Gerald Seymour - Home Run

That's the truth, Eshraq, and don't ever forget it."

Charlie smiled. He fished his keys from his pocket.

"You're welcome to sleep on the floor."

"I prefer my car."

"Are you married?"

"What's that to you?"

"Just assumed you hadn't a home to go to."

"My instructions are to stay close to you until you go over the border."

"I asked if you were married."

" I was."

"What broke it?"

"If it's any of your business… you broke it."

The Director General was at the Joint Intelligence Committee, the Deputy Director General was on his way back from the country. Of all the many hundreds who worked on the nineteen floors and the basement at Century they were the only two who had an overall picture of Furniss' case. Both would be at their desks by the late morning of Monday, neither was available for the fast reaction that was needed to co-ordinate a jumble of information originating from differing sources.

There was Carter's call from Albury on Sunday that had been logged by the Duty Officer. There was the monitoring of a short wave radio message in Oman that required immediate response. There was a report, brought by a Turkish lorry driver to Dogubeyezit, and from there telephoned to Ankara.

Related matters, but early on that Monday morning, as the building strove without enthusiasm to throw off lethargy, those matters remained unrelated. The transcript of Henry Carter's message was passed to the Director General's PA.

The short wave radio message ended on the desk of a man with the title of Special Services (Armed Forces) Liaison. The communication from Ankara lay in the In tray of the Desk Head (Near East).

Later, a sub-committee would be set up to examine means of ensuring that all crucial intelligence was distributed at once to the desks that were available to deal with it. There had been sub-committees with that brief as long as the old hands could remember.

Faced with the absence of the Director General and his deputy, the SS(AF)L officer took a car across the Thames to the Ministry of Defence, to ask a rare favour of old Navy chums.

They went on the morning flight.

Charlie's ticket was one way, Park's a return. They flew Tourist class. They didn't have to talk on the flight because Charlie slept. Park couldn't sleep, not with the stiffness settling in after a cramped night in the back of the Escort. He was grateful that Eshraq slept, because he'd had his bellyful of small talk.

It had started with a police phone tap on a dealer, but Parrish didn't tell them that, nor did he tell April team that there had been all but blood on the carpet when the NDIU had passed it from police control to ID. His style was matter of fact. He showed no signs of having had about the worst weekend he could remember since joining Customs and Excise. It would have been a passable weekend if his wife hadn't pitched in with her opinions, and her report… He told it as he knew it. The dealer's supplier was a Turk who operated out of the port of Izmir. The scag would be Iranian and across the land border and into Turkey, and then overland to Izmir. He had the name of the ship out of Izmir, and its route was via Naples.

It was known that Naples, information provided by the Drugs Enforcement Agency, was a pick-up point for a consignment of Italian pinewood furniture. The assumption was that the scag would be coming into Southampton Docks all tucked up with the table legs. April would be there in force. He would be there himself, along with Harlech and Corinthian and Token and the new kid from Felixstowe who had joined them that day and who hadn't yet a codename which meant thai they'd call him Extra, and there would be back-up from Southampton ID. Parrish said that it was good they had the dealer spoken for, and the supplier, but that they wanted the distributor. He reckoned the distributor would show at Southampton. They'd be going down that morning, and he didn't know when they'd be back, so they'd better have their clean socks with them. There were the jokes about the cars from the depot being clapped out, and the Vodaphones not working, all the usual crap… He was pretty pleased that they'd another investigation to latch on to so soon, and better still to get them out of London. Those of April who were not going to Southampton would be for the delights of Bethnal Green, chez the dealer, and for the banks where he had his accounts. The ship was coming in that night, was already down the Channel with a Brixham pilot on board, so could they get their backsides off their seats, please.

He'd finished. His finger snaked out, pointed to Duggie Williams. He gestured towards the inner office, and headed there.

He sat at the desk. He let Harlech stand. He'd get it off his chest. He thought April was the best team in the Lane, and he was damned if he'd see it broken.

"Saturday night, Duggie, that was insufferable."

"She asked for it."

"You only had to take her home, drop her."

"How did you know?"

"I know, but if I hadn't known, I'd have read it all over your face."

"She was ready for it."

"She was the wife of your colleague."

"I didn't start the dumping."

"He's your brother-in-arms, for heaven's sake."

"He's a prig and a bore and he doesn't keep his missus happy. Sorry, Bill, no apologies."

"If I catch you round there again… "

"You going to sit on the doorstep?"

"… you're back in uniform."

"She was the unhappiest woman I've ever poked, and she's a good kid. And where is our brother-in-arms?"

"Don't know. Don't know where he is, what he's got himself into.. .. Lose yourself."

"The DG rang, Mattie, he's just back from the Joint Intelligence session. He wanted you to know that your praises were sung to the roof."

"Thank you, much appreciated."

"And I'm to tell you that you're being put up for a gong."

"I thought those sort of things were supposed to be a surprise."

"Be the Order of the British Empire, Mattie. I expect the DG wanted to cheer you a bit."

"Why, Henry, do I need cheering?"

"Your agent in Tabriz… Revolutionary Guards beat us to him."

"And what exactly are you implying?"

"Which comes on top of your man in Tehran, also not reached, also gone absent, although we don't know for certain that he was arrested. We do know it of the man in Tabriz."

"I'll tell you what I think. I think that I was compromised from the time that I landed in the Gulf. I think that I was trailed right the way across the Gulf, right the way to Ankara and on to Van. I think I was set up from the start… What's happened to my man in Bandar Abbas?"

"Making a run for it tonight. Navy are going to try and pick him up at sea. I think that's rather dodgy. He knows they are watching him."

"I told you. I gave their names. Looking back on it, on the moment that I knew, knew absolutely that my cover was a farce, was when the investigator asked me what I had been doing all round the Gulf. He practically gave me the addresses I had been at, starting in Bahrain. I wish you'd get someone on to this at once, see just who is in and out of that Service wing. But yes, what must have been two weeks later, I did give their names. But what I can't get over is the utter uselessness – it makes me sick to think of it – of day upon day of torture while the Service twiddles its thumbs and now you come moping in here and say alas, we've lost another agent.

Lost, for God's sake, Henry, not lost, thrown away."

Henry said, "I'm on your side, Mattie, and was from the very start. No professional would have let it happen. I've told you that. But I'd like to leave the gaol now, come back to it later, and we'll certainly do as you say about the Bahrain station. I want to talk this afternoon about the actual escape… "

They sat either side of the unlit fire, and Henry was mother and poured the tea.