the whole place who did not seem nervous in his company.
His principal telephone rang.
He picked it up, he listened. He did not interrupt.
'Thank you, Inspector, thank you. I'm not able to get down for a bit, might be an hour. Just put him on ice. No access, no telephone, don't attempt to question him. Just let him sit and reflect for a while, until I can get down. Yes, it will be as soon as possible. Thank you, Inspector.'
The Security Officer put down the telephone. He gathered up his coat from the chair by the door. His face showed neither excitement nor sadness nor anger. It was this mask-like quality in his face which chiefly made his colleagues uneasy. He walked the corridors and up the stairs to the Director's office. For the life of him, he had not an inkling who Frederick Bissett was.
An hour after he should have been home, half an hour after she should have left for school, at the time that she should have been sitting in the classroom with Frank's and Adam's teachers, Sara went upstairs to change out of her suit.
'Aren't you going, Mummy?' A small voice from the bottom of the stairs.
' N o. '
'Why aren't you going, Mummy?'
'Because your father is not home.'
'Don't you want to hear about us?'
'It's just not possible.'
'Where is Daddy?'
'I don't know, and I don't bloody care… '
11
It was a room bare of decoration except for the requisite Annigoni Queen and the tyre company calendar, the one with rural views of his country. At least it was not a cell.
Bissett sat on a straight-back chair at a small table, his head in his hands. He didn't care, any longer, to look up at the Ministry policeman standing, arms folded, impassive, in front of the door.
It was the most shameful hour of his life. He had been directed out of the line of cars to the side of the road by the Falcon Gate, up against the high wire fence. There had been two of them at the car door when he had opened it, and one had put a hand on his sleeve to ease him out of the car, and one had reached inside for the briefcase. Another Ministry policeman had been waving through the cars behind him. He had seen all their white staring faces, through their rain-dribbled windows, as he had stood in the wet. People who recognised him, and people who did not, staring at him, wondering why he had been hauled from his car.
He had started, of course, to try to explain when they had shovelled him into the back of the police van. He had been ignored. Two blank, uninterested faces in the back with him. He had tried anger, and he had tried being reasonable, no response.
He had been taken into the police building. More faces turned to him. The faces of Ministry policemen on the front desk, and on the staircase and in the corridor. Faces that looked him over, stripped him to the quick.
They had sat him in the room. An Inspector had been brought in to see him. Bisselt had recognised rank and status. Right, fine, at last time to talk to someone with an ounce of commonsense, someone in charge of these cretins on the gate. Again, he had explained. Perfectly straightforward, pressure of work, need to complete a paper, wife going to a parent-teacher evening, him minding the children. Couldn't have been more reasonable, should have been the end of it.. . hadn't been the end of it. The Inspector hadn't argued, hadn't said anything at all, the Inspector had just walked out. He was left with the Ministry policeman for company.
He had asked if he could telephone his wife, because she was expecting him, and the Ministry policeman had shaken his head.
He needed to telephone his wife, he'd said, because she was going out that evening, and again the shake of the head. God, she'd be furious, and for once that was going to be the least of his troubles.
He sat with his misery and his shame.
It would be half round the Establishment by the middle of the next morning… Frederick Bissett caught at the Falcon Gate, taken out of his car, marched to a police van, taken off for questioning.
He heard the footsteps approaching in the corridor.
The Security Officer came in with the Inspector behind him.
The Ministry policeman was dismissed and the Inspector stood in his place. The Security Officer came forward and took the chair at the table. Bissett could smell the sherry on his breath.
The small eyes pierced him. He doubted there were more than a dozen out of the 5000 who worked at the Establishment who would not have recognised the Security Officer. The eyes were bright, sparkled at him.
' D r Bissett, Dr Frederick Bissett?'
He had to strain forward to hear the softness of the voice.
' Y e s, that's me.'
'Senior Scientific Officer?'
'In H3, yes.'
'And how many years have you been with us, Dr Bissett?'
'Since 1979, that's when I joined…'
' S o you're not a new boy?'
' N o. '
' Y o u know the procedures?'
' Y e s. '
There was a slow, dead silence in the interview room. The Security Officer's eyes never left his. When he moved his head right, left, dropped it, those eyes followed his. It was what they said a stoat did with a rabbit, first capture its eyes, then create terror, then kill.
' Y o u are a signatory to the Official Secrets Act, Dr Bissett?'
He stammered, ' Y e s, yes I am…'
' A n d you are cognizant of the security measures applied at this Establishment?'
'Of course, I am, yes.'
A quiet whiplash in the voice. 'What were you doing taking classified papers, that should under no circumstances leave the Establishment, off the premises?'
He felt so utterly feeble. He explained. The pressure of work as dictated by his Senior Principal Scientific Officer, Reuben Boll. The pressing need for this paper to be completed by the morning. The parent-teacher evening at school. His wife having agreed to attend, his having to be home to be with his young boys, his intention to work at home, through the night if necessary, on this badly needed paper.
'Has this happened before?'
'What? Being stopped and searched, do you mean?'
' N o, Dr Bissett. I mean, is this the first time you've tried to smuggle classified material out of the Establishment?'
'I can't have that. I'm sorry. I won't have 'smuggled'…'
' Y o u are asking me to believe that your behaviour was not criminal, merely crassly stupid?'
His head was in his hands again. Unless he laid the weight of his head on his hands he thought his body might keel over from the chair and down to the linoleum-covered floor.
'I have been very stupid… '
'Just Stupid?'
He raised his head He looked into the eyes of the Security Officer. What the hell was the bloody man talking about? What in God's name was the bloody man at?
'What else?'
' T o work at home with those papers would be stupid, to have any other purpose for those papers could be criminal He pushed himsell up from the table. He felt his voice surge.
