Three days later a letter arrived in a plain white envelope marked
PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL.
Foreign and Commonwealth Office
No. 46A-Terrace
London SW1
PERSONAL AND CONFIDENTIAL
Dear Mr. Milius,
It has been suggested to me that you might be interested to have a discussion with us about fast-stream appointments in government service in the field of foreign affairs which occasionally arise in addition to those covered by the Open Competition to the Diplomatic Service. This office has a responsibility for recruitment to such appointments.
If you would like to take this possibility further, I should be grateful if you would please complete the enclosed form and return it to me. Provided that there is an appointment for which you appear potentially suitable, I shall then invite you to an exploratory conversation at this office. Your travel expenses will be refunded at the rate of a standard return rail fare plus tube fares.
I should stress that your acceptance of this invitation will not commit you in any way, nor will it affect your candidature for any government appointments for which you may apply or have applied. As this letter is personal to you, I should be grateful if you could respect its confidentiality.
Yours sincerely, Philip Lucas Recruitment Liaison Office
Enclosed was a standard-issue, four-page application form: name and address, education, brief employment history, and so on. I completed it within twenty-four hours-replete with lies-and sent it back to Lucas. He replied by return post, inviting me to the meeting.
I have spoken to Hawkes only once in the intervening period.
Yesterday afternoon I was becoming edgy about what the interview would entail. I wanted to find out what to expect, what to prepare, what to say. So I queued outside a Praed Street phone box for ten minutes, far enough away from the CEBDO office not to risk being seen by Nik. None of them know that I am here today.
Again Hawkes answered on the first ring. Again his manner was curt and to the point. Acting as if people were listening in on the line.
“I feel as if I’m going into this thing with my trousers down,” I told him. “I know nothing about what’s going on.”
He sniffed what may have been a laugh and replied, “Don’t worry about it. Everything will become clear when you get there.”
“So there’s nothing you can tell me? Nothing I need to prepare for?”
“Nothing at all, Alec. Just be yourself. It will all make sense later on.”
How much of this Lucas knows, I do not know. I simply give him edited highlights from the dinner and a few sketchy impressions of Hawkes’s character. Nothing permanent. Nothing of any significance.
In truth, we do not talk about him for long. The subject soon runs dry. Lucas moves on to my father and, after that, spends a quarter of an hour questioning me about my school years, dredging up the forgotten paraphernalia of my youth. He notes down all my answers, scratching away with the Mont Blanc, nodding imperceptibly at given points in the conversation.
Building a file on a man.
2
The interview drifts on.
In response to a series of bland, straightforward questions about various aspects of my life-friendships, university, bogus summer jobs-I give a series of bland, straightforward answers designed to show myself in the correct light: as a stand-up guy, an unwavering patriot, a citizen of no stark political leanings. Just what the Foreign Office is looking for. Lucas’s interviewing technique is strangely shapeless; at no point am I properly tested by anything he asks. And he never takes the conversation to a higher level. We do not, for example, discuss the role of the Foreign Office or British policy overseas. The talk is always general, always about me.
In due course I begin to worry that my chances of recruitment are slim. Lucas has about him the air of someone doing Hawkes a favor. He will keep me in here for a couple of hours, fulfill what is required of him, and the process will go no further. Things feel over before they have really begun.
However, at around three thirty I am again offered a cup of tea. This seems significant, but the thought of it deters me. I do not have enough conversation left to last out another hour. Yet it is clear that he would like me to accept.
“Yes, I would like one,” I tell him. “Black. Nothing in it.”
“Good,” he says.
In this instant something visibly relaxes in Lucas, a crumpling of his suit. There is a sense of formalities passing. This impression is reinforced by his next remark, an odd, almost rhetorical question entirely out of keeping with the established rhythm of our conversation.
“Would you like to continue with your application after this initial discussion?”
Lucas phrases this so carefully that it is like a briefly glimpsed secret, a sight of the interview’s true purpose. And yet the question does not seem to deserve an answer. What candidate, at this stage, would say no?
“Yes, I would.”
“In that case, I am going to go out of the room for a few moments. I will send someone in with your cup of tea.”
It is as if he has changed to a different script. Lucas looks relieved to be free of the edgy formality that has characterized the interview thus far. There is, at last, a sense of getting down to business.
From the clipboard on his lap he releases a small piece of paper, printed on both sides. This he places on the table in front of me.
“There’s just one thing,” he says, with well-rehearsed blandness. “Before I leave, I’d like you to sign the Official Secrets Act.”
The first thing I think of, even before I am properly surprised, is that Lucas actually trusts me. I have said enough here today to earn the confidence of the state. That was all it took: sixty minutes of half-truths and evasions. I stare at the document and feel suddenly catapulted into something adult, as though from this moment onward things will be expected and demanded of me. Lucas is keen to assess my reaction. Prompted by this, I lift the document and hold it in my hand like a courtroom exhibit. I am surprised by its cursoriness. It is simply a little brown sheet of paper with space at the base for a signature. I do not even bother to read the small print, because to do so might seem odd or improper. So I sign my name at the bottom of the page, scrawled and lasting. Alec Milius. The moment passes with what seems an absurd absence of seriousness, an absolute vacuum of drama. I give no thought to the consequence of it.
Almost immediately, before the ink can be properly dry, Lucas snatches the document away from me and stands to leave. Distant traffic noise on the Mall. A brief clatter in the secretarial enclave next door.
“Do you see the file on the table?”
It has been sitting there, untouched, for the duration of the interview.
“Yes.”
“Please read it while I am gone. We will discuss the contents when I return.”
I look at the file, register its hard red cover, and agree.
“Good,” says Lucas, moving outside. “Good.”
Alone now in the room, I lift the file from the table as though it were a magazine in a doctor’s surgery. It is
