I, said the Spyder

Confrontation was inevitable. The realization came as a body-blow of angry humiliation and I felt my flesh creep with the enervating prickle, the cold sweat of failure. In less than twenty seconds they would be upon me and there was absolutely nothing I could do to avoid it.

I was wedged between a tree trunk and the Embankment railings some fifty metres east of the Hungerford footbridge, which was where Edward Lewis’s mystery tour of night-time London had led me, and there was no escape. There was also no escaping the conclusion that Lewis - damn him to hell and back! - was bent; that Donald Burgess was right, and that had I been wrong. Woefully wrong. This stung most of all.

The breeze had dissipated and the rain had turned into a seemingly weightless vapour that clung to the lamp standards like impossibly localised mist. The river itself was invisible, whilst the lights of the south bank were little more than yellow-grey smudges in a muddy nothingness. The skyline towards Westminster would have made the perfect backdrop over which to superimpose the opening credits of one of the old Hammer horror films. There was even soundtrack music. I can't remember what it was or who was playing it. But it was probably coming from a parked car on the far bank. Muffled and tinny. Coming and going. Weird. London was a dank, dark, dreary and hopeless place where things that a moment before had been going exactly right were suddenly going exactly wrong.

I was everywhere cold and damp. In places I was drenched. The surface moisture from the spread of branches above my hiding place; a hiding place that was now an inescapable cell - fell in large exploding droplets all around and over me. My hair clung to my scalp like a wet towel and the collar of my shirt was a sodden rag about my neck. I doubt I have ever felt so useless. I had turned my raincoat collar well up when I had abandoned the TR near the Festival Hall in favour of continuing the surveillance on foot, but in no way was that impeding the continual trickle of water that was finding its way down my neck and spine to soak, now, the waistband of my underpants.

Lewis and the stranger from whom he had accepted the envelope were now walking slowly yet inexorably down the rain-slicked pavement towards me. I could hear the soft mumble of their voices and the echoing clicking of their feet on the flag-stones above the muted sounds of a city already half asleep. The source of the soundtrack music seemed to have gone. The two conspirators had decided to pass the time of night and, whatever else it was to me personally, Lewis’s part in that decision was his second mistake of the day; his first being a diversion from the well-established routine that had underscored my previous conviction that he was totally innocent; nothing more than a victim of Burgess's twisted imagination.

Had the transaction been executed, say, on Kensington High Street, where Lewis did his almost daily shopping then might have missed it completely. A brief brush with a stranger amongst a hundred other strangers. Furthermore, had they done it now but gone their separate ways, instead of placing me in the impossible position of having no retreat, then neither of them would be dead now. Up to their armpits in custody, perhaps. But not dead.

My position was hopeless because I just could not move without being seen doing so. I had followed Lewis up that street at what had been a safe distance and there had been several other pedestrians amongst whom I had managed to lose myself to good effect. And I had felt reasonably happy about the situation when I had slipped in behind that tree to allow Lewis a slightly longer lead. I gave it about thirty seconds before venturing a look out around the trunk. But in those thirty seconds; exactly according to Sod's Law, it had all changed. The other pedestrians had vanished - God alone knew how or to where - thereby robbing me of their cover and, worse, Lewis had been joined by the stranger, who must have been waiting for him in the shadows near the steps rising to the footbridge. The pair of them had then started to walk back along the street towards me.

And that was that. Confrontation, despite what I still maintain was a well-managed tail under the worst possible conditions.

I did, for an instant, consider a leap out over the railings and into the Thames. It would have been a radically drastic remedy. But had I been certain of continued anonymity I would have done it, and to hell with the soaking. To hell with the danger to life and limb also. But I knew I would have been seen, so I remained where I was; my stomach contracting in spasms not totally disassociated from a kind of fear and my mouth drying fast, as it usually did with the prospect of impending violence.

My next consideration was a philosophical one. If, whatever I did or did not do, the cat was definitely out of the bag, then why not try for second best? Second best ended the whole matter there and then, but at the very least the stranger, plus whatever the envelope contained, would constitute some kind of a lead; a concrete base for a continued operation. I did not like the notion but there seemed no other way to go. So swallowed my disappointment and reached for the gun under my belt.

“Watch his every move!” Burgess had instructed me, “Check everything he does, everywhere he goes and everyone he meets against his entries in the computer P.D.B. (Personal Day Book). If, nay, when you find the discrepancy, prise it open. Dig into it. The worms that'll crawl out will be bait for a month. You mark my words!” He aimed a manicured finger at the file case he had just handed me. “Run the same checks on that load of garbage. It's a compendium of his Immediate and General files. Run it all through the computer. And keep at it until you find the flaw.”

“The, ah, the flaw is in here then, is it, sir?” I flipped a thumbnail over the wad of pages. “More than in something the man is likely to get up to in the future?”

Burgess clucked his tongue, his face a nice mixture of agitation, annoyance and impatience. “The flaw,” he growled darkly, “is in his character. I want you to supply the nuts and bolts evidence.”

Unusually, we were not in Burgess's office next to St. James’ Park. We were in a top floor bedroom of an S.A.S. safe-house in Willesden. Outside, the weather was overcast and dull with sporadic spatters of heavy rain. Inside, it was positively depressing. The furnishings could not have been more sparse or ill-matching and the wallpaper had grey ducks on it. There were no carpets, anywhere in the house, just bare boards. Gloom.

Burgess had on a black overcoat and a Homburg that he wore well down over his forehead. He fitted the surroundings perfectly.

I had switched on one of the bedside lamps but whoever took care of the place must have been on an economy drive because the bulb, I took pains to note, was 25 watts; barely enough light to cast shadows; certainly not enough to illuminate the subtleties of Burgess's expression, and I wonder now if he had not planned it that way. If the bulb had been more powerful I might, even then, have noticed the faint glimmer, the first beginnings of the very real fear and confusion his eyes were to display so obviously later on. I might have noticed these things, but I doubt very much I would have recognised them for what they were.

Burgess was a hundred complex things, most of them distasteful, but a man capable of being confused, of experiencing fear, he most definitely was not. These were things he cultivated in others. Besides, Burgess never, but never, allowed the truth as he saw it that kind of an outlet. The truth was for him alone and let the rest of the world take care of itself.

Donald Burgess was cast-iron. Cold, diamond-hard and, for my money, totally depersonalised cast-iron. His displays of emotion were never anything but a facade. And too many years of my standing in front of his desk, watching his face go through its motions as he instructed me to finalise agent-A, or compromise agent-B, or bring about the public ruination, by whatever means, of agent-C or public figure-D, had taught me to accept such displays of emotion in the spirit in which they had been perpetrated. Namely, with the proverbial pinch of salt.

I had never, with the possible exception of those first couple of years under his wing; before I had come to grips with his nature, believed that any of his facial gymnastics and apparent outbursts of his own brand of high dudgeon in any way mirrored that which was actually going on inside his head; inside that computer-like brain. Yet he knew all about emotions and feelings and other such allied human weaknesses. He knew, as the Grand Master knows his chess, how to use, control and fathom people who allowed their faces display the truth as they saw it. Because this was Burgess's stock in trade, his very reason for being. This, and an uncanny ability to sniff out the rotten apple almost before the maggot had found its way in; the man who could, or had, sold himself to another side. Burgess probed for his truths while we, his small band of professional rats, drew the task of filling the prescription.

And acting! Burgess was a world-class actor. The way he carried himself; his gestures, his inflections of voice, were all quite brilliantly stage managed. The Royal Shakespeare Company would have paid top dollar for a single performance. And, yes, I am being acidly cynical here. Though in many ways Burgess's entry into the upper echelons of the Intelligence service would have been engineered in much the same way as the R.S.C. might seek out an actor for a particularly demanding role - a role so demanding that only 'type casting' would do. A man whose brain was as devious as those he would be called to pit himself against.

A team of dedicated men would have scoured the grey world of Intelligence for just such a man as Burgess. A man who could sense deceit, see through the lie, who could find the obvious in the not-so-obvious. A man who would devote himself, body and soul, to the allotted task. For such men are needed; mandatory even.

Burgess, as well as running a viable 'Cover' section, excelled in all these things.

To my mind his single concession to human frailty was a capacity to dislike an individual for no apparent reason. And this, it seemed to me, he did more and more often as the years ate into him. And God help you if you were unlucky enough to find yourself on the receiving end of his dislike. Which was where, a few minutes later, I was assume Edward Lewis had arrived.

''But you must have something on him already,'' I said, ''Something to indicate a suspicion. A starting point?'' I added hopefully.

Burgess stepped over to the window and stared out at the glowering sky. ''Now look, Ryderbeit,'' he said conversationally, using my given name instead of my code name for once. Burgess never called me Jackie. Or even Jackson, which was my first name. Becky, being someone rather closer to me than anyone else in the service. called me Jay. I called her Bee. “…I’m putting you on this case because I can think of no-one more suited to it. Nothing else concerns you..." He grunted as if satisfied that he’d used the right phrase, then continued, “You have the file, get on with it. Use the computer as much as you need. Scour the records departments; you have all the authority you require. For the round-town work you may use C-11 as back-up. I have already cleared that with the appropriate authority. All you have to remember is that this is classified 'Eyes-only'...Yours!'' He turned abruptly, ''And mine!'' His tone was no longer conversational. ''No-one, absolutely no-one must come into contact with the fine details of it. For the record you are lnternal Security. This also has been cleared. And the restrictions, if you need be reminded, include other members of the section. Especially them!” He stared at me for a moment. ''And,'' he added, his eyelids falling like roll-down doors, “...Miss Rebecca Seabrook!”

“Ah…” I said weakly. I was not surprised that Burgess had found out that Becks was now living with me on the boat, but I was disappointed. I had found a great deal of perverse satisfaction in that little secret. But before I could dwell further on the possible ramifications of Burgess's not-so-minor bombshell, he went on, “Dig and watch, Ryderbeit. Dig and watch. You'll find your own starting point, I feel sure...”

It was at that moment of confusion on my part that several of my more latent instincts joined force, sinking like dirty water to the natural level - the level where it became a pleasure, if not a duty, to take the opposing stance to the one Burgess was taking. His face was now bland as he stepped forward into the arcing beam of the 25 watter and he refused to meet my eye. And a refusal to meet the eye meant that lies were in the air somewhere. Couple this with the fact that he appeared, by his very abstinence from the subject, to be actually condoning my living with a member of M.I.5 - 'Five', as it is known - then add the fact that he failed for the very first time to supply me with any kind of a reason why he would want, in this case, a member of the Covert Activities Administration of M.I.6 - Six, - placed under close surveillance, and you have the reason why I slipped all too easily into the role of Champion Of The Underdog. Burgess, I reasoned, was out to get this man, and for purely personal reasons. It had happened before. Some relatively innocent skeleton - and let's face it, we all have one or more of those buried somewhere - and Bob's your uncle! One otherwise patriotic and innocent field officer bites the dust at Burgess's heels, simply because the man's face did not fit into his scheme of things, or because he had made a pass at his current office floozy, or something equally as ridiculous.

Yes, there was definitely a touch of McCarthyism in Burgess. A surfeit of near unbridled power can put that in the strongest of men. Take Hitler as a prime example. Or Nero. Or Saddam Hussein. Any one of these, or a hundred others throughout history, may well have started life as very nice people.

So it was that when I began the brief a lot of me was already cheering for Lewis. I was determined to give it my very best shot in the sincere, if spur-of-the-moment belief that nothing worthwhile was going to turn up. And I was looking forward to the moment when I could rub Burgess's thickening nose in Lewis’s clean bill of health.

I got together with the C-11 coordinator, a weaselly man with a bony forehead and a permanent grouse, and we hammered out a path to some kind of an understanding whereby I had instant and unquestioned access to any one or all of six vehicles at any given moment. But it was no walkover.

"Stretching us bloody thin,'' the man complained, "We've already got every available man out searching the shadows for Al Qaeda sympathizers.''

I nodded. “It never rains but it pours.'' A pedestrian remark for a pedestrian man.

"Plus," he went on urgently, “There's a - ' Hesitation. ' - a major event to be catered for.”

He was referring to King Hussein of Jordan's stopover, which was one of the big secrets of the day. For global consumption it wasn't even taking place. But, as generally happens, the extent of common knowledge is directly proportionate to the size of the secret. And that one was a monster. I shrugged. ''That's all we have these days.''

He hmmm’d, looked at me sideways for a moment, then returned to the list. ''And do you know how much all this will cost the taxpayer?'' He pinched the bridge of his nose with Meccano fingers and closed his eyes tightly as if all the troubles of the world were being heaped on his overworked shoulders. ''A small fortune…A..bloody...small...''

We rambled on and finally had all the daylight hours more or less covered. For the role of night watchman he gave me the names of a couple of ex-C11 men who were now variously employed in the private security field. These men, he explained, were specialists in night work and noted for their blank memories. I knew one of the men, as it happened; or rather I had known him some years before, so was not averse to the suggestion. Diversification always helps when you need a smokescreen operation. Then we got onto the subject of radio codes and responses. That was a hoot. The man loved codes. Eventually I had a list of silly things to say over the radio, when to say them, and what I might expect to hear by way of reply. The idea was that no-one ever knew who he was speaking to, or why. Except me.

“This way'' said the Weasel with commendable neutrality, as he scanned his own copies, “they’ll be totally in the dark the whole time. Madder’n hell, of course.'' He chuckled. “But these things can't be helped. Can they?''

We tied it all up and parted the best of friends. Almost two weeks later, to the minute, I was staring at my reflection in a wall mirror in the Festival Hall restaurant, groaning silently, and trying to persuade myself that I did not look ridiculous.

The man in the mirror was wearing thick horn-rimmed spectacles and a moustache that I hoped only I knew was false. His hair was parted high on his head and held in place courtesy of Becks' hair spray. Below all this was a baggy roll-neck sweater that an old flame with a bad eye for measurement had knitted me some ten years before and that we had both once inhabited for a giggle, and which now covered a perfectly respectable business suit complete with button-down collar and grey tie. On top of all this was a threadbare duffel coat, circa '63, that I had picked up in some Oxfam shop. Not seen in the mirror was a pair of even older vintage galoshes over my shoes. God alone knows where Becks had dragged them up from. I used to make jokes about people who perpetrated this kind of comic opera stuff on the profession. Which was one in the eye for me, because it was actually working.

I had been on Lewis's tail for nigh on two weeks, mornings to late evenings; weekends notwithstanding, in an assortment of odd guises - most of them creations of Becks' over-fertile imagination - and he was still oblivious to the fact. But this was no real surprise. Despite the pantomime trappings I was still harbouring the conviction; the steadily deepening conviction, that Lewis was totally innocent. For only an innocent man could have failed to sense such close surveillance.

Intuition; a sixth sense. Call it what you will. But a man with something to hide will always look behind him; over and over again. And hard, in a case such as Lewis's might have been. But Edward Lewis was not looking behind him. I was rock-bottom certain of that. And it made me feel very happy indeed.

Right now he was sitting four tables away from me, picking a steady path through a plate of cottage pie and chips. I had settled for coffee and a sticky bun. I took another despairing glance at the apparition in the mirror then returned to a careful knife and fork dissection of the bun, which oozed strawberry jam like something on a vivisectionist's bench.

They were playing Mantovani over the Muzak system; cascading strings and clattering utensils. It was the kind of unobtrusive, subliminally-soothing background music you might hear in a hotel lobby or a supermarket not yet managed by a growing number of eternal teenagers. What drew my attention to it now was that it did not sound right. The reason being that a middle aged man dressed in an evening suit and bow tie was crooning a soft, somewhat embarrassed ''Happy Birthday!' to the woman sitting opposite him at the corner table. He and Mantovani were at loggerheads over the key- and time-signature. The woman, also in evening wear, was apparently revelling in the attention. Both had to be something to do with the current performance in the Festival Hall itself; a break in dress rehearsals, or something. Lewis glanced over his shoulder at them, smiled the way you might, then continued eating. I was reminded of Dorothy Burgess. She had a birthday coming up soon. I knew this because Pete Yance had been bemoaning Burgess' instruction to ''dash out and buy her something appropriate...'' Pete was Burgess's whipping boy for such last minute gift purchases. He, Pete, called Dorothy Burgess The Dragon. I knew little of her, except that she and Burgess were almost the same age - 54 and 53 respectively. I could not see Burgess as a family man. And perhaps he was not. There were no children that I knew of and Burgess certainly spent more time roaming the various Intelligence offices than he did at home.

It registered 1-05. So Lewis had 25 minutes of his self- imposed, self-selected lunch hour remaining. Then, if true to form, it would be back to Century House - the ''Six'' H.Q. in Battersea - and I could relax a little; if ploughing through a file in the driving seat of a car can be termed relaxing.

A few minutes later I paid my bill and stepped outside, totally ignoring the stranger who appeared in every reflective surface I passed.

It was unusual weather for October. The sun cut a gaping white hole out of an ice-blue sky and people were smiling at each other. Had it not been for the fact that in the shadows it was cold - bitter even - then I would have felt even more out of place in my multi-layered get-up. But it was good to see the sun and a clear sky after the prolonged spell of grey and dismal London and the Home Counties had just dragged muddy feet through. Except for the ice-box of the shadowed areas and that the trees along the Embankment were shedding brown leaves by the sack-full it might have been a spring morning instead of an autumn afternoon.

I sucked in a lungful of air and glanced in the window of the restaurant, where I could just see Lewis counting change into the cashier's hand. I strode out to where I had parked the motor pool Volvo; one of three cars I had dotted about in west London. By the time I reached it the spectacles were in the duffle coat pocket and the duffel coat was over my arm. The moustache, supplied by a highly amused but a carefully un-smiling J-Division officer, was in my pants pocket and I was ready to shrug out of the roll neck sweater; which I did the moment I was behind the wheel. Some hefty comb-work took care of the hair style. Lewis, I could see, was by now unlocking the door of his Audi which was parked on its usual spot on the corner of Belvedere Road. There being no pedestrians nearby who might see what I was doing, I lifted the microphone of The Weasel's S/W transceiver and pressed the transmit button.

The response was immediate. ''Vanity Fair...vanity Fair...Charlie One responding. In position and ready to move.”

Conscientious, this one, by the tone of his voice. Also in his tone, I read anticipation of an exciting cat and mouse game. He would be disappointed; as they all had been so far.

“Grey Audi,'' I said, keeping my own tone flat and bored-sounding, ''Licence KVM 377 W...Male Caucasian at the wheel...No passengers at the moment. It’ll be a milk run, Charlie- One…Belvedere Road heading west in a few minutes...No panic at all.”

“Oh,” said the voice resignedly, and it repeated the relevant part of my instruction word perfectly, adding, “Wilco!”

I dropped the mic onto the passenger seat and fired up the engine. Lewis's Audi was already on the move. Three minutes later I saw the unmarked Rover of Charlie-one slide in behind Lewis, but holding back and allowing a couple of motors to fill the gap. Copy book.

The voice said, ''Story my life...Oh, if you’re somewhere behind us I'd better warn you there's an accident on Carlisle Lane. Just heard about it. Snarling things up. If you want to get in front I'd do it pretty sharpish.''

I said, “No, thanks all the same, Charlie-one. I’ll just kick around back here. Rushing gives me heartburn.''

''Fair enough'' replied the voice, “I’ll keep you informed if I hear any more...They say sixteen year old virgins are good for heartburn.''

I smiled. I did not stay behind. I crossed the river via Westminster Bridge and dodgemed my way around the Houses and onto St.Margaret's Road. Then I powered along Abingdon Road, teeing people off left right and centre, and very nearly coming a cropper in a four wheel drift that was becoming a regular feature of my driving lately, and onto Millbank after sneaking a highly illegal passage through the build-up of southbound traffic at the bridge intersection, eventually recrossing the river via Vauxhall Bridge. A spit later I was pulling onto Nine Elms Lane where I teed even more people off with some driving that only a late-night drunk might purvey. The radio remained predictably silent.

I parked the Volvo in Cringle Street, removing only the radio and my 35mm camera, locked up and dashed to my own TR3 which I had left in the adjoining Kirtling Street that morning. Snatching the parking tickets from under the screen wiper blades was an art I had off pat. “Fixing” them was someone else's headache. I was back on the road inside two minutes. I had reached Wandsworth Road roundabout when the radio squawked, “Control…Charlie-one calling!”

I put the mic to my mouth, at the same time prising off and kicking to one side the galoshes I had forgotten about in the Volvo. You can’t get it all right all of the time. Which was one of the reasons why my disguises were never exactly the way Becks envisaged them. Without raising my tone to the question, I said, “Yes, Charlie-one. 'Wandsworth Road headed east. Right?”

'Correct,'' came the terse reply. Human curiosity being what it is, even in seasoned C11 operators, the man would have had one eye glued to his own rear view mirror in the hope of catching a glimpse of this nameless, faceless entity - me - that had the power to disrupt, apparently unilaterally, the smooth-running of the C11 world and everything in it, and at a time when, according to The Weasel, they were already stretched bloody thin. He would have been sure that no-one had stayed visibly behind him, and equally sure that no-one was lurking up ahead - these people are experts in spotting tails in any direction - and he would be wondering how the hell the voice on the other end of the frequency could possibly know where they were at that moment. But what the man could not add to his equation was that this was Wednesday – Lewis’s Wednesday. His day for picking up his fishing magazine from his favourite Smith's on Wandsworth Road. The voice continued, “Subject is pulling over...stopping.”

“The Red Lion pub” I slipped in as I heard his mic click off, probably as he was leaning over to take a look.

I put my foot down and positively zoomed along York Road, taking the corner of Fairfield Street almost on two wheels. I pulled up close to the traffic lights of East Hill and waited, collecting a justly deserved share of horn blasts from other road users who felt they were also entitled to utilise the facility of the lights. I very nearly gave one of them the two’s up, but stopped myself in time; instead I mouthed him a contrite ''Sorry.'' And I meant it. I like to kid myself that I dislike people who misuse their power, and it is a salutary lesson for me to learn that, if I let myself go, I can be as bad as the next man. Provided, of course that the next man is not Donald Burgess. Then again, who really knows how far they are capably of letting themselves go, if the situation allows it.

I stayed where I was, weathering the angry glances as the half dozen or so motors sneaked past me as best they could.

“Fine.” I said flatly, which probably irritated the man even more, though I had not meant it to. The radio did not respond.

And here came Lewis’s Audi. The mic was already in my hand. “Okay, Charlie-one. Break off. And thanks very much for your cooperation. I have the con.''

''That's a Roger,” I grinned tightly. ''Break off. He's mine now. Go have a coffee or something.''

I did not hear the man's sigh, but I sensed it. Then, in a now totally bored voice, he said, ''Very well, Control. Breaking off...Out!”

Lewis's Audi crossed diagonally in front of me, followed shortly afterward by the Rover, which actually turned down the road I was on and I caught a glimpse of a very sour faced man behind the wheel. I lifted my foot from the clutch pedal and burned rubber to make the lights, which had just flicked to amber and red. The time was 1-30 precisely and Lewis would be late back at his section office. Not that that mattered a damn to anyone but Lewis himself, and why it mattered to him I will never know. Edward Lewis could come and go as he pleased. All that was required of him was that he recorded his movements; date, time and venues, on the computer. Otherwise he was his own man.

Whatever else he may have been, Lewis was fastidious in his self-imposed habits and a damn sight too conscientious for him to be really popular in a business that, despite the rules, thrives on corner-cutting and rule-bending.

None of which, however, made him a traitor. And, besides, now that there was no iron curtain to complicate matters, I could not imagine who a man like him would possibly find to sell his services to in any case. On the surface anyway the old enemies were dead. There would be others, no doubt about that. But who? And when?

Whatever maggots would crawl out of the future woodwork Edward Lewis was not a candidate. I was certain of that!

At six-o-clock I tailed him back to his Holland Park Road flat and at ten-thirty I handed him over to the night watchman. Situation exactly normal.

The thing about my boat was that I'd done 90% of the structural conversion work myself and was proud of the fact. I had paid a little over £6,000 for her as she sat; and she sat as a fishing lugger, sixty feet stem to stern and close to twenty midships. Which made her a ''beamy'' boat. I had bought her up in Great Yarmouth and sailed her down to the Thames myself; which feat, I now realise, was a stupid and foolhardy thing to tackle, me being a total novice at that time. Her previous owners, two brothers whose father and grandfather before them had been North Sea fishermen, had named her ''Our Emily”. Their father had simply used the fleet number - F1O2.

Out of respect for something I could not put my finger on I decided to retain the name. Only a fear of being thought pretentious stopped me from putting the number on the shore-side mail box. “River people”, I learned quickly, have pretensions ordinary people – the “straights” - would not believe.

The other thing about “Our Emily'' was that if you pricked the two-inch-thick Carvel planking in the galley, which was the only section of the hull I had yet to insulate and face off, you could catch a definite whiff of fish; if only momentarily. Becks used to pin things, notes and recipes and such, to the galley ''wall”.and would be absolutely adamant that she experienced visitations from some long-dead fisherman protesting at the new and frivolous use his old method of livelihood was being subjected to. I gave up trying to persuade her that that passing whiff of the sea was actually emanating from the wood itself. But she no longer pinned things to the original hull.

Her wheelhouse - the boat's, that is - was still just that; a wheelhouse. And a working one to boot. But the below-decks cabins and hold had been transformed into my idea of the lap of luxury. Everything was varnished teak and mahogany and brass fittings; cushions and original seascapes and sunsets; sturdy carpeting throughout. Most of the furnishings I had bought from a company that used to run elegant river steamers but that had decided that mass-produced plastic was more a proposition than the employment of skilled ship-wrights who loved to spend time and effort on keeping wooden things in pristine condition. Such is progress. I, however, loved to do just that in my spare time. I'm no skilled shipwright, of course, and things tended to take that much longer. But I am a quick learner and, where wood is concerned, careful attention to detail plus a surfeit of patience, will win every time. Also, I knew an old shipwright, name of Coe Crocker who lived up in Windsor. Joe not only loved to spend time with wood he also loved the extra beer money it afforded him. It has to be said, though, that Joe and I have spent many an hour propping up the bar of my local and I never once saw him dip his hand into his pocket. That also was an art in which he was skilled. Becks used to call us The Odd Couple.

''Guilty,'' I clarified from the saloon, where I was rewinding the tape on the video machine in the hope that Becks had pressed the correct button at the correct time, which would enable me to see The Great Escape four hours after the BBC had put it out over the air. The new stuff, cd's and dvd's could go jump at themselves. I still hadn't fully mastered video machines.

The saloon - Becks' ''lounge'' - was like an impressionist's painting. The longer you looked, the more you saw. I had boaty knickknacks everywhere and overflowing bookshelves every where. Whilst Becks' contribution to the ordered mess was a million furry animals, and things with place names on them. She loved to collect what I saw as tat.

''What makes you think that?'' said Becks, her voice almost drowned by the noise of rushing water and the pump that was forcing it through the pipes.

''Oh, you know...'' I said vaguely, pressing the stop button on the remote control box. I settled back into the cushions of the wrap-around lounger me and Joe had built into the bow of Our Emily, and hovered my thumb over the Play button.

“I've seen it'' said Becks. Her voice shuddered and I guessed she was towelling her hair. There was a thump on the deck head above me. I grabbed the length of 2x2 I kept handy for the purpose and jabbed it at the planking. There was an annoyed QUAACK! and a flutter of wings. The deck up there was gleaming-white paintwork - with dirty smudges! ''Three times, as a matter of fact,'' Becks went on, “Including tonight.''

“I thought you were working,'' I said. I could see an untidy pile of 1Ox8s on the desk over by the galley partition, plus an open notebook and two different size magnifying glasses. Becks worked for Section-W of “Five” and that section is largely about identification. Becks studied snapshots by the bucketful. Her current classification was the same as mine was ten years before, and if Burgess knew that I had discussed any part of the Lewis business with her he would have skinned me alive.

“I was,” said Becks, stepping into the saloon still towelling her hair, but otherwise naked. ''What do you mean, not guilty? How can you possibly know that after...what? Less than two weeks?'' Becks was 28 years old and not merely happy in her work; she was ecstatic about it. She stood five-eight in bare feet and her legs went all the way up. To my mind she was a stunner. Before we had sort of slipped into cohabitation, Jimmy Adler, another of Burgess's rats, had once described her as “...okay, I suppose...'' Adler's taste was in his boots. Becks had long red hair and hazel eyes. Plus a smile, when she decided to use it, that could melt steel. It was her smile that had hooked me. Luckily the rest did too, when I got to know it. She also had a memory which, though not exactly photographic, was almost so. This was one of the reasons why she had ended up in such a section.

She stopped punishing her hair and gave me an old fashioned look. “You know it,'' she said flatly.

She glanced at the TV set then back at me, and she started towelling her hair again. “It's your business, of course,'' she said, her head held forward as she pat-dried the split ends she would always bemoan. I never worked out what she meant by ''split-ends”. I once used her most powerful microscope on a couple of strands and was still no further forward.

My mind performed a sort of double-take on her “of course'', and I waited to hear more. It had been her suspended-fourth “of course” - musical term - and there would always be more; you sensed it. This time, however, she remained silent. But it was the wrong tone to end a sentence on. Something was on her mind. But Becks was Becks. I allowed my gaze to fall below the level of her navel and wondered if perhaps there weren't better things to do than watch an old film. ”And?'' I said, still waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Like my aunt Fanny! I thought. I tossed the remote control box onto the small but elegantly carved coffee table that once was a large but elegantly carved coffee table. Joe's work, that. A truly brilliant piece of extemporisation. You would never have known. I said, ''The man whose tail I am presently sitting on...” I had never mentioned Lewis's name, and we both knew why. “..is conscientious at his work; sober as a judge; punctual to a fault - well, almost - and, within the accepted bounds of the Service - Six and bloody Five, totally normal. Not a solitary sign of skulduggery, nor a hint of either the will or the aptitude to engage in it. Pelican is wrong!'' I concluded positively, referring to the fictitious committee I had made up. It was odd, but Burgess' cover story about my working for Internal Security on this on was prophetic; I had told Becks, right from the very start of our relationship, that I worked for I.S.(Six); that department being the closest it was possible to get to our own portfolio. Burgess's title for his small army of villains is E.L. Though what those initials stand for is anyone's guess. We are down on Home- and Foreign-office records as ''A.M.20b/f”. For what that is worth.

Becks finished with her hair and disappeared back into the shower cubicle opposite the galley that had cost an arm and both legs, re-emerging clad in the dressing gown her father had given her last Christmas. Whether she had heard me I don't know, but she said, ''Have you seen the hair dryer?” As she was saying this she opened the cupboard over the desk and found it. ''Ah!'' She glanced around the room vacantly and I wondered what strange light I could detect in her eyes.

''Where do I plug it in now?” I had been having problems with the electrics; some of the sockets worked, some didn't and probably never would.

'”There...'' I said, indicating the socket on the galley partition. I aimed the control box at the VTR and pressed the Play button. Becks seemed to be in one of her obtuse moods. The screen displayed a man reading the news. Behind him was a map of the Middle East with captions about who was currently doing what and to whom. Since I already knew all about the situation there, and since our section was in no way involved in any case, I did not turn the sound up. This was simply to get her sitting and looking. I hated to watch recorded stuff on my own; it was never the same. Certainly not since Becks had arrived on my scene.

She did at least sit, cross-legged on the end of the lounger, shaking her head at the whining dryer. Above the noise of it she said, '”I've got to be up early in any case. We've a flap on.''

I felt a yawn shelling up in my throat, tried to stifle it, failed. “What's early?” I said, smacking my lips and trying not to lose my earlier enthusiasm for the film. Not that I hadn't also seen it before, and more times than Becks had. But watching something on the box after a hard day's work was a sort of tradition for me. Wound me down.

I looked at her. ''You mean the six-o-clock that happens with the milkman?'' She nodded and was silent for a moment. Then she flicked off the hair dryer and sat with it cradled in her lap. She seemed to be studying a leg of the coffee table. Then I felt the atmosphere. It had been there all the time, of course, but I had refused to really take note. ''What?” I said, hesitantly. I felt hesitant. Something was very definitely amiss. And I wondered what the hell it was I was supposed to have done.

Becks kept her eyes on the coffee table. '”Jay...” she said in a voice I recognised instantly as her this-is-really- serious one. I was not sure I was up to really serious.

As well as hazel eyes and legs that go all the way up Becks also has full lips and a dimple that only shows itself when her lips are clamped tightly together. I could not see her eyes from that angle and a wayward swathe of hair was hiding her lips. But I could see the dimple. ''Your father?” I asked quietly.

Trevor Seabrook, himself an ex-Five man from way, way back, had had trouble with his heart since he had lost Irene Seabrook, his wife, to a drunk driver several years before had really got to know Becks . He was currently undergoing series of by-pass operations at Harefield hospital .

Becks shook her head and I relaxed slightly, if only for an instant . Because she came back with, ''No. Daddy's fine...” Hesitation. Then, “...It's you.”

I sucked in a breath. Here was a Becks I had not seen before.”What’s me?” Becks’ memory had its drawbacks from my own point of view. She was always picking up on some passing know-it-all remark I'd made yonks ago, and which I had subsequently forgotten about, and contradicted.

“Is it true,” she said, in a voice that was barely above a whisper, ''that you work for Donald Burgess?”

So that was it. I'd been wondering if someday she wasn't going to realise the truth. Though we discussed the non-classified edges of each others' work, we neither of us pried too deeply in conversation. I did not have to, of course. I knew everything there was to know about her; about who she worked for; what she did and what she hoped to be doing in the future. I also knew all there was to know about her pre-Service life. I knew, for example, that she had read philosophy at Balliol college, Oxford; that she had married another undergraduate in a fit of pique (Trevor Seabrook had done some prying and learned that the boy had extreme socialist leanings, which could have made him a possible future “mark” for K.G.B. recruiters and had forbad the relationship - and Becks tends to over-react to sanction. It actually says that in her personal profile dossier); that the marriage, a disaster from the start, had lasted all of two months, and that the divorce, with not a little aid from a well-placed and -connected father, had been finalised in double quick time. Becks herself had never broached this subject with me. But what I did not know about her I could have found out in as much time as it takes to punch a number into the computer.

Becks, on the other hand, knew very little about me. And what she did know was mostly untrue; necessarily twisted. Except, that was, for my early childhood years, which I tended to fall back on in some detail in successful efforts to divert conversations in which I might have had to tell more lies. It was an unfair advantage at the start, and it remained so. I for one had never known how to alter the situation. And I did not want to.

I looked at her and said nothing. You can't tell lies if you say nothing. But you can tell the truth by doing that at the wrong moment. Depending upon your point of view, that was exactly the wrong moment to say nothing; not if a denial is what you require. She stared back at me with doleful eyes. Then she shook her head minutely and made a clucking noise at the back of her throat. I knew I was sunk. Then she sighed, switched the dryer on and carried on with her hair. And that was how things stood. For several pulsating minutes.

But, eventually, enough was enough. I said, “There's no way I could have told you, Bee.''

No response. The dryer wheezed on and the coffee table suffered more examination. I did not know what more could say. I did know, however, that there were a hundred things I would have liked to have said. Perhaps it was the order I couldn't get straight in my mind. Then the dryer went off again. I looked at her and waited, hoping she was about to explode. I felt I could deal with an exploding Becks. The silently suffering one was something else again. This time she fixed her attention on the bookshelf above the T.V.set. ''D'you know what they call Donald Burgess in Five?” There was no trace anger in her voice, and that smarted.

“The Exterminator!” said Becks, in that same voice. It was as cold as an Arctic breeze.

I nodded. “Probably very apt, too.'' I replied, and wondered if I always sounded that flippant. I was learning something about myself. ''He's called something else in Six, and I believe C11 and Special Branch prefer not to discuss him at all!” Which was true enough.

''And do you know what they call whatever it is you have as a section?” I was a few seconds trying to work that one out. I tried to inject a little humour into a grunt. Humour, I thought, had to be the path.

“Triggers!” She looked at me suddenly, her half-dry hair flicking in an arc. “You know? Like in the gangster films? Triggers!” Her eyes were now afire. But there were tears near the surface also. I lay the control box on the lounger beside me, trying desperately not to appear...well, something. I knew well that Becks only needed a catalyst and she'd crack. And this situation did not need a slanging match.

''What do you want me to say, Bee? I can't tell you how, or why, or when I started working for Burgess. And I don't mean I can't tell you; mean I can't tell you...” The tears were now in her eyes. I could see the glint, and I felt sick.

How in God's name was I going to explain it all away? I had always promised myself that if the job ever made me feel the way I was feeling then, I would jack it in. My problem was that I knew I had been fooling myself. Whatever I felt about Burgess and the job we did; and whatever I felt about Becks, I was not about to quit. And I did not have a clue as to why. I said, “But if it makes you feel any easier, we are not permanently running around shooting people, and we never do anything to innocent ones. We also make pretty damned certain we don't make mistakes. Just the way I'm making pretty damned certain about my current mark. In fact, do you know why I'm pulling all the stops out on this one? Do you?...”

Strangely enough I did not have to even consider the rights and wrongs of what I was doing, nor did I consider Burgess and what he might do if he found out. And it was easier than I could have imagined. It just came out; one thing after the other. Easy as falling off a log. Plus, I had no regrets. No second thoughts along the way. No conscience. Easy.

And when it was over she went through to the galley and brewed two mugs of hot chocolate. She stood there in the archway Joe and I had sweated buckets over, a mug in each hand looking at me. I could not pin her expression down, but I hoped it was on the favourable side. I knew exactly how she was feeling, because I knew how I felt about Burgess and his obligatory lies. Then she spoke.

I nodded. “I know. But I didn't lie to you, Bee. Not in the way lies are usually meant. It won't help much, but, for the record if nothing else, I am working under an I.S. cover. But I - “

She cut in, “You don't have to say any more, Jay. Really!” She smiled a little smile. “I know what you've done. By telling me, I mean. And I'm not sure I'm glad or...or what”

''You'd better be, for Christ's sake!” I grinned, “I've probably made myself redundant...'' I chuckled. ''Or worse.''

She looked at me for a moment, her mind ticking over. Was I Joking, or what? Then she said a soft, ''Thank you...''

I shrugged and said a lame, “Better late than never”, which I don't think she heard.

“It was the way it came out, Jay; the way I found out. It...it just floored me.''

I sighed and steeled myself to ask the question I had to ask. Or did I want to ask it? I don't know. ''How did it come out, Bee?”

She lifted a shoulder and spilled some chocolate on the rug. ''0h, nothing verbal or involving anyone else....” Her brows fell. “So you can put that gun away'' She immediately repented that, and shrugged again, spilling more of the chocolate. ''Sorry, Jay. I didn't mean that. I really didn't!'' And that was yet another lesson f or me ; her jibe , intended as such or not, had not hurt a bit. But Becks thought it should have done. Perhaps we had a lot to learn about, and from, each other. I pulled a face and said, “'Ouch...” But only because I figured she was expecting some such reaction.

There was a short pause and I think we were both experiencing some embarrassment. New experiences were coming thick and fast. I said, “Go on.”

She stepped over and handed me the mug with ''Skipper'' printed on it, then resumed her cross-legged position on the lounger. ''We're working on a profile of a Palestinian called Jabal Khan. He's a - ''

''A PLO Money-man!” I cut in, just to show her that even 'triggers' have a modicum of intelligence, “…currently masquerading as a trade attaché with the Iraqi embassy.''

She nodded stiffly, not noticeably impressed by my off-the-cuff display of wisdom. ''Anyway...” she began.

Then I remembered. Khan, designated “untouchable'' in all the files I had seen on him, and for a reason known only to the committee that ''ran'' him - had been involved somewhere in the Harvey Grant case. And Grant, the then chief of the Beirut station, had been one of my half dozen or so ''final solution'' numbers. Becks and I had been living together for some months at that time and I had told her that I had to visit the States for a few days.

“...there was this photograph,'' Becks went on, ''Taken in Beirut the day Harvey Grant, the station head, had his accident,'' she stressed, “On the Corniche...You're in the photograph, Jay. Way in the background and barely recognisable, but there. And you said....'' Her voice tailed off as she took a messy slurp of the drinking chocolate. Then she looked at me crookedly. ''I'm sorry, Jay. Honestly! But it was a shock to...to...” Then, right out of the blue, and in a new tone altogether, she said, ''Shall we drop it now? I just wanted to know for certain who I am living with...'' She smiled. “And I don't mean that the way it sounds.”

She straightened and some of the old Becks fire came back into her eyes. “Do I know what for certain?”

I said, “Bee, one side of this roundabout has no answer because it's not a question. I want the answer to the other side...''

We stared at each other. Then Becks gave that short, grunting chuckle she's so famous for within the hull of Our Emily. ''What I know is that you work for Donald Burgess.” She was smiling, then she stopped smiling. ''I'm not packing my bags, if that's what you mean.''

Not packing my bags was not exactly the answer I had been probing for. It was no problem that Becks knew who I was and what I did and for whom, because I knew Becks. It stopped there. I wanted to know about the other thing - us. I felt like asking if she might be packing her bags in the foreseeable future, or something equally inane, but was not given the opportunity. She broke in, “I'm a big girl now, Jay. I know we are neither of us working for organisations specialising in peace, love and goodwill - “

“Wrong!” I interrupted, a shade louder than I had intended. She had surprised me. I thought she knew. Her brows dropped. I went in with both feet. ''Those are exactly the things we specialise in!” I had fought this particular fight with myself countless times, always playing Devil's Advocate. The answer always came out the same. The odd thing was that I had never heard this argument broached in the sections. It was as if the problem did not exist. “Sweep the dirt off the floor” I went on, climbing up onto my soap box, “and what are you left with? A clean floor. Cut away the conflict, the hate, and the ill-will and you end up with the P.L. and G. you just mentioned...It'll never happen, of course, because the world is full of people. But what do you do? Stop sweeping? The fact that there will always be someone who'll walk in out of the mud and dirty your nice clean floor, is neither here nor there. It's human nature. Look at the Middle East...No sooner had the Iron Curtain come down than someone else shoves up another one somewhere else. It's what we're made of, Bee. There will always be someone like Osama bin Laden. Or Hitler. Or anyone you care to name. There'll always be divisions, different cultures, different views, different goals. And there will always be people like you and me. Like Burgess... Like The Angel Gabriel...And like Lewis. Take it or leave it!

I rose up and placed the mug on the coffee table. ''Now,'' I said positively, ''Shall we engage in the continuing struggle towards the second of your three virtues, or what?'' I beamed a smile that Burgess would have been proud of.

Becks’ expression displayed amazement; then it displayed something that only Becks herself could have explained. And it finally settled into an expression of lost helplessness. She reached out to her handbag that was on the floor by the desk and flipped it open. ''Sorry, Jay,” she said, half withdrawing a blue and white cardboard box about the size of a bar of soap, and on which I could see the tail-end of the product's name: '...PAX'.

My watch went BEEP BEEP BEEP and woke me up. I fumbled around until one hand found the other and switched it off. The sun was streaming in the starboard portholes like solid blocks of light. I prised my eyes open and focused them, with difficulty, on the watch. It registered 7-30. I don't know why I did that. Look at the watch, I mean. Because I always have the damned thing set to go off at seven-thirty in any case. But there it is. Old habits die hard.

Becks had long gone. We had gone to sleep on a good enough note but I did not feel normal. For certain I would have liked to talk some more. I tend to brood. Whilst Becks, at least outwardly, forgets quickly. I donned my dressing gown and squinted out at the day. I couldn't see much because of the surface mist. But, for the moment anyway, the sky was clear. I went through to the galley and made myself some toast and coffee, stopping half way through to answer the normal morning call. Becks says that regular bowel movements are a sign of good health. I tend to stay away from the subject. Then I took the breakfast up to the wheel-house. I always did that. Early mornings on the river are not things to be missed.

I had been lucky enough to secure a permanent residential mooring at the bottom of a garden on Ferry Road, Long Ditton. The garden, plus the rambling Georgian-style house at the top of it, belonged to an ex-R.N. commander called Markham. He was 67 years old and you could still see where the sea water got in. He once had a boat of his own, hence the small jetty, but he didn't any longer, because, he said, he was too long in the tooth for all that palaver. For the sake of the record, both public and service, I also held a commander's rank; which fact was an obvious plus in my securing the mooring in the first place.

Our Emily had electricity supplied via a separate meter ; a telephone supplied via a word or two in the right quarter ; and water supplied free from a stand-pipe in the garden - if anything could be termed free with a mooring fee of £85 per week. Also we had separate access via the garden gate which opened onto the public towpath that was once the upstream towpath. As river set-ups went, it was perfect.

The sun was nudging above the trees of Hampton Court Park; on the other side of the river and the sky was an inverted bowl of translucent yellow candy-floss. Over on the other towpath I could just make out a family of Canadian geese. I wondered which one of them was doing the job on my coach roof.

They totally ignored a man on a cycle who had to dismount and walk around them. It was like watching an ice show or a play where they're using dry ice for effect. The island of Raven's Ait, downstream towards Kingston, was barely visible through the wispy carpet, whilst Hampton Court Palace, upstream, had to be imagined. But this was early morning mist and would soon clear. It had been the same yesterday and the day had deteriorated into something out of a Sherlock Holmes movie. It's always best in the morning. I heaved myself onto the helms-man's stool and sipped the coffee, leaning forward over the brass and mahogany wheel. I thought about Becks and felt empty inside.

“Who else?” I replied, feeling strangely stupid. ''Did you make it on time?''

''Oh, yes,” she said cheerily, ''You were dead to the world. I kissed you. Did you feel it?''

Becks has quite a passable singing voice and she used it then. “I just called...to say...I love you...''' she sang, and the line went dead.

Then I remembered Lewis and I thought: Sod this for a game of soldiers! I dialled Burgess's number.

“Keep on it, Groundswell,'' said Burgess briskly. He insisted upon the use of codenames over telephone lines, even those routed via the very latest in scrambler devices; as ours was. His codenames, incidentally, were all to do with the sea. You might have thought that being an ex-R.A.F. type he would have plumped for aerial subjects. But not our Burgess. Clive Patterson was Roller; Jimmy Adler was Gulfstream; Peter Yance was Breaker; and I was Groundswell. Burgess himself was Ocean. Which figured; though he answered just as readily to 'Sir'.

''How long has it been?'' he asked, in what I knew was a rhetorical tone. “Not yet two weeks. Not enough time, man. Not by a long chalk. He'll wander along his own sweet lines taking his own sweet time, but he'll come a cropper in the end...How far have you progressed with the files?'' I was groaning inwardly. Useless. All bloody useless! I said, “Not too far really, sir. I've got a plan of action all mapped out. It's a question of finding the time. It would help if I could use one of the section for that side of - “

“No!” he interrupted harshly, ''Most definitely not! I told you before. Use C11 for back-up and night work, by all means. But no-one else must lay eyes on the file...” His tone now took on a sort of schoolmaster's edge as he continued, “I'm surprised I have to repeat myself on that score, Groundswell: Very surprised indeed.''

And that, I thought, is not all that would surprise you. I said, ''Yes, sir,' but was not about to grovel. ''You see, sir...'' Sir is not grovelling. “...the subject spends most of his time at his section office and I can't very well ask a stranger to sit outside that particular address, can I sir? The - the people who work there” I went on, groping for words that were acid, but not too acid, considering who I was speaking to, “do tend to look askance at that kind of thing...I'm okay because they've seen me a hundred times before. But, ah...” I was fast running out of steam and inspiration, but had still drawn no response. I could hear Burgess breathing quite clearly over the line but he was saying nothing. ''For that reason I do most of the stationary work myself, and use the boys only when we're on the move, which rather inhibits the time I can spend at the computer. I have used some of the time to dive into Five's records hall, but there's never been enough of the stuff to make real inroads...’' A ploy came to me then. ''Of course, if you’ll give me the go-ahead to put one of the C11 team on the - ”

“No! Most definitely not!” he spat. Which was the second time in less than thirty seconds he had said just that, in that order. There was some more heavy breathing as he obviously turned it all over in his mind. ''We can't do that’'' he said at last, ''You’ll just have to get your mind in order. I keep telling you that, Groundswell. The subject is bound to have a set of movements upon which you can more or less rely; a pattern to his day. Surely! When you are absolutely certain he is going to be in the office for any length of time, then use that period to its best advantage...''

I frowned at the handset. I'd already said that, hadn't I? What the hell was the matter with the man? I opened my mouth to speak but he hurried on, ''Which reminds me; what is the status on that other file gave you? B-18, I believe it was.”

This was suddenly ridiculous. I sucked in a deep breath and let it out noisily and to the devil with making waves. “The status of B-18, sir,'' I said heavily, ''is exactly the same as it was when you handed me this Class-A. Namely, I've glanced at it, but that's all. I don't think I've made myself clear...'' I was stepping perilously close to the line and I knew it. But, hell fire, I thought, even the Jackson Ryderbeits of this world have their limitations. Burgess had given me the B-18 file only the day before he had invited me to that S.A.S. safe house in Willesden for the Lewis briefing, which had, to my mind, superseded the B-18 Job. “I'm not a magician...sir.''

Burgess snapped, “Don't take that damned tone with me, Groundswell!'' He was fully justified in snapping, of course. My security clearance level, though heady in the eyes of many, barely gave me the right to raise a questioning eyebrow at one of Burgess's bootlaces, let alone yell at the man down the phone. ''Sorry, sir,” I said, hurriedly re-evaluating the side upon which my bread was buttered, ''I'm just a shade tired, I suppose. This is not the easiest of assignments.''

Then, “Yes...Well...'' Burgess cleared his throat noisily. “I - ah - I do realise your problems, Groundswell. And I...” His voice suddenly tailed off and there was another pause. A second later he came back, now all businesslike.

“Now listen, groundswell, I've an idea. What does the subject normally do today? 0r, what has he entered into his Day Book?”

I could not imagine what his idea could possibly be, but was agog to find out. I grabbed my notebook and flicked through the pages until I found what I was looking for. ''You there, sir?”

''Today is not a normal one for the subject, sir. He's booked in for a refresher at the ranges. His annual, sir...” I glanced at my watch. ''He should be leaving his house in about an hour. Give or take. That's normal, of course. But the range isn't. I could get a call from my night watchman meantime, but I never have in the past.”

“'Hmmm...” Thoughtful. ''Very well, here's what we'll do. I'll take over the surveillance today myself. Mine will be a different face, so I will not need to call upon C11. Let them sit around biting their nails for a day, hm? What range will the subject be using?''

The suggestion staggered me. Burgess never, but never ever, involved himself personally in field work. And that should have been yet another clue as to the state of his mind .But at that moment I was not looking for those kinds of clues; and the notion of a day spent loafing around the section office - perhaps the lads were slack enough to have a poker game going, or something - appealed to me greatly. So I grabbed the stick. “Bovington, sir. The old WW2 fighter station. It's out on the - “

“I know where Bovington is, Groundswell, thank you. I flew into it enough times during the war.''

I could hardly control an urge to ask him if he had hurt himself in the process. But I managed it. I was elated. Like a child. And for no real reason. “Of course, sir. I forgot. But I doubt you'll recognise the place now...'' That last bit was just an aside to soak up a giggle.

There was a reminiscent “Hmmm...” Then, ''Yes. Times change...still, there's a lot of good countryside around Bovington. Perhaps I'll take my glasses along with me. Might see something interesting. You never know, what?”

That was the enigma of Donald Burgess. He watched birds for relaxation, for Christ's sake! If I live to be sixteen again I'll never work out how a man like Burgess could recognise beauty in anything. Let alone birds. Then again, I pondered on the spot, perhaps he did not look for beauty. Maybe he was merely on the lookout for likely conscripts into the Covert Carrier Pigeon Service!

“I do not undertake this task lightly. I will be require results at the end of it...I'll brook no more talk of impossibilities. D'you follow?''

“Hmm. I hope you do. Make start on that B-18 this morning. At the very least familiarise yourself with the subject and the more pertinent details. You may find you can work both assignments in tandem...” This statement, thrown in as an afterthought - or so it sounded - came tantalisingly close to the truth; if only I'd been in a position to realise it back then. I was later to learn that Burgess had known precisely what Edward Lewis had planned for that Thursday, and that the tractor number thing was simply his oblique way of keeping me up to speed. I was also to learn just how much of a calculated risk he took in allowing me my day in the office. Hindsight can be depressing at times; the stuff nightmares are made of.

“Barclay'' Clive clucked his tongue at my blank expression. ''Ernie, I think his name is. You know him, for Pete's sake! The guy you don't like. Drives a Mini something or other .. Cabinet Office gofer...Hell, Jackie , you were rabbiting on about the man only last week! Didn't t you have a run-in with him, or something? Blue chit Job?”

“Rah!” said Clive, waving his forefinger in the air like a flag. “The penny drops. Yes, that Barclay. He told me. Six thousand quid! Tax-bluidy-free!” Clive was an odd mixture of Highland Scot and lowlife American. Though I was always convinced that he laid the Scots accent on more than was inbred.

''But it's true. We actually gave the man six thousand quid to do the place up. I meant Je-es-susl And the man's a poxy trillionaire!” He scoffed. ''No frigging wonder they want to bury it!”

We were talking about a D-Notice row that Clive had learned was brewing in the corridors of Whitehall power, the tinder of which was an attempt at hushing up a Social Security payment to a Saudi sheik, with respect to a property he had bought in Wimbledon. I was not desperately interested myself, but there was no doubt that given the government's ongoing need for public support the business could prove embarrassing, to say the least. Outside my window, the world was bleak; reminiscent of that day in Willesden. The buildings across the street were barely visible through a drizzle that fell from a slate-grey sky like atomised washing-up water. And I wondered where that beautiful morning had gone.

Clive was 37 years old. He had been born somewhere near Inverness, but brought up in Cleveland, Ohio. In common with all of us he had no discernable family now. There was a girl he visited in Glasgow fairly regularly. She may have been some kind of a childhood sweetheart, but we really did not know; and never asked. E.L. was not a section where you chatted much about your home life. And with Clive, especially, life was business and vice versa. His face, either by accident or design, always displayed a dour, hang-dog expression; and if he ever did smile it was only if he were telling the jokes; the punch lines of which he would repeat two or three times whilst pumping out a strained chuckle. He was not a fundamentally funny person. But he was the perfect Whitehall “ferret”. It would be to Clive that we went if we needed any Cabinet Office information. He always wore suits and looked comfortable doing so. Put me in a good suit and it would be immediately obvious that I had hired it off a peg; even if untrue. It never ceased to amaze me that Clive's white shirts remained pristine all day long. Now, what daylight there was outside, reflected off the mirror-like finish of his shoes. Clive was a toff. But he was a dangerous one. He was sitting on the corner of my desk, stabbing a pencil at me as he made his points. “A poxy trillionaire! Where's the bluidy justice?''

''Listed, my ass!' Clive scoffed, 'It's sheik Whoosits who's listed, more like. Part of the current administration's Keep-the-Arabs-sweet policy; so Barclay says. Part of the price the puir suffering public pays for air bases in Saudi...' He grunted. “There'll be hell to pay when that D-Notice hits the floor. Blood all over. Forget the Gulf thing. The war'll be right here on the home front.''

Outside, the drizzle seemed to gust upwards then stop completely and there was momentary sunlight. Then it was gone.

Clive nodded and twirled the pencil in his fingers like a mini drum major's baton. He was good at that. His green eyes flashed fiercely. “You're damned right it passed committee. Thing is…” he lowered his voice for effect, “…the committee don't know it's already leaked.''

''Jeeesus...” Clive breathed wistfully, his head shaking slowly, ''I'd give a lot for the old man to put me on that job. Ennolds is one poli-frigging-tician I'd personally like to see roasted.”

Robert Ennolds was on the D-notices committee. I asked, “What's Ennolds got to do with it?”

'Ennolds...'' said Clive, wagging the pencil at me and adding a cautionary: ''According to your friend Barclay; has shares in the firm that handled the original sale.''

”That's too damned convenient for comfort. You mean to tell me that Barclay - who's your friend, not mine, you trans-Atlantic twit - has leaked to you about a leak that's supposed to have - “

The telephone rasped. I pushed the button that sucked the call from the general wire into my office and lifted the receiver. ''Yes,'' I said into it. Telephone technique did not exist in E.L.

“Do me a favour...Go to my desk and get my day book. It's in the top right hand drawer. I wrote an address in it. On the last but one page. The name is Grierson. Initials F.W.. It's twenty-two something street, Aberdeen. I also need the telephone number. Bastard's gone ex-directory and these exchange people are double-edged shits. Tell Patterson that his countrymen are a load of wankers.”

I said, ''Tell him yourself.'' I rose out of my seat and tossed the handset to Clive. ''Jimmy wants a word...''

I was back inside a minute with Jimmy's notebook. Clive was saying into the phone; ''Well, I'm telling you. You did it all wrong. You don't ask in poxy Scotland; you de-bluidy-mand!...'' He shook his head disgustedly as he handed the handset back to me. I noticed the light flashing under the Incoming Calls button. Someone else wanted to be spoken to. I gave Jimmy his information and he rang off without saying thank you, which was Adler's way of doing things.

Clive started to speak but I held up my hand and pressed the button over the flashing light.

A tongue clucked at me down the line and I knew whose it was. Burgess was always bemoaning our telephone manners. I added, a quick, ''Export office...'' That was what we were supposed to say to outside callers; despite the rock-solid security of the line and the fact that no-one but us knew the number.

I pulled a face at Clive and replied, ''Yes, sir. I'm here.'' Where did he think I was going to be? Clive guessed which sir I had on the line and his face slipped naturally into a mask you might reserve for the arrival of someone whose name you had deliberately omitted from the guest list. A hackneyed description, that. But true. Clive mouthed something I could not catch and stepped out through my glass door and trudged back to his own goldfish bowl office. In my ear Burgess said, “I'm at Reading.”

I glanced at the War Office-issue clock on the wall. It registered 3.27. What the hell was Burgess doing in Reading? I said, ''Reading, sir?” ''Exactly,'' said Burgess heavily, ''It appears our subject is settling in for the night. Should've realised it. of course The damned man carried an overnight bag to his car this morning. Thought he preferred overly large attache cases. Didn't dawn.”

''A natural assumption, sir,” I said. But it was about as natural an assumption as seeing someone carry a set of golf clubs onto a cruise liner and thinking he was going for the golf. Burgess said, ''Quite!”

''How should I know, Groundswell? This is why I am calling. Find out! It is a farm on the M4, or close to it. Called Upper Beech farm. Damned great place. Four tractors. Can you believe that? Four tractors! Got a pencil handy?''

The clue was farm. I remembered reading something about Lewis having a cousin with a farm.

But it was entirely possible. I found the reference I was after. “Chatterton, sir. Stuart Chatterton. Major, it says here.''

“Ah!” said Burgess, adding an offhand, ''Good...So it's nothing, then. A family visit, you think.”

Burgess at his best. I had mentioned nothing about what I did or did not think. As it happened, however, a family visit did seem likely under the given circumstances. Reading was less than a motorway hour from Bovington. Lewis had made no such entry-of-intent in the computer day book, but that meant little. Such private excursions would almost invariably be inserted after the event, as an aside for purely reference purposes. “I expect so, sir. How would you like me to handle it?”

Burgess grunted. ''Nothing to handle...” Then, on a new note,” Yes, there is! The night watchman! No sense in you trudging all this way just to fill a gap. Contact whoever you must, and have the man given the new venue.” The world on the other side of our triple-glazed windows went suddenly dark. Out of the edge of my vision I saw the flicker as Clive switched on his fluorescent reading lamp.

“No problem, sir.” I replied, my mind already racing ahead to a free evening. This was really a red letter day for me. A night on the town with Becks? An evening sprawled in front of the tele? That facing-off job in the galley? The possibilities seemed boundless. Odd, how free time seems that much more valuable when you've been deprived of it for a period. “What time shall I say?”

I thought, but it's okay when us poor sods have to do it, eh? I said, “Eight, it is, sir.”

Burgess asserted, “No later! If, for whatever reason, the man cannot make it, then you will have to”

''He'll be there, sir...I assume there will be no personal handover. You'll just slope off, will you, sir?”

''You assume correctly, Groundswell. Now listen. Relax this evening; because tomorrow you are back at the helm. No more nonsense about being tired and such rubbish. D'you hear me?”

There was a brief pause. I presumed whilst Burgess tried to work out if I were being facetious or not - and there was a little of both in there. Whatever conclusion he drew, he said, “Can I take it, then, that you are now fully up to date?''

I glanced down at the litter of paperwork and computer read-outs on my desk. ''Well, sir, unfortunately I can't work both assignments in tandem, as much as I'd like to...” Liar! ''...The B-18 will probably involve travel. This one involves -”

“Yes!” Burgess cut in testily, “I know all that! But at least you will now be able to make the mental adjustments as and when something breaks here. Yes?” I did not know about that. The B-18 case seemed an entirely different can of worms; trip to the Middle East being the very least of it. But it looked the more interesting of the two. Certainly the more important of the two. I wanted to say just that to Burgess, but in his current frame of mind, it would have been pointless. So I said, “I am fully conversant with what will be required, sir, yes. As for the current brief; I'll probably be able to run a final computer programme in the next twenty-four hours, which should give me everything; date-coincides; contact verifications; peripheries; the lot. If there is something lurking there, then I'll have it. No question.”

Burgess Hmm'd as if unconvinced. Which made two of us. I still could not hazard a guess, even a vague one, as to what he might be up to. Burgess , I mean. And his insistence that I bone up on the B-18 - which appeared to be all about an agent being controlled by a Joint-services sub-committee - complicated my reasoning still further. Normally it would be like drawing blood from a stone to have Burgess affix his “completed” stamp to one case before he would contemplate giving you another one. But then, perhaps I really was tired; mentally as well as physically. Certainly I needed a break away from it all. If only for one evening. A fresh start might bring fresh understanding.

“Yes, do that”, said Burgess in a tone that indicated a preoccupation with another train of thought. He sighed, paused then went on; ''Switch me through to Breaker, will you?”

“He's downstairs, sir,' I replied flicking a glance around at the near-deserted floor of glazed offices.

“Ah...” said Burgess, still apparently in thoughtful mood, ''And Gulfstream is in Scotland, yes?'' That was not a question so I said nothing. ''Roller, then.''

''Right, sir.'' I pressed the 'hold' button first, then the one that would activate Clive's 'phone. All heard through the giant slabs of plate glass was a faint trill. I watched Clive lift his receiver then I hit the 'transfer' button and watched his face cloud over. I smiled broadly at him, then punched out The Weasel's number and gave him the update.

I spent most of the afternoon watching the clock and putting the final touches to the computer programme I would run tomorrow, with a strong emphasis on the clock-watching. When that was out of the way, and with about an hour to go, I took another look at the B-18. Normally I would have just gone home - we don't work to office hours. Or even close to that. But I wouldn't have put it past Burgess to call in again, just to make sure I was still rolling his ball.

''He looked more like his old self again, didn't he?” I said cheerfully. I was fighting the TR'S wheel against the effects of the driving gusts of wind and the hammering volleys of sleet and rain. The windscreen wipers were thumping away like mad things but were barely equal to the task. I was having a hell of a job keeping us on a road I could hardly see in any case. I was certainly not feeling cheerful. I wanted to pull over and wait it out but we were in the heart of a too-tightly packed convoy of traffic and there was no hard shoulder on this stretch of dual carriageway. Stopping, even slowing down below the 43mph I was making, would have prompted disaster. We were a convoy of lemmings hell-bent on self-destruction. The same situation on a motorway would have led to one of those multiple pile-ups you hear so much about.

''Who?” said Becks tightly. She was never a good passenger at the best of times and in dicey road conditions she was a silent, static-crackling hell-on-wheels, whose mental commands were more tangible than the spoken word. She sat now like a solid sculpture of a reclining woman at ease with the world and everything in it. Stiff as a board. Her head was inclined slightly to her side window as if she were idly contemplating the countryside she could not see; but I knew her eyes would be riveted sideways on the road ahead; what could be seen of it beyond the shimmering, bucking set a red taillights we were following. We were both fooling ourselves that it was really a piece of cake; no panic at all.

''Your father, of course!” I said with a throaty chuckle that fooled neither of us. We were hit by a gust that had to be upwards of sixty mph and the TR bucketed like a wild stallion. I was in third gear but could hear absolutely nothing of the engine note above the wailing din. The demister was on, which helped vision: but the atmosphere in that confined space was cloying and damp. It was the kind of atmosphere where you got dirty just sitting there, touching nothing.

I estimated that we were approaching the Polish War Memorial underpass, but could see no lights off to the left where Northolt airfield should have been. There was nothing out there but swirling, confused patterns of misty rain.

“Oh,” Becks said, not moving a muscle, '”Yes, of course...'' Her words clipped through the air like bullets. ''Yes. Didn't he!”

We had been to visit old Trevor Seabrook at Harefield and he really had seemed a different man. He had even managed to talk a little general shop. But, much as I liked the old man, I would much rather have been doing something else with my free evening. It was just after 9-30 and we were on our way home. So, it seemed, was everyone else in the world; come what may.

Some mad fool charged past us in the fast lane, lights flashing, horn blaring, his wheels kicking up a torrent that struck our off side like a blast of machine gun fire and for several seconds my wipers were swamped and useless. All I could see was smudges of gleaming red and sparkling white highlights. Then the screen cleared.

Then, suddenly, the taillights in front dipped and we were dropping into the underpass. The wind and the rain vanished and the world was normal again. I flicked the wipers off to gain some peace from the insistent clacking and we both seemed to relax. I certainly did. I also eased my foot off the throttle, so did the car in front. And the headlights the rearview mirror dropped noticeably further behind. Sanity breeds sanity. When the convoy rose back into the elements again we were all behaving more like responsible drivers. A glance at the speedometer confirmed a new speed of slightly less than 30mph. That 12 mph cushion made all the difference. Conditions were just as bad, but were now infinitely more manageable. Even Becks was now made out of non-rigid flesh and blood.

''Shall we eat out?'' she asked, her voice now smooth and easy, Or would you rather go straight homes?”

I gave that some thought as we breasted the rise leading to the North Circular intersection. “Up to you,'' I offered, “The Indian at Twickenham might be an idea; or we could go up town. Whichever. I'm easy.'' I fumbled in my pocket for my cigarettes. Becks took the packet from me and lit one up using the car's lighter. “Ech...'' she said, placing the lighted cigarette between my lips. Becks did not smoke. But she used to. She rolled her window down a crack.

“I did...” I mimicked in a silly voice. She dug an elbow into my ribs. As we dropped closer and closer to the Hanger Lane intersection the rusting wind lost its strength. The rain also seemed to be easing.

“Let's go straight home.” Becks decided, as we arrowed into the tunnel where the yellow lighting looked warm and inviting and calm. I put my foot down and took the preceding car on the slope, preparing myself for a return to the elements. They did return, but we were now in a built-up area and the wind could not reach us with anything like the severity it had. Or was it, too, easing? .

I sighed contentedly. It was still not too late to make a start on the galley. The wood was already cut to length. And it wouldn't matter even if I had to cut more. The Webasco heating system was on more or less permanently those days and the boat was a nice place to be. Also I could make as much noise as late as I pleased. Commander Markham was as deaf as the proverbial, and there was no-one else around. Except the ducks. And they could go stuff themselves.

I glanced over at Becks, who pulled a face at me. ''No peace for the wicked,” she said, unhooking the handset and passing it into my left hand. My feeling of contentment disappeared. A call on the carphone could only mean business.

'Um...'' I said, racking my brains. Then I had it. ''Shoe-string. What's up?!”

''Subject is on the move, control. Headed into London. Bit of a panic, I think. He's not dashing at the moment. But he was in a rush when he got behind the wheel...”

I searched my memory for something Lewis might have had on his books that might prompt a swift and unscheduled return to London. There was nothing. How about a family emergency some kind? An errand he had to run for the Chatterton's? That had to be it. ''Where are you now?...Baker-one, isn't it?”

''It is,'' said the voice, “We spoke briefly last week...And we're on the M4. It's blowing a gale here so no-one's really hammering it. But it could get sticky when we hit town.

How many mobiles have we got?'' They were all at it. Even the night watchmen. Itching for a real chase.

“Enough,” I said, ''Stand by, will you?”' I lay the handset between my legs.

I nodded. “He's left the nest. Probably nothing, but I have to go with it. Sorry!”

I nodded at the deserted and windswept streets. ''You won't get a taxi here. Besides, it might not be necessary.”

At that time there was not a really suspicious notion in my head. There could be any number of reasons for what was happening, I reminded myself. And I was not about to allow Burgess his pound of flesh without my going the whole hog. The more innocent entries there were in my log book, the better it served. ''Baker-two!' I said into the handset.

So this one was a shade less formal than the others. It was a change, at least. “Okay, Jimmy. Keep on him; but go to R/T. Channel six as usual.''

I turned to Becks. ''Grab that...” But she was already reaching over the seat for The Weasel's S/W transceiver. She also knew how to switch it on; which she did. We exchanged handset for microphone as Jimmy's voice cut through the crackling static of the storm.

''No change. But stick with 'Jimmy', would you, old man? I'm anonymous enough as it is. We're passing the Post Hotel. Heathrow's off to my right. Weather's eased a bit, thank God. What's it like your way?''

His R/T reception would have told him that we were not very close. ''The same...'' I was drawing maps in my head, looking for the best point of convergence. I doubted very much I could make the Hammersmith flyover before Lewis, so would just have to get well ahead on a north/south line and be ready for anything. If Lewis was merely returning to his flat for some reason, then we were home and dry and I needn't drop Becks any where. If, however, Lewis had another destination in mind, then it would be back to the old cat and mouse game, and the Charlie mobiles would have to be alerted. I hoped they had not become fed up with waiting and gone home to wait beside a fire with their R/Ts. They could be forgiven for having done so. At least by me. If I was tiring of the fruitless game, they had to be tearing their hair out. I toyed with the idea of calling a roll but decided quickly against it. They would be there; listening to their cassettes; smoking themselves silly; eating their take-aways and drinking their endless cups of coffee. C11 personal were well used to surveillances, and long-drawn-out ones at that. A mere two weeks would have barely constituted a start. The difference here being that they were not in control; someone else was.

I gripped the wheel tighter and powered along Western Avenue. The traffic was sporadic here and the lights unusually kind, and the TR ate the distance like a ravenous bear. Becks was back in her sculpture mode and I had sympathy for her. When you are an excellent driver yourself, and Becks was just that, it is never easy to place yourself in some other driver's hands. You tend to do things differently; that heart-stooping instant before the person behind the wheel. Your system reacts as if you yourself were in command and shoots electric bolts through your body when the car does not obey instantly.

Laddie! I heard Becks’ grunt of amusement. To her, I said, ''You just can't get good help these days!'' and I slammed my foot hard to the floor.

The traffic lights at the intersection before the White City overpass might have proved a problem had there been more vehicles about. As it was we screamed through a red at a steady 80, hitting the overpass itself at over 90. Then I was braking hard to take the roundabout into Shepherds Bush. And here luck ran out. From a perfectly clear stretch of dual-carriageway we sank into a rotating mass of confusion. What the problem was I could not see, but there had to be at least thirty motors jockeying for movement on that rotary system.

Becks remained enthusiastically silent as I fumed and cursed and blasted my horn and flashed my lights. Back on Our Emily I had a perfectly good and useful magnetic 'blue flasher' which would have helped here; for all the good that thought did me.

''Iffy,'' said the voice. “You know that roundabout where the old boot polish factory used to be?''

Becks ventured, ''Cherry Blossom...'' She seemed at ease now we were snarled up.

“I was where I have been all along. Five or six motors back. The subject took the roundabout once; three-sixty degrees. By which time I only had one car between us. The lights stopped us. Charlie Boy goes round again. All the way...He's playing it safe, Control. I recognise the symptoms. He doesn't know I'm here. I'd swear to that. He's just doing what I would do under...well, whichever circumstances he's under. If you get what I mean. We're approaching the Hammersmith flyover now, but the man keeps altering his speed. Clever basket, if you ask me...Before I pass the airwaves over to you for comment, I'd better tell you that unless I get right on his tail - up his exhaust pipe, in fact - I'm going to lose him. And I'm bloody sure you don't want me that close.''

We popped out of the mess of traffic like a champagne cork, but my jubilation at that was soured by this sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. Had I been wrong all along? Was that possible?

For some reason Becks was fumbling in her handbag as she shook her head. I said, ''Don't say a word.''

“Difficult one, that. I've wangled three cars between us again, but I've had to do that twice since I last spoke. Luck runs out, old son. Luck runs out; in the best regulated circles.

But if it in any way eases your load, I repeat, the subject does not know I'm here; not specifically. And you can quote me on that at any future date you please. But he is being careful. And one of the reasons I say this is because he's had at least a dozen opportunities to hit the side streets since the motorway. If he knew, really knew, that someone was on his tail he would have gone the side-street route; I presume he knows this area like the back of his hand. I'm bloody sure that's what I'd do, anyway. But that's only my opinion. Thing is, really, I should overtake. If he does his slow-down trick again, I'll have to. No option. I've already acquainted you with the alternative...Do I take it that we're spread a bit thin on the ground?”

I was thinking. Not clearly, but thinking at least. It was time and gone to call up the Charlie mobiles. But for a reason that I cannot explain, even to myself, I was loathe to do that. Not yet. Not until Lewis became blatant in his carefulness. Or was he that already? ''Overtake if you have to,'' I told Jimmy, ''But don't if you can manage it safely. Either way try to keep him in sight. Help is on the way...”

The TR's engine screamed in third gear and the rev counter flicked over into the red. I shot past one, two slower motors, then a huge articulated lorry, that, I swear, tried to nudge me off the road. A racing change up into fourth and we were already at the roundabout at the bottom of Bayswater Road. I couldn't have stopped if I'd wanted to; and I didn't want to. The wheels screeched in a torment of burning rubber. I knew I was pushing my luck. Becks screamed, too, and grabbed for a handhold that wasn't there, ending up all arms and legs. My front nearside wheel hit the kerb and I really thought we were done for. My stomach leapt into my mouth. I vaguely saw some pedestrians diving for the grass verge. Jimmy was saying some thing over the radio but I could spare neither the time nor the concentration to listen. How we made it back onto the tarmac again I will never know. I don't think I helped much. We must have simply bounced there. Then I had control. I could taste bile in my mouth.

Then, out of the blue almost, we were in the one-way system at Holland Park Road, less than a hundred yards from Lewis's flat. All I saw of the lights at the Kensington High Street intersection was that green was showing. Horns were blasting and lights were flashing and people were gesticulating as I hammered it into the one-way system leading south to the Earl's Court Road. I was very nearly where I wanted to be.

Sweating buckets and nerve-ends tingling and breathless, I eased back off the throttle pedal and swung sedately into a handy gap in the small queue of cars waiting at the Cromwell Road lights. Ignoring yet more blaring horns I rode up onto the pavement and knocked the TR out of gear. A man in a Rover leant out of his window and shot me an unprintable name. I displayed two fingers at him. He displayed one back at me.

''God, Jay!'' hissed Becks, ''Remind me never to drive with you again when you're on business. You're a bloody maniac!”

Now she was fumbling about on the floor. “I've dropped the blasted thing!'' I did not ask what it was she had dropped. I lifted the R/T mic from my lap. ''Jimmy?''

“We're at the North End Road lights and he's signalling left. Could be headed for home.”

''Because he's pulled another fast one. He's back on course and I'm trundling up North End Road. I've lost him. Out of it!” Jimmy sounded sad.

That sinking feeling came back on me like yesterday's curry as the screen wipers squeaked over dry glass. The rain was hardly more than a fine drizzle now; certainly not enough to keep the wipers occupied full-time. In an automatic action I flicked the control switch to timed-delay.

Becks said, ''If he keeps coming he'll be here in half a minute. I'm leaving...Here!'' She dropped her own gun into my lap. ''You left yours at home, remember? Who takes guns to hospitals, you said. And, yes, I know it's only a pop gun, but take it anyway.''

Before I could conjure up a reply she leaned over, pecked my cheek, opened her door and slipped out, already hailing a taxi she had seen on the main road. My mind, hardly having made the detour, switched back to Lewis. Aloud, I said, “Lewis, you slanty-eyed bastard, now you've got me mad at you!”

I left Becks’ gun where it was. Still only vaguely aware she had given it to me. Lewis had made a fool of me. I had trusted him, believed in him, dammit! And it stung.

The radio hissed. ''Sorry, Control. But I did warn. He turned the corner right enough, but then swung over the centre kerb into the other lane. If I'd stayed with him it would have been about as subtle as ramming a fishing rod up his nose. Have you got him yet?”

As our lights were flicking from red to amber and green his Audi pulled up behind a delivery van, eastbound on Cromwell Road; no more than twenty metres to my right. The fact that he had not taken the turning between the North End Road and my position was the only break I needed. ''Go home, Jimmy,” I said, “You've done your bit. And, thanks. Not your fault.”

And to hell with the Charlie mobiles, too. Lewis was mine and mine alone. And so began the mystery tour around London that concluded with me stuck between a tree and the Embankment wall near Hungerford footbridge.

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