'About me?'

'And in due course of time he will take you aside and ask about me. You know how it works, darling. You've been at this business longer than I have.' She put a marker in her book before laying it aside.

'Oh, for Christ's sake.'

'If you don't believe me, darling, ask Bret.'

'I might do that,' I said. She waited until I got into bed, and then switched out the lights. 'I thought there was protein in cheese,' I said. She didn't answer.

Dicky Cruyer was in Bret Rensselaer's office when they sent for me on Wednesday. Cruyer had his thumbs stuck in the back pockets of his jeans and his curly head was tilted to one side as if he were listening for some distant sound.

Rensselaer was in his swivel chair, arms folded and feet resting on a leather stool. These relaxed postures were studied, and I guessed that the two of them had taken up their positions when they heard me at the door. It was a bad sign. Rensselaer 's folded arms and Cruyer's akimbo stance had that sort of aggression I'd seen in interrogating teams.

'Bernard!' said Dicky Cruyer in a tone of pleasant surprise, as if I'd just dropped in for tea, rather than kept them waiting for thirty minutes in response to the third of his calls. Rensselaer watched us dispassionately, like a passing taxicab passenger might watch two men at a bus stop. 'Looks like another jaunt to Big B,' said Dicky.

'Is that so?' I said without enthusiasm. Bret was jacket less. This slim figure in white shirt, bow tie and waistcoat looked like the sort of Mississippi riverboat gambler who broke into song for the final reel.

'Not through the wire, or anything tricky,' said Dicky. 'Just a call into our office. An East German has just knocked on Frank Harrington's door with a bagful of paper and demands to be sent to London. Won't talk to our Berlin people, Frank tells me.' Dicky Cruyer ran his finger through his curls before nodding seriously at Rensselaer.

'Another crank,' I said.

'Is that what you think, Bernard?' said Rensselaer with that earnest sincerity I'd learned to disregard.

'What kind of papers?' I asked Dicky.

'Right,' said Cruyer. But he didn't answer my question.

Rensselaer took his time about describing the papers. 'Interesting stuff,' he stated cautiously. 'Most of it from here. The minutes of a meeting the D-G had with some Foreign Office senior staff, an appraisal of our success in tapping diplomatic lines out of London, part of a report on our use of US enciphering machines… A mixed bag but it's worth attention. Right?'

'Well worth our attention, Bret,' I said.

'What's that supposed to mean?' said Cruyer.

'For anyone who believes in Santa Claus,' I added.

'You mean it's a KGB stunt?' said Rensselaer. 'Yes, that's probably it.' Cruyer looked at him, disconcerted by his change of attitude. 'On the other hand,' said Rensselaer, 'it's something we ignore at our peril. Wouldn't you agree, Bernard?'

I didn't answer.

Dicky Cruyer moved his hands to grip the large brass buckle of his leather cowboy belt. 'Berlin Resident is worried – damned worried.'

'Old Frank is always worried,' I said. 'He can be an old woman, we all know that.'

'Frank's had a lot to worry about since he took over,' said Rensselaer, to put his loyalty to his subordinates on record. But he didn't deny that Frank Harrington, our senior man in Berlin, could be an old woman.

'All stuff from here?' I said. 'Identifiably from here? Verbatim? Copies of our documents? From here how?'

'It's no good asking Frank that,' said Dicky Cruyer quickly before anyone blamed him for not finding out.

'It's no good asking Frank anything,' I said. 'So why doesn't he send everything over here?'

'I wouldn't want that,' said Rensselaer, his arms still crossed, his eyes staring at the Who's Who on his bookshelf. 'If this is just the KGB trying to stir a little trouble for us, I don't want to get their man over here for interrogation. It would give them something to gloat over. Given that sort of encouragement, they'll try again and again. No, we'll take it easy. We'll have Bernard go over there and sort through this stuff and talk to their guy, and tell us what he thinks. But let's not overreact.' He snapped a desk drawer shut with enough force to make a sound like a pistol shot.

'It will be a waste of time,' I said.

Bret Rensselaer kicked his foot to swivel his chair and faced me. He uncrossed his arms for a moment, snapped his starched cuffs at me and smiled. 'That's exactly the way I want it handled, Bernard. You go and look it over with that jaundiced eye of yours. No good sending Dicky.' He looked at Dicky and smiled. 'He'd wind up talking to the D-G on the hot line.'

Dicky Cruyer thrust his hands deep into the pockets of his jeans, scowled and hunched his shoulders. He didn't like Rensselaer saying he was excitable. Cruyer wanted to be a cool and imperturbable sort of whizz kid.

Rensselaer looked at me and smiled. He knew he'd upset Cruyer and he wanted me to share the fun. 'Go through the Berlin telex and make a note of what references they quote. Then go and see the originals: read through the minutes of that meeting at the FO, and dig out that memo about the cipher machines, and so on. That way you'll be able to judge for yourself when you get there.' He glanced at Dicky, who was looking out the window sulking, and then at me. 'Whatever conclusion you come to, you'll tell Frank Harrington it's Spielzeug – garbage.'

'Of course,' I said.

'Take tomorrow's RAF flight and have a chat with Frank and calm him down. See this little German guy and sort through this junk he's peddling.'

'Okay,' I said. I knew Bret would find a way of getting me to what Dicky called 'Big B'.

'And what's the score with Giles Trent?' I asked.

'He's been taken care of, Bernard,' said Rensselaer. 'We'll talk about it when you return.' He smiled. He was handsome, and could turn on the charm like a film star. Of course Fiona could fall for him. I felt like spitting in his eye.

I caught the military flight to Berlin next day. The plane was empty except for me, two medical orderlies who'd brought a sick soldier over the day before, and a Brigadier with an amazing amount of baggage.

The Brigadier borrowed my newspaper and wanted to talk about fly fishing. He was an affable man, young-looking compared to most Brigadiers I'd ever met, but that was not much of a sampling. It wasn't his fault that he bore a superficial resemblance to my father-in-law, but I found it a definite barrier. I put my seat into the recline position and mumbled something about having had a late night. Then I stared out the window until thin wisps of cloud, like paint-starved brushstrokes, defaced the hard regular patterns of agricultural land that was unmistakably German.

The Brigadier began chatting to one of the medical orderlies. He asked him how long he'd been in the Army and if he had a family and where they lived. The private replied in an abrupt way that should have been enough to indicate that he'd prefer to talk football with his chum. But the Brigadier droned on. His voice too was like that of Fiona's father. He even had the same little 'huh?' with which Fiona's father finished each piece of reckless bigotry.

I remembered the first time I met Fiona's parents. They'd invited me to stay the weekend. They had a huge mansion of uncertain age near Leith Hill in Surrey. The house was surrounded by trees – straggly firs and pines, for the most part. Around the house there were tree-covered hillsides so that Fiona's father – David Timothy Kimber-Hutchinson, Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, wealthy businessman and farm owner, and prize-winning amateur watercolour painter – could proudly say that he owned all the land seen from the window of his study.