expressionless. He upended his whiskey and the ice cubes slid down and hit his nose. Hiding any surprise he might have felt, he took a monogrammed handkerchief from his cuff and dabbed his face. Then he put his glass on the sideboard as if distancing himself from further temptations.

'Well, let's get down to business,' said Bret eventually. He rested the framed section of fabric down on the carpet while Dicky went and sat in his recliner, pulling the lever tight so that he didn't slide into the horizontal position.

'You heard what happened?' Bret asked me.

'No,' I said. No is my default reply. There's nothing to be gained from saying yes to such questions.

'George Kosinski has been sighted,' said Bret. 'In Poland.'

'Oh, in Poland,' I said, and turned to look at Rupert, who nodded to confirm this entirely unsurprising item of information.

'Just when we were all quite certain he was dead,' prompted Dicky.

'He certainly keeps us on our toes,' I said, in order not to disturb the mood of heightened expectancy.

I thought I'd been summoned to London on account of the murder of the kid in Berlin. Alternatively I thought they might have unraveled the material that the monitoring service had shown to Gloria. But neither of these subjects was brought up, and my instinct for self-preservation told me I shouldn't mention either matter myself.

'Rupert says there is another Kosinski house,' said Dicky, motioning for Rupert to join in the conversation.

Rupert said, 'They have a guest house out there. It's a couple of miles away from the family home-, maybe more. Used to be a hunting lodge back in the old days. Nazis, such as Field Marshal Göring, liked to go there to hunt wild game when that region was part of Germany. The lodge was badly damaged by the war but they have spent a bit of money doing it up.'