'Somebody else's problem, isn't it? Somebody else's war, correct? My trouble is that 'somebody else' is me
… I didn't even know she was there, I thought she was still in Australia… Will you go there, please, Mr. Penn?' 'If we sort out my fee, my expenses, yes, I think I would consider it.' It was boorish of him. 'You were in the Security Service, that's correct, isn't it?' He said, sharply, 'That's not an area I can discuss.' She looked at him, direct. 'I just wondered why you left. If I'm to employ you… I just wondered why an officer of the Security Service ended up where you've ended.' 'Wonder away, but it's not your business.' Not her business… Not anyone's business but his and Jane's. His and Jane's business, and all the bastards that he had looked to for support. No, there hadn't been written commendations that would lie in his personal file. Yes, there had been congratulations, back-slapping, snake words, but nothing to lie in his file. He had gone to his team leader, to his section leader, and to his branch leader, all graduates. He had requested their support for his application to be accepted into the inner core of the Service, General Intelligence Group… and he had gone to Gary Brennard in Personnel. It was not her business… In the new-style Service the men of the Transit van teams were dinosaur history. The new style was squatting in front of a computer screen. The Middle East squad was being wound up. The trades union squad was being cut back. The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament squad was being phased out. The future, without a degree, was being stuck, tied, trapped in front of a computer screen with the other middle-aged, passed-over no-hopers. The future was scanning the surveillance photographs from the hidden cameras in railway stations and shopping precincts and over busy pavements. The future was searching for men with scarves across their faces, women with their coat collars turned up, carrying bags and dropping them into rubbish bins, to hurry away before the bloody Semtex detonated… It was not her business that he had tried for Belfast, not told Jane, and been rejected, told it wasn't for 'marrieds', not at his level. Dougal Gray, best mate, divorced, had won the Belfast appointment… Not her business that he had believed in his work, reckoned he protected his society, taken a pleasure that the great bloody ignorant unwashed snored in their beds at night, safe, because he sat in the damn Transit van with a piss bottle for company and a Leica… Not her business that in the last two years there had been bloody kids, graduates, set in charge of him and lecturing him on procedures, and running up the bloody ladder that was denied him… Not her business. He felt no warmth towards her, no gentleness. Another rich woman at war with another rich child… But there was just a flicker, in her weakness. Just a moment, in her pleading… His mother and father lived in a tied cottage, his father was a farm labourer who most days drove a tractor, his mother went out most mornings and dusted and cleaned in the big house on the estate. He hadn't much time for the rich. And she took him downstairs to the kitchen and heated the old iron kettle on the Aga and made him instant coffee, and told him horror stories of the behaviour of Dorrie Mowat.
An hour later he said, 'I'll work out what it would cost, how many days I estimate it will take. Goodbye, Mrs. Braddock. You'll hear from me.'
Three.
The pub was down the road from the launderette, and round the corner, 'You know what you are, Penn? You are a jam my bastard.' The pub, Basil's 'watering hole', was mean and dirty and dark. There was a table beyond the bar that was his, out of danger from the darts board. Basil, one-time detective sergeant, had made the table his own since retirement from the Metropolitan Police nineteen years back. Most lunch times, Basil was at the table with Deirdre. 'You milk that one, my son, because it's cream for the cat. You spin it out, my son.' Jim didn't use the pub at lunch time, left Basil clear with Deirdre, but he came by at five most evenings. Jim, one-time detective constable in the Fraud Squad, liked a game of pool in the bar and a swift pint, or three, with Basil. It was where the hard business of Alpha Security was talked through. 'They don'c come on trees, young fellow, they're gifts from heaven. You fell on your feet, young fellow.' Henry, one-time Telecom engineer, came to the pub only at Christmas, birthday, or celebration time, and nursed orange juice. Henry was valuable, always sober, and spent his drinks money on bug equipment and the gear for tapping hard lines, and the new pride and joy was a UHF room transmitter built into a thirteen-amp wall socket. 'Milk it
…' 'Run it…' 'Enjoy it…' It wasn't talked about, but Penn assumed that Basil and Jim and Henry did odd-job work for Five. Work that was boring and work that was illegal would be farmed out, Penn assumed. It had to be a good assumption because when he had been working out his notice at Gower Street, when he was getting all the flak from Jane as to where the mortgage money was going to come from, there had been the quiet call from the fourth floor and the request that he attend the office of Senior Executive Officer Arnold Browne. A soft word of sympathy, a frowned nod of understanding, and a suggestion that Alpha Security, SW19, might be looking for an able man. He guessed a little empire had been built, the tentacles spread, and Henry never seemed short of gear that cost, and plenty more than he saved by drinking only orange juice. They were a good little team: give Basil three phone calls, he could find a burglar, a mugger, a safe-breaker; give Jim half a day, he could get an Inland Revenue annual statement print-out; Henry could fix, in twenty-four hours, best quality audio and. visual surveillance. They were a good little team, but needing young legs and young eyes and a guy prepared to sit through the bread-and-butter crap.. But it wasn't bread-and-butter crap they were celebrating in the pub, with Penn buying the drinks, it was a hell of a good overseas contract, with money going half share to the partners… Penn felt quiet satisfaction, because Basil was almost jealous, and Jim couldn't quite hide the envy, and Henry didn't seem too cheerful. Penn was reaching for their glasses, and none of them was shouting that it was his round. Penn said, 'Actually, she's quite a decent woman…' 'Bollocks, she's a punter.' 'Daily rate, plus per them expenses, plus Club-class flights.' 'Half the daily rate up front, per them expenses in your greasy hand for a clear week before you go, and that doesn't include the hotel of your choice.' Penn said, 'Pity is that her daughter was a right little tosser…' He scooped up the glasses and headed for the bar. Two pints of best bitter, an orange juice, and Penn was taking low alcohol because when he was shot of them he would be going back to the office over the launderette and he would be typing up the finances and faxing them down to the Manor House on the Surrey/ Sussex border, and then he would be going home to Jane, and hoping to God, some hope, that the baby slept hard… and hoping to God, some hope, that Jane wasn't flat on her back with exhaustion… It was going sour with Jane, not solicitors and courts stage, just going stale, and he did not know what to do about it, nor whether it mattered if he did nothing about it. He brought the drinks back, shouldered his way through the shop people and the mechanics in their overalls and the building site workers who were all on the 'black'. Wouldn't have been seen in there, not seen dead in there, when he had been at Gower Street. It still seared him, and it would do so for a goddamn long time, the memory of when he had come back home to Raynes Park off the train from Waterloo, and told Jane that he was washed up, working out his notice, gone. Jane, seven months pregnant, and hysterical, and him not able to staunch the screaming. She'd done it, Jane, she had wound him up when she had packed her job in because the baby was coming. She had done the sums of the household accounts, told him they couldn't survive, not with the baby coming, not without her money, unless he had himself promoted. She had told him he should have been made up from executive officer to higher executive officer, and like a bloody fool… Basil took his drink. 'Cheers… I'm going to give you advice, you jam my bastard. Don't go sentimental on it, don't get yourself involved.' Jim grasped the pint glass and nodded his agreement. Henry sipped at the orange juice. 'Good trip… Just pile the paper up, reports, analysis, interview transcripts, like you've been a busy boy.' 'I hear you.' He made his excuses and left them still talking, debating, arguing, what the rate of per them expenses should be. He walked out onto the street. They were closing the shutters down on the fruit and vegetable shop, and locking up the jeans and denim store, and the launderette was packed full. Gary bloody Brennard, Personnel, wouldn't be unlocking a paint-peeled door beside a launderette and going back to work at 6.33pm, and Gary bloody Brennard, Personnel, wouldn't even remember his little talk with Bill Penn, executive officer. His own fault, because he had not copped on to the new scene at Five. Too dumb, too stupid, to have evaluated the new mood at Five. Entry to General Intelligence Group was restricted to higher executive officers, new scene, didn't he know? Entry to General Intelligence Group was restricted to university graduates, there was a new mood, didn't he know? They didn't want watchers, nor leg-men, nor ditch- men
… they wanted analysts and information control management, and they wanted graduates. 'Don't have a degree, do you, Bill?' Gary Brennard's sneer. 'Didn't make university, did you, Bill?' His feet hammered the linoleum above the launderette. He snatched the cover off the typewriter. 'Without a degree, without a university education, you've reached your plateau, haven't you, Bill?' He began to type. He accepted the assignment. He listed the daily rate and a half to be paid in advance, and the per them expenses rate… He pounded the keys of the typewriter. 'If
