‘No,’ he responded, aware that the tone of his voice suggested he thought the answer obvious.
He needn’t have worried about giving offence. Shining merely smiled. It was a soft, indulgent smile, the sort you’d offer to a child who has just expressed disbelief that men ever walked on the moon. ‘You will,’ he said, ‘unless you’re foolhardy.’ He winked. ‘And I don’t think you are.’
There was the beep of a phone and Shining ferreted in his pocket. Swiping at the screen of his phone he peered through his glasses at the text message and gave a quiet chuckle. ‘And maybe this will help us decide one way or the other,’ he said.
He wandered out of the room only to reappear shrugging on a long overcoat. ‘Come on then,’ he said, ‘let’s begin your education.’
d) Piccadilly Line, Southbound for King’s Cross, London
They were underneath the city and Shining was still saying things Toby wasn’t sure he wanted to hear.
‘Of course,’ he said. His lips were close to Toby’s ear so he could be heard over the noisy line, like a devil perched on his shoulder whispering confidences. ‘In the ’60s everybody had a section like ours. Those were the days! Budgets as over-inflated as the nation’s paranoia. There was nothing in which we couldn’t believe.
‘I was brought on straight out of Cambridge,’ Shining continued, ‘selected because of a frankly awful thesis about the philosophical implications of time travel.’ He rolled his eyes. ‘You could write about any old twaddle then and some fool would give you a doctorate.’
The train drew to a halt at Turnpike Lane and a large man clambered aboard, balancing himself against a tatty shopping trolley. He took one look at Toby and Shining and waddled to the far end of the carriage, ignoring the empty seats next to them.
‘It obviously impressed somebody,’ Shining continued, ‘because I was running a whole section within twelve months. Organising a network of forty or so agents, funnelling cash into research on everything from remote viewing to the living dead.’
‘The living dead,’ Toby repeated, dreamily and involuntarily, like a hypnotised man minutes away from swaggering around the stage in the belief he had transformed into a chicken.
‘I know, ridiculous, though intelligence suggested the Russians cracked it.’ Shining tugged at the crease in his trousers, ever the dandy. ‘They always were so much better funded, even back then.’
Toby slowly became aware that the other passengers were all moving further down the carriage, leaving the half that he and Shining were sitting in completely empty.
‘Then the ’70s came,’ said Shining, ‘and everything was budget cuts and a new broom. If you didn’t fit the new, leaner Service, then your section was closed and you were folded in somewhere else. If I hadn’t saved Harold Wilson’s neck – literally – from that bastard Romanian and his perverse clan, I would have suffered the fate of everyone else. As it is I operate under a special sanction. Section 37 will continue to operate while its Section Chief, that would be me, continues to draw breath.’
‘Better look after yourself then,’ Toby said, staring at the other passengers. However brazen his stare, they didn’t seem to be aware of it. Or aware of him at all.
‘Well, that was rather the problem,’ Shining agreed, ‘they might not have been able to close me down but they could make it as hard as possible for me to function. One old man in an office kept right on the periphery of the city, struggling to run a network and still manage to file a report or three. I must admit I was surprised to receive your transfer order.’
‘You and me both.’
‘I imagine it was processed without those further up the rungs of state noticing. I can only guess what Sir Robin will make of it when he hears; the word is bound to filter up to his rarefied peak of Whitehall soon enough.’
‘Sir Robin?’ Toby couldn’t take his eyes off the other passengers. Several times now he had caught one or other of them looking directly at him and Shining. Their eyes registered no response of any kind; they were the vague stares of listless travellers working their way through the adverts for mobile phones and holidays.
‘One of my more forthright opponents,’ Shining replied, ‘God knows why, took a dislike to me and has made life awkward ever since. I’m sure he’ll be borderline psychotic once he hears the section staff allocation has doubled.’
This roused Toby. ‘So, presumably he’ll be eager to stick the knife in my career, too?’
‘My dear boy,’ Shining replied, ‘if you had a career they would hardly have sent you to me now, would they? You haven’t a thing to lose.’
How depressing, thought Toby, to have finally hit rock bottom. He went back to surveying the other passengers. One young woman was gazing right at him, eyes glazed, attention miles away. Toby stared right back. Then, just for fun, he pulled a face at her. She didn’t respond. So he couldn’t even offend someone on the Tube, something he’d always thought one of the easiest things to do in London.
e) 63 Sampson Court, King’s Cross, London
They emerged from the tunnels into the gleaming tiles and unrestrained panic of King’s Cross. Everywhere you looked people were either running with cases or tutting at those who were.
‘We’ll cut through St. Pancras,’ Shining suggested. ‘It’s quicker.’
Now away from the strange atmosphere of the train carriage, Toby was thinking over some of what Shining had said. He couldn’t decide how to respond to any of it. On the one hand, Shining was charming, gentle and entirely believable. On the other, he was alluding to things that simply could not be true. Toby could hardly decide whether he was in the company of a joker or a lunatic. It made matters more difficult that his new Section Chief seemed clearly neither.
‘How long have you been on your own?’ Toby ventured, as it seemed the least provocative of all the possible questions that had occurred to him.
Shining stopped abruptly, forcing a family to halt and filter either side of him like a river working its way past an awkwardly-placed rock. ‘That’s a question,’ he said. ‘I had a secretary on work placement at some point in the early ’80s. Sandra. She ran screaming from the building before lunchtime on her third day. I never saw her again.’ He continued walking. ‘Though I did give her the best work review I could muster after so little time in her company.’
So Section 37 had been a one-man band for nearly thirty years? It was no wonder that Shining seemed strange. Anyone would develop eccentricities over that time.
And yet, again, he was forced to admit that Shining didn’t act strangely. He said strange things but that was not at all the same.
Studying him as they passed by the announcement board of St Pancras International and on towards the Midland Road exit, Toby decided he had never seen a more centred and controlled man in his life. Despite his age, Shining moved with a grace and delicacy that Toby could only dream of. He was smart to the point of fastidiousness, groomed and scented in the natural way of a man with class rather than an urge to sell used vehicles. He was, quite simply, exactly the sort of man Toby wished himself to be, albeit with an extra thirty or forty years on the clock.
Shining pushed through the glass doors that led outside, dropping a coin into a homeless man’s hat as he passed.
‘Thanks, Mr. Shining,’ the man replied, before looking expectantly towards Toby. Toby mumbled about his lack of change, stuffing his hands in his pockets to muffle the sound of jangling as he jogged across the road behind the old man.
‘So,’ he said, once they were side by side again, ‘where are we going?’