The poor woman hesitated, worrying if she'd done the right thing. 'I said you were at a meeting and I would call her back.'

Tell my wife not to wait dinner for me. I'll get a bite to eat somewhere or other.'

'If you want to get away, Dicky,' I said, rising to my feet.

'Sit down, Bernard. We can't waste a decent cup of coffee. I'll be home soon enough. Daphne knows what this job is like; eighteen hours a day lately.' It was not a soft, melancholy reflection but a loud proclamation to the world, or at least to me and his secretary who departed to pass the news on to Daphne.

I nodded but I couldn't help wondering if Dicky was scheduling a visit to some other lady. Lately I'd noticed a gleam in his eye and a spring in his step and a most unusual willingness to stay late at the office.

Dicky got up from his easy chair and fussed over the antique butler's tray which his secretary had placed so carefully on his side table. He emptied the Spode cups of the hot water and half filled each warmed cup with black coffee. Dicky was extremely particular about his coffee. Twice a week he sent one of the drivers to collect a packet of freshly roasted beans from Mr Higgins in South Molton Street – chagga, no blends – and it had to be ground just before brewing.

'That's good,' he said, sipping it with all the studied attention of the connoisseur he claimed to be. Having approved the coffee, he poured some for me.

'Wouldn't it be better to stay away from Stinnes, Bernard? He doesn't belong to us any longer, does he?' He smiled. It was a direct order; I knew Dicky's style.

'Can I have milk or cream or something in mine?' I said. That strong black brew you make keeps me awake at night.'

He always had a jug of cream and a bowl of sugar brought in with his coffee although he never used either. He once told me that in his regimental officers' mess, the cream was always on the table but it was considered bad form to take any. I wondered if there were a lot of people like Dicky in the Army; it was a dreadful thought. He brought the cream to me.

'You're getting old, Bernard. Did you ever think of jogging? I run three miles every morning – summer, winter, Christmas, every morning without fail.'

'Is it doing you any good?' I asked as he poured cream for me from the cow-shaped silver jug.

'Ye gods, Bernard. I'm fitter now than I was at twenty-five. I swear lam.'

'What kind of shape were you in at twenty-five?' I said.

'Damned good.' He put the jug down so that -he could run his fingers round the brass-buckled leather belt that held up his jeans. He sucked in his stomach to exaggerate his slim figure and then slammed himself in the gut with a flattened hand. Even without the intake of breath, his lack of fat was impressive. Especially when you took into account the countless long lunches he charged against his expense account.

'But not as good as now?' I persisted.

'I wasn't fat and flabby the way you are, Bernard. I didn't huff and puff every time I went up a flight of stairs.'

'I thought Bret Rensselaer would take over the Stinnes debriefing.'

'Debriefing,' said Dicky suddenly. 'How I hate that word. You get briefed and maybe briefed again, but there is no way anyone can be debriefed.'

'I thought Bret would jump at it. He's been out of a job since Stinnes was enrolled.'

Dicky gave the tiniest chuckle and rubbed his hands together. 'Out of a job since he tried to take over my desk and failed. That's what you mean, isn't it?'

'Was he after your desk?' I said innocently, although Dicky had been providing me with a blow-by-blow account of Bret's tactics and his own counterploys.

'Jesus Christ, Bernard, you know he was. I told you all that.'

'So what's he got lined up now?'

'He'd like to take over in Berlin when Frank goes.'

Frank Harrington's job as head of the Berlin Field Unit was one I coveted, but it meant close liaison with Dicky, maybe even taking orders from him sometimes (although such orders were always wrapped up in polite double-talk and signed by Deputy Controller Europe or a member of the London Central Policy Committee). It wasn't exactly a role that the autocratic Bret Rensselaer would cherish.

' Berlin? Bret? Would he like that job?'

'The rumour is that Frank will get his K. and then retire.'

'And so Bret plans to sit in Berlin until his retirement comes round and hope that he'll get a K. too?' It seemed unlikely. Bret's social life centred on the swanky jet setters of London South West One. I couldn't see him sweating it out in Berlin.

'Why not?' said Dicky, who seemed to get a flushed face whenever the subject of knighthoods came up.

'Why not?' I repeated. 'Bret can't speak the language, for one thing.'

'Come along, Bernard!' said Dicky, whose command of German was about on a par with Bret's. 'He'll be running the show; he won't be required to pass himself off as a bricklayer from Prenzlauer Berg.'

A palpable hit for Dicky. Bernard Samson had spent his youth masquerading as just such lowly coarse-accented East German citizens.

'It's not just a matter of throwing gracious dinner parties in that big house in the Grunewald,' I said. 'Whoever takes over in Berlin has to know the streets and alleys. He'll also need to know the crooks and hustlers who come in to sell bits and pieces of intelligence.'

'That's what you say,' said Dicky, pouring himself more coffee. He held up the jug. 'More for you?' And when I shook my head he continued: 'That's because you fancy yourself doing Frank's job… don't deny it, you know it's true. You've always wanted Berlin. But times have changed, Bernard. The days of rough-and-tumble stuff are over and done with. That was okay in your father's time, when we were a de facto occupying power. But now – whatever the lawyers say – the Germans have to be treated as equal partners. What the Berlin job needs is a smoothie like Bret, someone who can charm the natives and get things done by gentle persuasion.'

'Can I change my mind about coffee?' I said. I suspected that Dicky's views were those prevailing among the top-floor mandarins. There was no way I'd be on a short list of smoothies who got things done by means of gentle persuasion, so this was goodbye to my chances of Berlin.

'Don't be so damned gloomy about it,' said Dicky as he poured coffee. 'It's mostly dregs, I'm afraid. You didn't really think you were in line for Frank's job, did you?' He smiled at the idea.

'There isn't enough money in Central Funding to entice me back to Berlin on any permanent basis. I spent half my life there. I deserve my London posting and I'm hanging on to it.'

' London is the only place to be,' said Dicky. But I wasn't fooling him. My indignation was too strong and my explanation too long. A public school man like Dicky would have done a better job of concealing his bitterness. He would have smiled coldly and said that a Berlin posting would be 'super' in such a way that it seemed he didn't care.

I'd only been in my office for about ten minutes when I heard Dicky coming down the corridor. Dicky and I must have been the only ones still working, apart from the night-duty people, and his footsteps sounded unnaturally sharp, as sounds do at night. And I could always recognize the sound of Dicky's high-heeled cowboy boots.

'Do you know what those stupid sods have done?' he asked, standing in the doorway, arms akimbo and feet apart, like Wyatt Earp coming into the saloon at Tombstone. I knew he would get on the phone to Berlin as soon as I left the office; it was always easier to meddle in other people's work than to get on with his own.

'Released him?'

'Right,' he said. My accurate guess angered him even more, as if he thought I might have been party to this development. *How did you know?'