Gower permitted himself a different smile, this time of satisfaction. ‘I achieved the maximum, every time.’
‘Would you disclose the identities of your instructors if you were detained? Put under intensive interrogation: tortured, even?’
‘Of course not!’ said the younger man, indignantly.
‘What would you do?’
‘Refuse, of course! Resist! I know how to do that.’
Charlie nodded, briefly looking down at his desk. Eyes still averted, he said: ‘That a family ring you’re wearing?’
Gower was so accustomed to the platformed gold band that he looked at it as if surprised to see it on his finger. ‘Very minor. No proper title: no money either.’
‘But there’s a family crest?’
Gower frowned again. He didn’t want it to show but he was growing angry. ‘Yes.’
‘What do you think of that poster on the door behind you?’ demanded Charlie.
Gower swivelled his head: the uncertain chair creaked precariously. Groping for comprehension he said: ‘Very nice.’ It was a mountain scene, with long-haired Scottish cattle.
‘I think it’s dreadful,’ said Charlie, who’d put it up minutes before Gower’s arrival. ‘You’re right-handed, aren’t you?’
‘How do you know that?’
Charlie ignored the question. ‘And you came here by car, didn’t you?’
Gower had to hold tightly on to his temper. ‘We spent the weekend in the country with my mother: came up this morning. Why?’
‘So clothes are important to you?’
Gower regarded Charlie with total confusion. ‘I don’t understand any of this!’
‘What’s the name of the deputy Director-General?’
Gower blinked across the cramped office. ‘Patricia Elder.’
‘She tell you her name?’
Gower made a vague movement of his shoulders. ‘I … I can’t remember. Yes …’ There was a momentary pause. Then, in immediate contradiction, he said:’No. It was Personnel. When I was told to go to see her, to be told to come here, they said her name was Patricia Elder.’
‘Let’s go back to your being detained. Would you disclose her identity, under questioning?’
‘Of course not!’ said Gower, as indignantly as before.
‘You’d refuse? Resist?’ said Charlie, offering the words back.
‘Yes.’
‘How many times have you been here, to Westminster Bridge Road?’
Gower paused. ‘Four times.’
‘You know it’s the headquarters building?’
‘Yes.’
‘You wouldn’t disclose it, under duress?’
‘Am I under interrogation now?’ demanded Gower, trying to get some sense into the bizarre encounter.
‘Would you?’ persisted Charlie.
‘I think you know the answer to that, without my telling you. But if this is something for the record, no I wouldn’t disclose it. That would be unthinkable.’
Charlie made a grunting, reflective sound. ‘There isn’t any record being made. Perhaps there should be.’ There was certainly a memorandum he had to send. They’d probably disregard it, as they’d disregarded everything else he’d sent upstairs to the rearranged Executive echelon on the ninth floor, but that didn’t matter. There were lapses that had to be corrected.
‘I think I’m entitled to know what’s happening here!’ said Gower, finally giving way to the annoyance. ‘I haven’t understood a moment of it: it’s been ridiculous!’
Charlie gave another reflective grunt. ‘And you achieved the maximum in interrogation techniques?’
‘Yes!’ said Gower, his voice too loud in his anger.
Charlie sat intently regarding the other man for several moments. ‘You’re entering the external intelligence service. And you’ve been through all the training? You know all that’s involved?’
His uncertainty in the car, remembered Gower: the uncertainty a previous instructor hadn’t helped him resolve. ‘No,’ he said, honestly. ‘I don’t think I do know what’s involved: not really involved. I was told there’s no apprenticeship I could properly go through. Just training.’
Unexpectedly Charlie smiled. ‘There’s some,’ he disagreed. ‘That’s what this is about, to answer your question a while back … the first lesson.’
‘I don’t …’ started Gower and then stopped.
‘… Know what you’ve learned?’ anticipated Charlie. ‘Nothing yet. Let’s hope you will, when I explain.’
‘I wish you would.’
‘You’ve just had a very small indication of what is necessary to be a professional intelligence officer. Very small. Childlike, compared to the level you’ve got to achieve. Will achieve, before we’re through.’
‘I’m still not properly following you.’
‘What was the first thing I said to you, when you came into this room?’
‘Ah …’ Gower hesitated, unsure. ‘Something about a mistake.’ He smiled, hopefully.
‘What, exactly?’
There was another hesitation. ‘ “You’ve made a mistake.” ’
‘My exact words were “your first mistake”,’ corrected Charlie. ‘You were entering a completely unknown situation, with no idea what you were here for. You admitted that very shortly afterwards, which was another mistake because you never admit anything you don’t have to in an unknown situation. And in an unknown situation you remember every word that’s said: not something like what’s said. Everything.’
‘I see,’ said Gower. He thought this was childlike: stupid and unnecessary. He didn’t think he liked this man who would not even introduce himself.
‘As someone who achieved his maximum in interrogation technique, tell me what your first mistake was.’
There was a silence. Then Gower admitted: ‘I don’t know.’
‘You offered your name,’ said Charlie, simply.
‘This is an officially arranged meeting, for God’s sake! We had an appointment! I assumed you’d know my name.’
‘All the more reason for not offering it. In an unknown situation, you take, never give.’
‘I was personally told to come here by the deputy Director!’ Gower fought back. ‘And this is the headquarters building! Surely it’s safe to think …’
‘… Nothing’s ever safe,’ interrupted Charlie, urgently. ‘You’ve got to behave instinctively: in a real life situation there isn’t time to work everything out Immediately putting advice into practice, he demanded: ‘Why do you imagine it was important for me to find out you were right-handed?’
Gower hunched his shoulders, head bowed to avoid the older man detecting from any facial reaction the continuing annoyance. ‘I don’t know.’
‘How did I find out?’
‘I don’t know that, either.’ Pompous bastard, Gower thought.
‘I put the chair so you’d have to move it. You did it with your right hand, the same hand with which you offered the appointment docket. Then I told you to look at a poster behind you: you turned over your right shoulder …’ Charlie hesitated. ‘Mean anything?’
‘Absolutely nothing.’
‘Then either you were badly taught, or you’ve forgotten evasion techniques, if you suspect yourself to be under surveillance that you have to lose. It’s automatic if you are a right-handed person to move to the right: take right turnings, check to your right more than to your left. Learn to check both ways. Never stick to any pattern.’
‘I was told about avoiding patterns.’
‘But not about right or left?’
Gower wanted very much to say he considered it a meaningless trick. He didn’t. ‘I’ll remember,’ he promised, emptily.