soldier I had so much fun with. ‘But it’s nice to see you.’
We walk through the corridor to the car park, where I unlock Gerhardt. Seethrough climbs into the passenger seat and looks disapprovingly over the dashboard, then tugs absent-mindedly on one of the differential lock levers.
‘What’s wrong with an English car?’ he asks. ‘Why can’t you just have a Land Rover like a normal person?’
I ignore the question, although it’s true I occasionally long for a different car. A later-model version of Gerhardt, with full-time four-wheel drive and electronic centre-diff control.
‘Are you going to tell me about the op or not?’ I ask.
He sighs to himself, as if making way again for the serious side of his personality. He looks at me, and then out of the windscreen towards some far-off place.
‘Not right now. You’re going to go home and carry on as normal, building ponds or doing whatever it is you do. You don’t call anyone, you don’t tell anyone, you don’t write anything down. A week today, you come to Legoland at midday.’
‘Is that what they call it? Legoland?’ A picture of the Secret Intelligence Service headquarters, perched on the lip of the Thames beneath the southern end of Vauxhall Bridge, flashes into my head. It does look a bit like a giant Lego construction.
‘You go to the main entrance,’ says Seethrough, ignoring my interruption, ‘and ask for Macavity at reception. Introduce yourself as Plato, and someone will come for you.’
‘Macavity? Plato? They’re T. S. Eliot’s cats, aren’t they? That’s very original.’
‘Quite,’ he replies, ruffled.
He opens the door and turns to me just before stepping out.
‘And for God’s sake, Ant, just don’t blab about it in the meantime. Otherwise,’ he adds with a schoolteacherish look, ‘Macavity won’t be there.’
He’s alluding to the poem, a fragment of which now returns to me.
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in a square
But when a crime’s discovered, Macavity’s not there!
The door bangs shut, and his manner changes again as he gives an uncharacteristically cheerful wave as if seeing off an old friend. For the benefit, I suppose, of whoever he thinks might be watching. Perhaps it’s his habitual tradecraft kicking in. The grey BMW slides quietly and swiftly away like a shark into deep water, and I’m alone again.
It’s only lunchtime, but already the day seems long. I head home, briefly entertaining the fantasy that as I turn into my drive I’ll see a red Alfa Romeo parked there, and the beautiful Ziyba will be waiting for me nearby.
I don’t, and she isn’t.
4
In the course of the following week I make two journeys. The first needs an accomplice. An old friend in London is happy to oblige. We’ve long ago agreed on an innocuous code word signifying alarm that can be slipped into a telephone conversation, so his suggestion that we have dinner together in London that evening sounds spontaneous enough to anyone who might be listening. It also allows me to name the restaurant, the location of which means I can walk credibly past a certain street corner in Maida Vale and, in the act of posting a letter, leave a chalk mark for an elderly lady to see on her daily walk the following morning. It’s old-fashioned, but it works, and allows me to avoid making a phone call which Seethrough’s minions are no doubt already authorised to intercept.
Halfway along Pall Mall, and sandwiched between what its occupants consider to be lesser places, stands a stone building said to be inspired by Michelangelo’s Palazzo Farnese in Rome. Nine steps lead up to dark heavy doors. It’s late morning. I check the time and walk up into the imposing entrance, where the porter, as porters are wont to do in such establishments, looks me up and down with a dour expression of enquiry.
‘Baroness K—— is expecting me in the library,’ I say.
He glances down at the papers on the kiosk counter and
We walk through the corridor to the car park, where I unlock Gerhardt. Seethrough climbs into the passenger seat and looks disapprovingly over the dashboard, then tugs absent-mindedly on one of the differential lock levers.
‘What’s wrong with an English car?’ he asks. ‘Why can’t you just have a Land Rover like a normal person?’
I ignore the question, although it’s true I occasionally long for a different car. A later-model version of Gerhardt, with full-time four-wheel drive and electronic centre-diff control.
‘Are you going to tell me about the op or not?’ I ask.
He sighs to himself, as if making way again for the serious side of his personality. He looks at me, and then out of the windscreen towards some far-off place.
‘Not right now. You’re going to go home and carry on as normal, building ponds or doing whatever it is you do. You don’t call anyone, you don’t tell anyone, you don’t write anything down. A week today, you come to Legoland at midday.’
‘Is that what they call it? Legoland?’ A picture of the Secret Intelligence Service headquarters, perched on the lip of the Thames beneath the southern end of Vauxhall Bridge, flashes into my head. It does look a bit like a giant Lego construction.
‘You go to the main entrance,’ says Seethrough, ignoring my interruption, ‘and ask for Macavity at reception. Introduce yourself as Plato, and someone will come for you.’
‘Macavity? Plato? They’re T. S. Eliot’s cats, aren’t they? That’s very original.’
‘Quite,’ he replies, ruffled.
He opens the door and turns to me just before stepping out.
‘And for God’s sake, Ant, just don’t blab about it in the meantime. Otherwise,’ he adds with a schoolteacherish look, ‘Macavity won’t be there.’
He’s alluding to the poem, a fragment of which now returns to me.
You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in a square
But when a crime’s discovered, Macavity’s not there!
The door bangs shut, and his manner changes again as he gives an uncharacteristically cheerful wave as if seeing off an old friend. For the benefit, I suppose, of whoever he thinks might be watching. Perhaps it’s his habitual tradecraft kicking in. The grey BMW slides quietly and swiftly away like a shark into deep water, and I’m alone again.
It’s only lunchtime, but already the day seems long. I head home, briefly entertaining the fantasy that as I turn into my drive I’ll see a red Alfa Romeo parked there, and the beautiful Ziyba will be waiting for me nearby.
I don’t, and she isn’t.
4
In the course of the following week I make two journeys. The first needs an accomplice. An old friend in London is happy to oblige. We’ve long ago agreed on an innocuous code word signifying alarm that can be slipped into a telephone conversation, so his suggestion that we have dinner together in London that evening sounds spontaneous enough to anyone who might be listening. It also allows me to name the restaurant, the location of which means I can walk credibly past a certain street corner in Maida Vale and, in the act of posting a letter, leave a chalk mark for an elderly lady to see on her daily walk the following morning. It’s old-fashioned, but it works, and allows me to avoid making a phone call which Seethrough’s minions are no doubt already authorised to intercept.
Halfway along Pall Mall, and sandwiched between what its occupants consider to be lesser places, stands a stone building said to be inspired by Michelangelo’s Palazzo Farnese in Rome. Nine steps lead up to dark heavy doors. It’s late morning. I check the time and walk up into the imposing entrance, where the porter, as porters are wont to do in such establishments, looks me up and down with a dour expression of enquiry.
‘Baroness K—— is expecting me in the library,’ I say.
He glances down at the papers on the kiosk counter and
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