It was, of course, a rhetorical question; I was expected to confirm that he'd predicted that very thing with uncanny accuracy a million times or more, but I looked at him straight-faced and said, 'You may have done, Dicky. I'm not sure I remember.'

'For Christ's sake, Bernard! I told Bret only two days ago.'

'So what's happened?'

'The people have scattered. Frank is here.'

'Frank is here?'

'Don't just repeat what I say. Yes, dammit. Frank is here.'

'In London?'

'He's upstairs taking a bath and cleaning up. He arrived last night and we've been up half the night talking.' Dicky was standing at the fireplace with fingers tapping on the mantelshelf and one cowboy boot resting on the brass fender.

'Aren't you going into the office?' I cradled the cocoa in my hands, but it wasn't very hot so I drank it. I hate cold cocoa.

Dicky tugged at the gold medallion hanging round his neck on a fine chain. It was a feminine gesture and so was the artful smile with which he answered my question.

I said, 'Bret will know Frank is in London. If you are missing from the office, he'll put two and two together.'

'Bret can go to hell,' said Dicky.

'Are you going to drink your cocoa?'

'It's real chocolate, actually,' said Dicky. 'Our neighbours across the road brought it back from Mexico and showed Daphne how the Mexicans make it.'

I recognized Dicky's way of saying he didn't like it. 'Here's health,' I said, and drank his cocoa too. His mug was decorated with rodents named Flopsy, Mopsy, Cottontail and Peter. It was smaller than mine; I suppose Daphne knew he didn't much like cocoa the way the Mexicans fixed it.

'Yes. Bret can go to hell,' repeated Dicky. The gas fire wasn't on. He gently kicked the artificial log with the tip of his boot.

If Dicky was hell-bent on a knock-down-drag-out fight my money would be on Bret Rensselaer. I didn't say that; I didn't have to. 'This is all part of your plan to keep Bret out of things?'

'Our plan,' said Dicky. 'Our plan.'

'I still haven't had that confidential memo you promised me.'

'For God's sake. I'm not going to let you down.' From upstairs there came the sound of the Rolling Stones. 'It's Daphne,' explained Dicky. 'She says she works better to music.'

'So what is Frank up to? Why come here to whisper in your ear? Why not report to the office?'

Again came Dicky's artful smile. 'We both know that, Bernard. Frank is after my job.'

'Frank is a hundred years old and waiting for retirement.'

'But retiring from my desk would give him another few thousand a year on his pension. Retiring from my desk, Frank would be sure of a CBE or even a K.'

'Have you been encouraging Frank to think he's getting your job? There's not a chance of it at his age.'

Dicky frowned. 'Well, don't let's rake that over, at least not for the time being. If Frank has unspoken ambitions, it's not for us to make predictions about them. You follow me, don't you?'

'Follow you, I'm way ahead of you. Frank helps you to get rid of Bret Rensselaer. Then you get Bret's job and Frank gets yours – except that Frank won't get yours.'

'You've got an evil mind,' said Dicky without rancour. 'You always think the worst of everyone around you.'

'And the distressing tiling about that is the way I'm so often proved right.'

'Well, take it easy on Frank. He's shaken.'

Dicky was of course exaggerating wildly, both about the disintegration of the Brahms net and about Frank Harrington's morale. Frank came downstairs ten minutes later. He looked no worse than I would have looked after sitting up with Dicky all night. He was freshly shaved, with two tiny cuts where he'd trimmed the edges of his blunt-ended moustache. He wore a chalk-stripe three-piece suit, clean shirt and oxford shoes polished to a glasslike finish, and he was waving that damned pipe in the air. Frank was tired and hoarse with talking, but he was an expert at making the best of himself and I knew he'd display no sign of weakness in front of Dicky and me.

Frank seemed pleased to see me. 'I'm glad you're here, Bernard. Has Dicky put you in the picture?'

'I've told him nothing,' said Dicky. 'I wanted him to hear it from you. Drinking chocolate, Frank?'

Frank looked quickly at his gold wristwatch. 'A small gin and tonic wouldn't go amiss, Dicky, if it's all the same to you.'

'It's cocoa, Frank,' I said. 'Made the way they drink it in Mexico.'

'You said you liked it,' said Dicky defensively.

'I loved it,' I said. 'I drank two of them, didn't I.'

'If you've got Plymouth gin,' said Frank, 'I'll have it straight or with bitters.' He went over to the fireplace and knocked out his pipe.

When Dicky came back from the drinks wagon and saw the charred tobacco ashes in the hearth, he said, 'Christ, Frank! Can't you see that that's a gas fire.' He handed Frank the gin and then went down on his knees at the fireplace.

'I'm awfully sorry,' said Frank.

'It looks just like a real open fire,' said Dicky as he used one of Daphne's discarded breakfast-food roughs to marshal the pipe dottle into a tiny heap that could be hidden under the artificial log.

'I'm sorry, Dicky. I really am,' said Frank as he sat back on the sofa with a yellow oilskin tobacco pouch on his knees. He looked at me and nodded before sipping his gin. Then, in a different sort of voice, he said, 'It could become bad, Bernard. If you're going over there, this would be the time to do it.'

'How bad?'

Dicky got to his feet and slapped his hands against his legs to get rid of any ash on his fingers. 'Bloody bad,' said Dicky. 'Tell him how you first found out what was going on.'

'I'm not sure I know what is going on yet,' said Frank. 'But the first real sign of trouble came when I had a call from the police liaison chap in Bonn. The border guards at Hitzacker in Lower Saxony had fished a fellow out of the Elbe. He'd got over the Wall and across all those damned minefields and border obstacles and into the river. He was just about done in, but he wasn't injured in any way. From the West German police report I gather there'd been no sounds of shooting or anything from the other side. It was as near as you can get to a perfect escape.'

'Lucky man,' said Dicky.

'Or a well-informed one,' said Frank. 'The border runs along the northeast bank of the river there, so the East Germans can't put obstacles and mantraps in the water. That's why the DDK keep bellyaching about the way the border should run along the middle of the Elbe. Meanwhile it's a good place to try an escape.'

'A border crossing? Why did Bonn get involved and why did anyone call you?'

' Bonn got interested when the interrogator at the reception centre found that the escapee was an East German customs official.'

Frank looked at me as if expecting a reaction. When I gave none, he spent a few moments trying to light his pipe. 'An East German customs official,' he said again, and waved the match in the air to extinguish it. He almost tossed the dead match into the fireplace but remembered in time and placed it on the large Cinzano ashtray that Dicky had put at his elbow. 'Max Binder. One of our people. A Brahms network man.'

Dicky had had a whole night of Frank's measured story-telling and now he tried to hurry things along. 'When Frank put in the usual "contact string" for the rest of the Brahms network next morning, he got no response from anyone.'

'I didn't say that, Dicky,' said Frank pedantically. 'I got messages from two of them.'

'You didn't get messages,' said Dicky even more pedantically. 'You got two "out of contact" signals.' Dicky had decided that the failure of the Brahms network was his big chance, and he was determined to write the story his own way.

Frank grunted and sipped his gin.