Our kind of traitor

And a year later, Hector was sitting in his old room on the fourth floor, raising a little hell, as he liked to call it.

*

How Hector had talked his way back in, or whether the Service had gone to him on bended knee, and what anyway were the functions of a so-called Director of Special Projects were mysteries Luke could not but ponder as he followed him at a snail's pace up the splendiferous staircase of his club, past the crumbling portraits of its imperial heroes, and into the musty library of books that nobody read. And he continued to ponder it as Hector pulled shut the great mahogany door, turned the key, dropped it into his pocket, unfastened the buckles of an old brown briefcase and, shoving a sealed Service envelope at Luke with no stamp on it, ambled to the ceiling-high sash window that looked out on to St James's Park.

'Thought it might suit you a bit better than pissing around in Admin,' he remarked carelessly, his craggy body silhouetted against the grimy net curtains.

The letter inside the Service envelope was a printout from the same Queen of Human Resources who only two months ago had passed sentence on Luke. In lifeless prose it transferred him with immediate effect and no explanation to the post of Coordinator of an embryonic body to be known as the Counterclaim Focus Group, answerable to the Director of Special Projects. Its remit would be to 'consider proactively what operational costs may be recovered from customer departments who have significantly benefited from the product of Service operations'. The appointment carried an eighteen-month extension to his contract, to be credited to his length of service for the purpose of pension rights. Any questions, email this address.

'Make sense to you at all?' Hector inquired, from his place at the long sash window.

Mystified, Luke said something about it helping with the mortgage.

'You like proactive? Proactive grab you?'

'Not much,' said Luke, with a baffled laugh.

'The Human Queen adores proactive,' Hector retorted. 'Gets her horny as a cat. Shove in focus, you're home and dry.'

Should Luke humour the man? What on earth was he up to, hauling him off to his awful club at eleven in the morning, giving him a letter that wasn't even his to give, and making pedantic cracks about the Human Queen's English?

'Heard you had a bad time in Bogota,' Hector said.

'Well, up and down, you know,' Luke replied defensively.

'Bonking your number two's wife, you mean? That sort of up and down?'

Staring at the letter in his hand, Luke saw it start to tremble but by an act of self-control managed to say nothing.

'Or the sort of up and down that comes of being hijacked at machinegun-point by some shit of a drug baron you thought was your joe,' Hector pursued. 'That sort of up and down?'

'Very probably both,' Luke replied stiffly.

'Mind telling which came first – the hijack or the bonk?'

'The bonk, unfortunately.'

'Unfortunately because, while you were being detained at your drug baron's leisure in his jungle redoute, your poor dear wife back in Bogota got to hear you'd been bonking the girl next door?'

'Yes. That's right. She did.'

'With the result that when you escaped from your drug baron's hospitality, and found your way home after a few days of rubbing shoulders with nature in the raw, you didn't get the hero's welcome you were expecting?'

'No. I didn't.'

'Did you tell all?'

'To the drug baron?'

'To Eloise.'

'Well, not all,' said Luke, not entirely sure why he was going along with this.

'You confessed to whatever she already knew, or was certain to find out,' Hector suggested approvingly. 'The partial hang-out posing as the full and frank confession. Fair reading?'

'I suppose so.'

'Not prying, Luke, old boy. Not judgemental. Just getting it straight. We stole some good horses together back in better days. In my book you're a bloody good officer and that's why you're here. What d'you think of it? Overall. The letter you're holding in your hand. Otherwise?'

'Otherwise? Well, I suppose I'm a bit puzzled by it.'

'Puzzled by what exactly?'

'Well why this urgency, for a start? All right, it's with immediate effect. But the job doesn't exist.'

'Doesn't have to. Narrative's perfectly clear. Cupboard's bare, so the Chief goes to the Treasury with his begging bowl and asks 'em for more cash. Treasury digs its toes in. "Can't help you. We're all broke. Claw it back from all the buggers who've been getting a free ride off you." I thought it played rather well, given the times.'

'I'm sure it's a good idea,' said Luke earnestly, by now more lost than he had been ever since his untriumphant return to England.

'Well, if it doesn't play, now's your time to speak up, for Christ's sake. No second chances in this situation, believe you me.'

'It plays, I'm sure. And I'm very grateful, Hector. Thanks for thinking of me. Thanks for the leg-up.'

'The Human Queen's plan is to give you your own desk, God bless her. A few doors along from Finance. Well I can't mess with that. Be ungracious to. But my advice would be to give Finance a wide berth. They don't want you counting their beans, and we don't want 'em counting ours. Well, do we?'

'I don't expect we do.'

'Anyway, you won't be in the shop that much. You'll be out and about, trawling Whitehall, making a bloody nuisance of yourself with the fat-cat ministries. Check in a couple of times a week, report to me on progress, fiddle your expenses, that'll be your lot. You still buying it?'

'Not really.'

'Why not?'

'Well, why here, for a start? Why not email me on the ground floor, or call me up on the internal line?'

Hector had never taken easily to criticism, Luke remembered, and he didn't now. 'All right, dammit. Suppose I did email you first. Or called you, what the fuck? Would you buy it then? The Human Queen's offer as it stands, for Christ's sake?'

Too late in the day, a different and more heartening scenario was forming in Luke's mind.

'If you're asking me whether I would accept the Human Queen's offer as it has been presented to me in the letter – asking me notionally – my answer is yes. If you're asking me – notionally, again – whether I'd smell a rat if I found the letter lying on my desk in the office, or on my screen, my answer is no, I wouldn't.'

'Scout's honour?'

'Scout's honour.'

They were interrupted by a ferocious rattle of the door handle, followed by a burst of angry knocks. With a weary 'oh fuck 'em', Hector gestured to Luke to get himself out of sight among the bookshelves, unlocked the door, and shoved his head round it.

'Sorry, old boy, not today, I'm afraid,' Luke heard him say. 'Unofficial stock-taking in progress. Usual fuck-up. Members taking out books and not signing for 'em. Hope you're not one of them. Try Friday. About the first time in my life I've been grateful to be Honorary fucking Librarian,' he continued, not much bothering to lower his voice as he closed the door and relocked it. 'You can come out now. And in case you think I'm the ringleader of a Septembrist plot, you'd better read this letter as well, then shove it back at me and I'll swallow it.'

This envelope was pale blue, and conspicuously opaque. A blue lion and unicorn rampant were finely embossed on the flap. And inside, one matching blue sheet of writing paper, the smallest size, with the portentous printed heading: From the Office of the Secretariat. Dear Luke,

This is to assure you that the very private conversation you are conducting with our mutual colleague over lunch at his club today takes place with my unofficial approval.

Ever, – - then a very small signature which looked as if it had been extracted at gunpoint: William J. Matlock (Head of Secretariat), better known as Billy Boy Matlock – or plain Bully Boy if that was your preference, as it was for those who had fallen foul of him – the Service's longest-standing and most implacable troubleshooter and left-hand man to the Chief himself.

'Load of horseshit, as a matter of fact, but what else can the poor bugger do?' Hector was remarking, as he returned the letter to its envelope and stuffed the envelope into an inside pocket of his mangy sports coat. 'They know I'm right, don't want me to be, don't know what to do if I am. Don't want me pissing into the tent, don't want me pissing out of it. Lock me up and gag me's the only answer, but I don't take kindly to that, never did. Nor did you, by all accounts – why weren't you eaten by tigers or whatever they have out there?'