The choice of time and place turned out to be not quite as outlandish as might have appeared. At eleven on a weekday morning a decaying Pall Mall club resounds to the honk of vacuum cleaners, the singsong chatter of underpaid migrant labourers laying up for lunch, and little else. The pillared lobby was empty save for a decrepit doorman in his box and a black woman mopping the marble floor. Hector, roosting on an old carved throne with his long legs crossed, was reading the Financial Times Financial Times.

In a Service of nomads pledged to keep their secrets to themselves, hard information about any colleague was always difficult to come by. But even by these low standards, the sometime Deputy Director Western Europe, then Deputy Director Russia, then Deputy Director Africa & South East Asia and now, mysteriously, Director Special Projects, was a walking conundrum or, as some of his colleagues would have it, maverick.

Fifteen years back, Luke and Hector had shared a three-month Russian-language immersion course conducted by an elderly princess in her ivy-covered mansion in old Hampstead, not ten minutes from where Luke now lived. Come evening, they would share a cathartic walk on the Heath. Hector was a fast mover in those days, physically and professionally. Striding out with his gangly legs, he was a hard fellow for little Luke to keep up with. His conversation, which often went over Luke"s head in both senses and was peppered with expletives, ranged from the "two greatest conmen in history" Karl Marx and Sigmund Freud to the crying need for a brand of British patriotism that was consistent with the contemporary conscience usually followed by a typically Hector U-turn, in which he demanded to know what conscience conscience meant anyway. meant anyway.

Only rarely since then had their paths crossed. While Luke"s field career followed its predictable course Moscow, Prague, Amman, Moscow again, with spells of Head Office in between, and finally Bogota Hector"s rapid ascent to the fourth floor seemed divinely foretold and his remoteness, so far as Luke was concerned, complete.

But as time pa.s.sed, the turbulent contrarian in Hector showed signs of raising its head. A new wave of Service power-brokers was pressing for a louder voice in the Westminster village. Hector, in a closed address to Senior Officers that turned out to be not quite as closed as it might have been, castigated the Wise Fools of the fourth floor who were "willing to sacrifice the Service"s sacred obligation to speak truth to power".

The dust had barely settled when, presiding over a stormy post-mortem into an operational c.o.c.k-up, Hector defended the perpetrators against the Joint Services" planners, whose vision, he claimed, had been "unnaturally restricted by having their heads stuck up the American a.r.s.e".

Then sometime in 2003, not surprisingly, he vanished. No farewell parties, no obituary in the monthly newsletter, no obscure medal, no forwarding address. First his encoded signature disappeared from operational orders. Then it disappeared from distribution lists. Then it disappeared from the closed-circuit email address book, and finally from the encrypted phone book, which was tantamount to a death notice.

And in place of the man himself, the inevitable rumour mill: He had led a top-floor revolt over Iraq and been sacked for his pains. Wrong, said others. It was the bombing of Afghanistan, and he wasn"t sacked, he resigned.

In a stand-up argument, he had called the Secretary to the Cabinet a "mendacious b.a.s.t.a.r.d" to his face. Wrong again, said a different camp. It was the Attorney-General and "spineless toady".

Others with rather more hard evidence to go on pointed at the personal tragedy that had befallen Hector shortly before his departure from the Service when his wayward only son Adrian, not for the first time, had crashed a stolen car at high speed while under the influence of cla.s.s-A drugs. Miraculously, the only victim had been Adrian himself, who suffered chest and facial injuries. But a young mother and her baby had escaped by inches and CIVIL SERVANT"S RUNAWAY SON IN HIGH STREET HORROR made ugly reading. A string of other offences was taken into account. Broken by the affair, said the rumour mill, Hector had withdrawn from the secret world in order to support his son while he was in gaol.

But while there might have been some merit in this version it had at least a few hard facts in its favour it could not have been the whole story, because a few months after his disappearance, it was Hector"s own face staring out of the tabloids, not as the distraught father of Adrian but as the doughty lone warrior fighting to save an old-established family firm from the clutches of those he dubbed VULTURE CAPITALISTS, thereby securing himself a sensational headline.

For weeks, Hector-watchers were regaled with stirring tales of this old-established, decently prosperous docklands firm of grain importers with sixty-five long-serving employees, all shareholders, whose "life-support system has been switched off overnight", according to Hector who also overnight had discovered a gift for public relations: "The a.s.set-strippers and carpet-baggers are at our gates, and sixty-five of the best men and women in England are about to be tossed on to the rubbish heap," he informed the press. And sure enough, within a month, the headlines shouted: MEREDITH FIGHTS OFF VULTURE CAPITALISTS FAMILY FIRM IN TAKEOVER TRIUMPH.

And a year later, Hector was sitting in his old room on the fourth floor, raising a little h.e.l.l, as he liked to call it.

How Hector had talked his way back in, or whether the Service had gone to him on bended knee, and what anyway were the functions of a so-called Director of Special Projects were mysteries Luke could not but ponder as he followed him at a snail"s pace up the splendiferous staircase of his club, past the crumbling portraits of its imperial heroes, and into the musty library of books that n.o.body read. And he continued to ponder it as Hector pulled shut the great mahogany door, turned the key, dropped it into his pocket, unfastened the buckles of an old brown briefcase and, shoving a sealed Service envelope at Luke with no stamp on it, ambled to the ceiling-high sash window that looked out on to St James"s Park.

"Thought it might suit you a bit better than p.i.s.sing around in Admin," he remarked carelessly, his craggy body silhouetted against the grimy net curtains.

The letter inside the Service envelope was a printout from the same Queen of Human Resources who only two months ago had pa.s.sed sentence on Luke. In lifeless prose it transferred him with immediate effect and no explanation to the post of Coordinator of an embryonic body to be known as the Counterclaim Focus Group, answerable to the Director of Special Projects. Its remit would be to "consider proactively what operational costs may be recovered from customer departments who have significantly benefited from the product of Service operations". The appointment carried an eighteen-month extension to his contract, to be credited to his length of service for the purpose of pension rights. Any questions, email this address.

"Make sense to you at all?" Hector inquired, from his place at the long sash window.

Mystified, Luke said something about it helping with the mortgage.

"You like proactive proactive? Proactive grab you?"

"Not much," said Luke, with a baffled laugh.

"The Human Queen adores adores proactive," Hector retorted. "Gets her h.o.r.n.y as a cat. Shove in proactive," Hector retorted. "Gets her h.o.r.n.y as a cat. Shove in focus focus, you"re home and dry."

Should Luke humour the man? What on earth was he up to, hauling him off to his awful club at eleven in the morning, giving him a letter that wasn"t even his to give, and making pedantic cracks about the Human Queen"s English?

"Heard you had a bad time in Bogota," Hector said.

"Well, up and down, you know," Luke replied defensively.

"Bonking your number two"s wife, you mean? That sort of up and down?"

Staring at the letter in his hand, Luke saw it start to tremble but by an act of self-control managed to say nothing.

"Or the sort of up and down that comes of being hijacked at machinegun-point by some s.h.i.t of a drug baron you thought was your joe," Hector pursued. "That sort of up and down?" sort of up and down?"

"Very probably both," Luke replied stiffly.

"Mind telling which came first the hijack or the bonk?"

"The bonk, unfortunately."

"Unfortunately because, while you were being detained at your drug baron"s leisure in his jungle because, while you were being detained at your drug baron"s leisure in his jungle redoute redoute, your poor dear wife back in Bogota got to hear you"d been bonking the girl next door?"

"Yes. That"s right. She did."

"With the result that when you escaped from your drug baron"s hospitality, and found your way home after a few days of rubbing shoulders with nature in the raw, you didn"t get the hero"s welcome you were expecting?"

"No. I didn"t."

"Did you tell all?"

"To the drug baron?"

"To Eloise."

"Well, not all all," said Luke, not entirely sure why he was going along with this.

"You confessed to whatever she already knew, or was certain to find out," Hector suggested approvingly. "The partial hang-out posing as the full and frank confession. Fair reading?"

"I suppose so."

"Not prying, Luke, old boy. Not judgemental. Just getting it straight. We stole some good horses together back in better days. In my book you"re a b.l.o.o.d.y good officer and that"s why you"re here. What d"you think of it? Overall. The letter you"re holding in your hand. Otherwise?"

"Otherwise? Well, I suppose I"m a bit puzzled by it."

"Puzzled by what what exactly?" exactly?"

"Well why this urgency, for a start? All right, it"s with immediate effect. But the job doesn"t exist."

"Doesn"t have to. Narrative"s perfectly clear. Cupboard"s bare, so the Chief goes to the Treasury with his begging bowl and asks "em for more cash. Treasury digs its toes in. "Can"t help you. We"re all broke. Claw it back from all the b.u.g.g.e.rs who"ve been getting a free ride off you." I thought it played rather well, given the times."

"I"m sure it"s a good idea," said Luke earnestly, by now more lost than he had been ever since his untriumphant return to England.

"Well, if it doesn"t doesn"t play, now"s your time to speak up, for Christ"s sake. No second chances in this situation, believe you me." play, now"s your time to speak up, for Christ"s sake. No second chances in this situation, believe you me."

"It plays, I"m sure. And I"m very grateful, Hector. Thanks for thinking of me. Thanks for the leg-up."

"The Human Queen"s plan is to give you your own desk, G.o.d bless her. A few doors along from Finance. Well I can"t mess with that. Be ungracious to. But my advice would be to give Finance a wide berth. They don"t want you counting their their beans, and we don"t want "em counting beans, and we don"t want "em counting ours ours. Well, do we?"

"I don"t expect we do."

"Anyway, you won"t be in the shop that much. You"ll be out and about, trawling Whitehall, making a b.l.o.o.d.y nuisance of yourself with the fat-cat ministries. Check in a couple of times a week, report to me on progress, fiddle your expenses, that"ll be your lot. You still buying it?"

"Not really."

"Why not?"

"Well, why here here, for a start? Why not email me on the ground floor, or call me up on the internal line?"

Hector had never taken easily to criticism, Luke remembered, and he didn"t now. "All right, dammit. Suppose I did did email you first. Or called you, what the f.u.c.k? Would you buy it email you first. Or called you, what the f.u.c.k? Would you buy it then then? The Human Queen"s offer as it stands, for Christ"s sake?"

Too late in the day, a different and more heartening scenario was forming in Luke"s mind.

"If you"re asking me whether I would accept the Human Queen"s offer as it has been presented to me in the letter asking me notionally my answer is yes. If you"re asking me notionally, again whether I"d smell a rat if I found the letter lying on my desk in the office, or on my screen, my answer is no, I wouldn"t."

"Scout"s honour?"

"Scout"s honour."

They were interrupted by a ferocious rattle of the door handle, followed by a burst of angry knocks. With a weary "oh f.u.c.k f.u.c.k "em", Hector gestured to Luke to get himself out of sight among the bookshelves, unlocked the door, and shoved his head round it. "em", Hector gestured to Luke to get himself out of sight among the bookshelves, unlocked the door, and shoved his head round it.

"Sorry, old boy, not today, I"m afraid," Luke heard him say. "Unofficial stock-taking in progress. Usual f.u.c.k-up. Members taking out books and not signing for "em. Hope you"re not one of them. Try Friday. About the first time in my life I"ve been grateful to be Honorary f.u.c.king Librarian," he continued, not much bothering to lower his voice as he closed the door and relocked it. "You can come out now. And in case you think I"m the ringleader of a Septembrist plot, you"d better read this letter as well, then shove it back at me and I"ll swallow it."

This envelope was pale blue, and conspicuously opaque. A blue lion and unicorn rampant were finely embossed on the flap. And inside, one matching blue sheet of writing paper, the smallest size, with the portentous printed heading: From the Office of the Secretariat.

Dear Luke,This is to a.s.sure you that the very private conversation you are conducting with our mutual colleague over lunch at his club today takes place with my unofficial approval.Ever, then a very small signature which looked as if it had been extracted at gunpoint: William J. Matlock (Head of Secretariat), better known as Billy Boy Matlock or plain Bully Boy if that was your preference, as it was for those who had fallen foul of him the Service"s longest-standing and most implacable troubleshooter and left-hand man to the Chief himself.

"Load of horses.h.i.t, as a matter of fact, but what else can the poor b.u.g.g.e.r do?" Hector was remarking, as he returned the letter to its envelope and stuffed the envelope into an inside pocket of his mangy sports coat. "They know I"m right, don"t want me to be, don"t know what to do if I am. Don"t want me p.i.s.sing into the tent, don"t want me p.i.s.sing out of it. Lock me up and gag me"s the only answer, but I don"t take kindly to that, never did. Nor did you, by all accounts why weren"t you eaten by tigers or whatever they have out there?"

"It was insects mainly."

"Leeches?"

"Those too."

"Don"t hover. Take a pew."

Luke obediently sat down. But Hector remained standing, hands thrust deep in his pockets, shoulders stooped, glowering into the unlit fireplace with its ancient bra.s.s tongs and pokers and cracked leather surrounds. And it occurred to Luke that the atmosphere inside the library had become oppressive, if not threatening. And perhaps Hector felt it too, because his flippancy deserted him, and his hollowed, sickly face turned as grim as an undertaker"s.

"Want to ask you something," he announced abruptly, more to the fireplace than to Luke.

"Ask away."

"What"s the most dire, f.u.c.king awful thing you"ve ever seen in your life? Anywhere? Apart from the business-end of a drug lord"s Uzi staring you in the face. Pot-bellied starving kids in the Congo with their hands chopped off, barking mad with hunger, too tired to cry? Fathers castrated, c.o.c.ks stuffed in their mouths, eyeholes full of flies? Women with bayonets stuck up their fannies?"

Luke had never served in the Congo, so he had to a.s.sume Hector was describing an experience of his own.

"We did have our equivalents," he said.

"Such as what? Name a couple."

"Colombian government having a field day. With American a.s.sistance, naturally. Villages torched. Inhabitants gang-raped, tortured, hacked to bits. Everybody dead except the one survivor left to tell the tale."

"Yes. Well. We"ve both seen a bit of the world then," Hector conceded. "Not w.a.n.king around."

"No."

"And the dirty money sloshing about, the profits of pain, we"ve seen that too. In Colombia alone, billions. You"ve billions. You"ve seen that. Christ knows what seen that. Christ knows what your your man was worth." He didn"t wait for the answer. "In the Congo, man was worth." He didn"t wait for the answer. "In the Congo, billions billions. In Afghanistan, billions billions. An eighth of the world"s f.u.c.king economy: black as your hat. We know about it."

"Yes. We do."

"Blood money. That"s all it is."

"Yes."

"Doesn"t matter where. It can be in a box under a warlord"s bed in Somalia or in a City of London bank next to the vintage port. It doesn"t change colour. It"s still blood money."

"I suppose it is."

"No glamour, no pretty excuses. The profits of extortion, drug dealing, murder, intimidation, ma.s.s rape, slavery. Blood money. Tell me if I"m overstating my case."

"I"m sure you"re not."

"Only four ways to stop it. One One: you go for the chaps who are doing it. Capture "em, kill "em or bang "em up. If you can. Two Two: you go for the product. Intercept it before it reaches the street or the marketplace. If you can. Three Three: collar the profits, put the b.a.s.t.a.r.ds out of business."

A worrying pause while Hector seemed to reflect on matters far above Luke"s pay grade. Was he thinking of the heroin dealers who had turned his son into a gaolbird and addict? Or the vulture capitalists vulture capitalists who had tried to put his family firm out of business, and sixty-five of the best men and women in England on the rubbish heap? who had tried to put his family firm out of business, and sixty-five of the best men and women in England on the rubbish heap?

"Then there"s the fourth fourth way," Hector was saying. "The really bad way. The best tried, easiest, the most convenient, the most common, and the least fuss. b.u.g.g.e.r the people who"ve been starved, raped, tortured, died of addiction. To h.e.l.l with the human cost. Money"s got no smell as long as there"s enough of it and it"s ours. Above all, think big. Catch the minnows, but leave the sharks in the water. A chap"s laundering a couple of million? He"s a b.l.o.o.d.y crook. Call in the regulators, put him in irons. But a few way," Hector was saying. "The really bad way. The best tried, easiest, the most convenient, the most common, and the least fuss. b.u.g.g.e.r the people who"ve been starved, raped, tortured, died of addiction. To h.e.l.l with the human cost. Money"s got no smell as long as there"s enough of it and it"s ours. Above all, think big. Catch the minnows, but leave the sharks in the water. A chap"s laundering a couple of million? He"s a b.l.o.o.d.y crook. Call in the regulators, put him in irons. But a few billion billion? Now you"re talking. Billions are a statistic statistic." Closing his eyes while he lapsed into his own thoughts, Hector resembled for a moment his own death mask: or so it seemed to Luke. "You don"t have to agree with any of this, Lukie," he said kindly, waking from his reverie. "Door"s wide open. Given my reputation, a lot of chaps would be through it by now."

It occurred to Luke that this was a fairly ironic choice of metaphor, since Hector had the key in his pocket, but he kept the thought to himself.

"You can go back to the office after lunch, tell the Human Queen, thanks awfully but you"re happier serving out your time on the ground floor. Draw your pension, keep away from drug lords and colleagues" wives, lie on your back and spit at the ceiling for the rest of your life. No bones broken."

Luke managed a smile. "My problem is, I"m not very good at spitting at the ceiling," he said.

But nothing was going to stop Hector"s hard sell: "I"m offering you a one-way street to nowhere," he insisted. "If you sign up to this thing, you"re f.u.c.ked all ways up. If we lose, we were two failed whistleblowers who tried to foul the nest. If we win, we"ll be the lepers of the WhitehallWestminster jungle and all stations between. Not to mention the Service we do our best to love, honour and obey."

"This is all the information I get?"

"For your own preservation and mine, yes. No nookie unless you come to the altar first."

They were at the door. Hector had produced the key and was about to turn the lock.

"And about Billy Boy," he said.

"What about him?"