running."
"Do they indeed? How very nice of them. Unfortunately, there's no such thing. There's English wine. There's Welsh wine. Mine's inferior English, but we're studying to improve."
I remembered that he had a hide like a horse, for he seemed quite unmoved.
"Hey, how's Diana? The queen of vetting, they used to call her, back in the old days. Still do. That's quite a compliment."
"She's well, I hope, thank you, Andy. But we've been divorced these seven years."
"Oh, Christ, sorry about that."
"Well, don't be. I'm not. Neither is Diana."
He pressed bell and sat down again while we awaited green.
"Hey, listen, how's the back?" he asked in another spurt of inspiration.
"Thank you for remembering, Andy. Not a murmur since I left the Service, I'm proud to say."
It was a lie, but Munslow was one of those people with whom you do not want to share the truth, which was why I wouldn't have him in my section.
Pew, she said. As in church. Marjorie Pew.
She had a good handshake and a straight gaze, grey-green and slightly visionary. She wore pale face powder of a translucent quality. She was dressed in broad-shouldered navy blue, with the white stock at her throat that I associate with women banisters, and a gold fob-chain round it which I guessed had been her father's. She had a young figure and a very English carriage. Bending from the hip and holding out her hand to me, she lifted her elbow sideways, suggesting country girl and public school. Her brown hair was cropped like a boy's.
"Tim," she said. "Everyone calls you Tim, so I shall too. I'm Marjorie with an i-e. Nobody calls me Marge."
Not twice they don't, I thought as I sat down.
No rings on her fingers, I noticed. No framed photographs of hubby ruffling the spaniel's ears. No gap-toothed ten-year-olds on a camping holiday in Tuscany. Would I like tea or coffee? Coffee, please, Marjorie. She lifted a telephone and ordered it. She was used to giving orders. No papers, pens, toys, or tape recorder. Or none visible.
"So shall we take it from the top?" she suggested. "Why not?" I said, equally hospitably.
She listened to me the way Emma listens to music, motionless, sometimes smiling, sometimes frowning, never quite at the places I expected. She had the judicious superiority of a psychiatrist. She made no notes and waited till I had finished before asking her first question. I was fluent. Part of me had been rehearsing my act all day and probably all night. The arrival of a half-forgotten colleague distracted me not at all. The door opened—a different door from the one I'd come in by—and a well-dressed man set a coffee tray between us, winked at me, and said Jake would be along in a minute, the FO was in a flap. With a start of pleasure, I recognised Barney Waldon, king of the Office's police liaison team. If you were mounting a domestic burglary or planning a small kidnapping or your daughter had been caught, drugged out of her mind, racing her souped-up Mini round the M25 at three in the morning, Barney was the one who made sure the Might of the Law was on your side. I felt a little safer for his presence.
Marjorie had placed her hands primly below her chin. While I spoke she observed me with a saintly concern that put me on my guard. I omitted all mention of Emma, I made light of changing my telephone number—vague talk of misrouted computer calls making one's life utter hell—and I confessed I had rather welcomed the chance of a respite from late-night drunken conversations with Larry. I made a rueful joke of it: something about anyone who shoulders the burden of Larry's friendship becoming an instant expert in the arts of self-protection. It won a watery smile from her. Perhaps I should have been more frank with the police, I said, but I was concerned not to appear close to Larry in case they drew the wrong conclusions—or the right ones.
Then I sat back in my chair in order to show her I had told her the whole truth and nothing but. I exchanged a
"Do they indeed? How very nice of them. Unfortunately, there's no such thing. There's English wine. There's Welsh wine. Mine's inferior English, but we're studying to improve."
I remembered that he had a hide like a horse, for he seemed quite unmoved.
"Hey, how's Diana? The queen of vetting, they used to call her, back in the old days. Still do. That's quite a compliment."
"She's well, I hope, thank you, Andy. But we've been divorced these seven years."
"Oh, Christ, sorry about that."
"Well, don't be. I'm not. Neither is Diana."
He pressed bell and sat down again while we awaited green.
"Hey, listen, how's the back?" he asked in another spurt of inspiration.
"Thank you for remembering, Andy. Not a murmur since I left the Service, I'm proud to say."
It was a lie, but Munslow was one of those people with whom you do not want to share the truth, which was why I wouldn't have him in my section.
Pew, she said. As in church. Marjorie Pew.
She had a good handshake and a straight gaze, grey-green and slightly visionary. She wore pale face powder of a translucent quality. She was dressed in broad-shouldered navy blue, with the white stock at her throat that I associate with women banisters, and a gold fob-chain round it which I guessed had been her father's. She had a young figure and a very English carriage. Bending from the hip and holding out her hand to me, she lifted her elbow sideways, suggesting country girl and public school. Her brown hair was cropped like a boy's.
"Tim," she said. "Everyone calls you Tim, so I shall too. I'm Marjorie with an i-e. Nobody calls me Marge."
Not twice they don't, I thought as I sat down.
No rings on her fingers, I noticed. No framed photographs of hubby ruffling the spaniel's ears. No gap-toothed ten-year-olds on a camping holiday in Tuscany. Would I like tea or coffee? Coffee, please, Marjorie. She lifted a telephone and ordered it. She was used to giving orders. No papers, pens, toys, or tape recorder. Or none visible.
"So shall we take it from the top?" she suggested. "Why not?" I said, equally hospitably.
She listened to me the way Emma listens to music, motionless, sometimes smiling, sometimes frowning, never quite at the places I expected. She had the judicious superiority of a psychiatrist. She made no notes and waited till I had finished before asking her first question. I was fluent. Part of me had been rehearsing my act all day and probably all night. The arrival of a half-forgotten colleague distracted me not at all. The door opened—a different door from the one I'd come in by—and a well-dressed man set a coffee tray between us, winked at me, and said Jake would be along in a minute, the FO was in a flap. With a start of pleasure, I recognised Barney Waldon, king of the Office's police liaison team. If you were mounting a domestic burglary or planning a small kidnapping or your daughter had been caught, drugged out of her mind, racing her souped-up Mini round the M25 at three in the morning, Barney was the one who made sure the Might of the Law was on your side. I felt a little safer for his presence.
Marjorie had placed her hands primly below her chin. While I spoke she observed me with a saintly concern that put me on my guard. I omitted all mention of Emma, I made light of changing my telephone number—vague talk of misrouted computer calls making one's life utter hell—and I confessed I had rather welcomed the chance of a respite from late-night drunken conversations with Larry. I made a rueful joke of it: something about anyone who shoulders the burden of Larry's friendship becoming an instant expert in the arts of self-protection. It won a watery smile from her. Perhaps I should have been more frank with the police, I said, but I was concerned not to appear close to Larry in case they drew the wrong conclusions—or the right ones.
Then I sat back in my chair in order to show her I had told her the whole truth and nothing but. I exchanged a
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