time had been a godsend. Of course, he hadn't come up with answers, but he had indicated where, in what directions, further work might pay the necessary dividend.
But that was last week and this morning his luck had run out.
The Sierra had not started. Not a cough, not one glimmer of a spark. Inevitably, he had flooded the engine, and then had to wait before he could try again, and still no sign of life. They had had a bitter, sniping quarrel in the hall, because Sara had said that she needed her car. He had even offered to run the boys to school, but, no, she had needed the car. She had been strange that morning, even before the row over her car, and dressed strangely. She didn't seem to be wearing a brassiere under her purple blouse. What the hell were they going to think of that at the school gates, any of the other parents or any of the teachers?
He had to wait until nine o'clock to telephone the garage, and he had been told they had no time that morning and would try to get down in the afternoon. He had had to walk to the Falcon Gate. The Ministry policeman who checked his I/D had been another one of those patronising cretins who had obviously too soon forgotten the massive two fingers dealt them by the S. A S.
His raincoat was wringing wet, and he was drenched, when he stepped off the minibus outside H area. Now, Carol's noisy insistence that he take his coat into his own office and not leave it to drip on the communal coat- stand.
Bissett was two hours and 25 minutes late. On the balls of his sodden feet he advanced along the corridor to his room.
'Frederick?'
' Y e s, Reuben.'
'I had hoped to find your paper on my desk.'
'Nearly there, Reuben,' Bissett said.
'I trust some progress has been made in my absence.'
Reuben Boll must have been down to the Canaries or Tenerife.
He looked like a broiled frog, hunched over his desk, grinning and satisfied.
'Chemical Explosives were asking after you, B12 wanted you, I gather you have been chasing them for two weeks for their time. I said you would be over in 30 minutes, but that was an hour ago.'
Bissett went on down the corridor and unlocked the door to his room. He threw his briefcase onto the floor, into the corner, and with all his force he slammed his door behind him.
The contract was worth? 1. 3 1 million, and that was good money by the standards of the business owned and run by Justin Pink.
It was his second gin, and they poured them so that they tasted like a horse's kick.
Justin stood with the Trade Attache, and the Trade Attache's assistant, and the Charge had joined them. He knew perfectly well that the software was going into the Ministry of Defence, he had not asked to what use it would be put when it was installed, and he certainly hoped there would be more of the same. He knew that it would be going to the Ministry of Defence, but the paperwork submitted to the Department of Trade and Industry would state that the purchaser was the Ministry of Agriculture; Department of Trade and Industry rules said that manufactured goods could be exported to Iraq only if they had no military usage. Typical of the government's hypocrisy, in Pink's view, that it could bleat about the failure of exporters while at the same time putting every sort of obstacle in their path. He had been twice to Iraq. It was a good market, nothing more and nothing less. If the contract had been 'straightforward' then it would have been worth half the? 1. 3 1 million that he was to be paid.
That it was not straightforward gave the deal an added excitement to Pink. He knew all about the Target Teams of Customs amp; Excise. He knew the wording by heart: Attempt to export equipment with intent to evade prohibition then in force by the Provision of the Export Control and Goods Order and C amp; E Management Act (Section 68/2), 1979… and he knew that the offence carried a maximum sentence of seven years imprisonment… Excitement was important to Justin Pink.
There were more junior officials around them, and Pink was the centre of attention. The Trade Attache and the Charge seemed to hang on his words, and he had the girl at his elbow with the Gordons in one hand and the Schweppes in the other. A great looker, and he may have shown his admiration because she had ducked her dark head in mock embarrassment and given him the slowest smile as she had moved away.
'Beautiful,' the Charge murmured.
'Charming,' the Trade Attache sighed.
' T h e Ambassador's daughter…' the Charge warned.
' T o see her is to start the day well,' the Trade Attache whispered.
'Actually, my own day started pretty well,' Pink said.
Their eyes were on him, enquiring. Yes, it was his day. His day to talk, their day to listen.
' Y o u know what? I walk into my dining room at 9.26 this morning, just to say my goodbyes to the little lady. There's a woman sat there, in front of the fire, and she's stark naked. That started my day well, I can tell you.'
'Very privileged,' the Charge said.
' M a y I visit you at home, Mr Pink?' smirked the Trade Attache.
'Super looking woman, didn't bat an eyelid. My wife has an art class for her friends twice a week, and this was their model…'
'Very smart.'
'Greatly fortunate.'
Pink thought that he felt the admiration of his audience, and they wanted more. 'She's the wife of a chap at A. W. E., sorry, I should explain, where I live we're right alongside the Atomic Weapons Establishment. This woman hasn't a bean, so she's going to pose for my wife and her girlfriends once a month or so, and she'll get the classes thrown in free. You won't have me up here again, not too early in the mornings, not on art class mornings…'
'Hasn't a bean?'
'Colloquial for penniless. It's extraordinary, really, but some of the best scientific brains in Britain are shut away there, at A. W. E., and they're paid peasant wages.'
'Extraordinary.'
'I tell you what,' Pink said, ' I ' d prefer to be on a building site than be a government scientist in this day and age.'
' I n our country a scientist is treated with the utmost respect.'
His glass was refilled, too much gin, not enough tonic. He grimaced at the Ambassador's daughter. He turned back to the Trade Attache.
'He's probably a front-line scientist, and the family's on sub-sistence level. Still, if his wife is sitting in my dining room being a nude model it can't be all bad, can it?'
Pink was never aware of the man who hovered behind him. By the time Pink left the Embassy, worried now as to whether he was fit to drive, a Major who dealt only with Intelligence matters was preparing a report to send to Baghdad. The report would go directly to the desk of the Colonel.
'Please sit down.'
Erlich sat. 'What have you got for me?'
'Would you like coffee?'
Erlich said, ' I ' d rather know what you've got for me.'
'Milk and sugar?'
Erlich said, ' N o sugar.'
'Have to do it myself, my girl's off sick.'
Erlich had gone down to New Scotland Yard fast enough to be more than 25 minutes early for his appointment. They had made him wait. He had been taken to the fourth floor at exactly the time of his appointment. It was a bare working room. Erlich had seen nothing like it in CI-3, in Washington Field Office, where each room had photos of wives stuck onto cork boards, of kids, postcards from vacations all over the world, cartoons, clippings of headlines and a huge blow-up of a quote from an English thriller writer: ' T h e most suspicious, unbelieving, unreasonable, petty, inhuman, sadistic, double-crossing set of bastards in any language [are] the people who run counter-espionage departments.' Nothing like that here. Not even a picture in a frame.
