Billion-Dollar Brain. Len Deighton

and went out of his way to be nice to me.

      ‘This package of …’ He waited for me to finish the sentence.

      ‘Eggs,’ I said. ‘Package of eggs.’

      ‘It may take a day or so to come through.’

      ‘That doesn’t tally with my instructions,’ I said.

      ‘Perhaps not,’ he said in a restrained way, ‘but there are complex reasons why the timing is unpredictable. The people involved are not the sort to whom one can give a direct order.’ He had the precise, accentless English that only a diligent foreigner can produce.

      ‘Oh,’ I said, ‘and why not?’

      Pike smiled while keeping his lips pressed together. ‘We are professional men. Our livelihood depends upon a code of conduct; it’s essential that we do nothing unethical.’

      ‘Are discovered doing nothing unethical, you mean,’ I said.

      Pike did that tricky smile again. ‘Have it your way,’ he said.

      ‘I will,’ I said. ‘When will the package be ready?’

      ‘Not today certainly. There are some benches near the children’s sand-pit in St James’s Park. Meet me there at four forty-five P.M. on Saturday. Ask me if my paper has the stock-market prices and I’ll have a Financial Times. I’ll say, “You can read this for a few minutes.” If I’m carrying a copy of Life magazine don’t make contact: it will indicate danger.’ Pike fingered his yellow bow tie and nodded my dismissal.

      My God, I thought, what have these boys been smoking? They’re all doing it. I nodded as though these charades were a regular part of my working day and opened the door.

      Pike said, ‘… carry on with the tablets and come back and see me in about a week,’ for the benefit of a couple of old flower-pots who were sitting in the waiting-room. He needn’t have bothered because he was shouting at the top of his voice as I left, trying to get them to look up.

      In view of the razzle-dazzle these boys were going through it was reasonable to suppose they were having me followed, so I took a cab and waited till we got into a traffic jam, paid off the driver quickly and hailed a cab moving in the opposite direction. This tactic, well handled, can throw off the average tail if it’s using a private car. I was back in the office before lunch time.

      I reported to Dawlish. Dawlish had that timeless, ageless quality that British Civil Servants develop to spread confidence among the natives. His only interest in life, apart from the antiques which littered the office and the department which he controlled, was the study and cultivation of garden weeds; perhaps they weren’t unrelated interests.

      Dawlish had sandwiches sent up from Wally’s delicatessen and asked me lots of questions about Pike and Harvey Newbegin. I thought Dawlish was taking it much too seriously, but he’s a cunning old devil; he’s apt to base his hunches upon information he hasn’t given me access to. When I said I’d told Harvey Newbegin that I only worked for WOOC(P) part-time, Dawlish said, ‘Well you certainly weren’t lying about that, were you?’ He munched into one of Wally’s salt-beef sandwiches and said, ‘You know what they’ll do next?’

      ‘No, sir,’ I said, and really meant it.

      ‘They will send you to school.’ He nodded to reinforce his theory. ‘When they do, accept. It’s got seeds in,’ he said. Dawlish was staring at me in a horrified, faintly maniacal way. I nodded. Dawlish said, ‘If I’ve told him once, I’ve told him a thousand times.’

      ‘Yes, sir,’ I said.

      Dawlish flipped the switch on his intercom. ‘If I’ve told him once I’ve told him a thousand times. I don’t like that bread with seeds in.’

      Alice’s voice came through the box with all the unbiased dignity of a recording. ‘One round on white, one round on rye with seeds. You have eaten the wrong ones.’

      I said, ‘I don’t like caraway seeds either.’ Dawlish nodded at me so I said it again at the squawk-box, louder and more defiantly this time.

      ‘Neither of us likes bread with seeds,’ Dawlish said to Alice in a voice of sweet reasonableness. ‘How can I get this fact promulgated?’

      ‘Well I can’t be expected to know that,’ said Alice.

      ‘I suppose,’ said Dawlish, ‘that my best plan would be to file it in a cosmic clearance file.’ He smiled at me and nodded approval at his own witticism.

      ‘No, sir, put it into the non-secret waste bin. I’ll have someone take it away. Would you like something else instead?’

      ‘No thank you, Alice,’ said Dawlish and released the switch.

      I could have told him that he’d never win an argument with Alice. No one ever had.

      But it would have taken more than that to upset Dawlish. He had done well that year. The January estimates had been submitted to Treasury and Dawlish had just about doubled our appropriation at a time when many people were predicting our close-down. I’d spent long enough in both the Army and the Civil Service to know that I didn’t like working in either; but working with Dawlish was an education, perhaps the only part of my education that I had ever enjoyed.

      ‘Pike,’ Dawlish said. ‘They never get tired of recruiting doctors, do they?’

      ‘I can see the advantage,’ I said. ‘The waiting-room full of people, the contact has complete privacy when talking to the doctor; very tricky to detect.’

      Dawlish had second thoughts about the sandwich. He picked the seeds out of the bread with a paper-knife, then took a bite. ‘What was that?’ said Dawlish. ‘I wasn’t listening.’

      ‘They are tricky to detect.’

      ‘Not if you get them in your teeth, they’re not, beastly little things, I can’t think who likes them in bread. By the way, you were followed when you left that doctor’s surgery.’ Dawlish made a deprecating gesture with the palm of his hand. ‘But of course, you know that or you wouldn’t have taken evasive action.’

      ‘Who followed me?’

      ‘We are not sure yet. I put young Chilcott-Oates on to it, but apparently our quarry is shopping in Finchley Road and keeping the boy on his toes; he hardly had time to dial the number, Alice says.’ I nodded. Dawlish said, ‘You are making those scornful noises with your teeth. One wishes you wouldn’t do that.’

      ‘Chico,’ I said.

      ‘It’s essential he learns,’ said Dawlish. ‘You won’t let him do anything and that way he will never improve. It will be a splendid success.’

      I said, ‘I’ll go downstairs and try to get a little work done.’

      Dawlish said, ‘Very well, but this business with Newbegin is top priority, don’t let anything interfere with that.’

      ‘I’ll remind you of that remark next month when the Organization Department are making themselves unpleasant.’

      I went downstairs and watched Jean touching up the paint on her fingernails. She looked up and said hello, using the warm breath to dry the paint.

      ‘Busy?’ I said. I settled down behind the desk and began to go through the trays.

      ‘There’s no need to be sarcastic. I spent all day Saturday going through the “information onlys” and making a précis on tape.’

      ‘I’m sorry, love. This Newbegin business has come up just at the wrong time. Without that we could probably have brought all the desk-work up to date. Have you checked out that all these files are ours, as you so cleverly suggested?’

      ‘Forget the flattery,’ Jean said. ‘Yes; we’ve got rid of some of them, but a lot of it comes up here because of your high security clearance. I have a new idea for that.’

      ‘Give.’