‘By the bank?’
‘By me.’
And before she could object, he squeezed her hand again across the table. ‘Don’t say no, please; it would give me such pleasure, and I promise you’d enjoy yourself.’
They walked back in the slowly gathering dusk to Laurenz’s flat. He put his arm through Jasminder’s and said, ‘See? I’m not the mystery man you thought I was.’
She laughed, partly in relief that he understood how strange she’d been starting to find his behaviour. She said, ‘Does this mean you’ll finally agree to meet Emma?’
She felt his arm stiffen, almost imperceptibly. ‘Of course,’ he said carefully, ‘but that might take a little longer. I’m still quite wary of my wife, and our negotiations have reached a critical point. I don’t want to do anything to jeopardise things there. I hope you understand.’
Jasminder told herself she did, though she still couldn’t see why having lunch – or even dinner – with Emma was going to make any difference to his divorce settlement. But she sensed it would spoil the evening to push the point. She said instead, ‘I meant to tell you, I’m going to be away for a couple of nights next week.’
‘Where?’
‘I’m going to Berlin. With C and the senior management team,’ she added; she had only been told that afternoon. ‘He’s giving a speech to a meeting of European intelligence heads.’ She paused. ‘Please forget I mentioned it. I shouldn’t have said anything.’
‘Don’t be silly. Anyone would realise that intelligence agencies need to meet regularly – especially these days. You can trust me, and besides, who would I tell? Karl at the office?’ he added sarcastically.
‘I know,’ she said with a little laugh. ‘It’s just that I’m finding it hard to get used to the fact so many things are confidential where I’m working now.’
‘I can imagine. You’re used to openness. You used to believe in it so strongly.’
‘I still do. And C’s speech is going to be about the need for greater openness with the public. That’s why he wants me there. I’m having sessions with the press, both about my own role and about the speech.’
‘Have you seen it yet?’
‘I’ve seen a version. I don’t think it’s the final text. ‘
‘Any good?’
‘Yes, actually it is. I helped draft part of it but he’s made a lot of amendments and additions. He writes very clearly.’ Like most of his staff, she thought. She had learned very quickly to respect the acuity of her new colleagues at MI6. Contrary to her preconceptions, there were no duds among them as far as she could tell. She said now, ‘He says he wants me to help him with all his speeches in future.’
‘That’s great. You know, I used to write speeches,’ Laurenz said.
‘When was that?’ asked Jasminder, impressed by the addition of yet another string to his bow.
‘A few years ago. I did it for the president of the bank when he had to address outside organisations. I’m not sure I was very good at it; I bet you’re much better than I ever was.’
‘I don’t know about that.’ She was struck as always by his modesty. Laurenz was clearly good at almost everything he turned his hand to, but you would never know it from his diffident manner. She said, ‘I’ve given a lot of talks in my time, but to be honest, I usually just take a fistful of notes I’ve scribbled and wing it. But C’s speech is a proper text. The intention is to release it after the event.’
‘I’d love to see it, and your suggestions too. May I?’
At first, Jasminder was taken aback. She actually had the speech in her briefcase, along with her comments and several offered by senior officers whom C had asked to read his early draft. Geoffrey Fane had made clear his own disagreement with its call for greater openness and pointedly corrected a few minor grammatical errors; Wheatcroft, another old hand, had tried to tone down its frank account of the Service’s past penchant for secrecy.
The text of the speech she had in her bag was ‘Confidential’, which was practically the lowest level of document classification, and that was only because C didn’t want it to become public until after he had given it. It was hard to see what harm there could possibly be in letting Laurenz have an advance look. There was nothing secret about it, really; part of the purpose of giving it was to have it covered in the media.
‘Why not?’ she said. They were waiting for the lift in Laurenz’s building. ‘I’d be interested in what you think. Just don’t tell anyone you’ve seen it.’
She said this lightly but with a touch of concern Laurenz must have picked up. He put an arm around her and said soothingly, ‘You don’t have to worry about that.’
30
In Berlin, C’s speech went down well with the conference audience comprised of senior members of European intelligence services and some European politicians. While he was speaking, a text of the speech was released to invited members of the media and afterwards Jasminder conducted a Q&A session with them.
That had proved very challenging: many of the reporters seemed sceptical about the new ideas for greater openness just outlined. BBC’s Newsnight wanted to know why the press had been excluded from the event. In fact, how did they even know that the text they had been given was what he’d actually said?
Jasminder replied that many of the intelligence officers attending did not wish their identities to be known publicly, for obvious reasons. And she could assure the Newsnight team that they had the actual text. Next a reporter from the Guardian pressed Jasminder on what he described as her volte face on civil liberties.
Was she not colluding with a secretive intelligence service in helping it to pretend that it was being more open? Would they now tell us, for example, what actual harm had been done to Western countries by whistle-blowers revealing the massive intrusion into the privacy of innocent people?
Not without jeopardising the safety of employees and sources and thus compounding the damage that had been done, was how she’d fielded this.
Yes, but damage to the intelligence services was one thing; what damage had been done to ordinary Western citizens?
Well, most people felt the intelligence services were working on behalf of the public, not to oppress them but to try and keep them safe, so damage to the former meant damage to the latter.
Didn’t this contradict Jasminder’s own concerns, expressed often enough in the past, about the need to oversee security activities, to make sure ordinary people’s rights were not abused?
On the contrary, the new openness was intended to address just that issue. And so it went on.
Jasminder was used to being the interrogator on such matters and it had been an extraordinary feeling to be the target of these questions, but afterwards a reporter from the New York Times had come up and told her she’d been a breath of fresh air in the clandestine world of intelligence. Better still, C had said he’d heard she’d done very well, and even Geoffrey Fane, who no doubt had a source in the press conference, gave a clipped ‘Alpha work, my dear, alpha work’ as he passed her in a corridor on her return.