Gerald Seymour - Condition black

There might be some who rejoiced in the prospect of the collapse of the intelligence-gathering agencies of the Russians and the Czechs and the Poles and the East Germans and the Bulgari-ans, but not everyone was cheering in Curzon Street. It was going to be damn dull without the old friends. Boundary Hall breakfast went on around him. He was ignored. Wouldn't have been ignoring him if they had known he was Curzon Street, but they didn't know and they chattered on.

"… Spain, Portugal, Tenerife, you can keep them. My sister and I, it'll be the 34th year, consecutive, that we've been to Looe.

I've done all the travelling I ever want to. When we came back it was Christmas Island to Honolulu. Honolulu to Vancouver.

Vancouver to Greenland to Brussels. Brussels to London. London to back here. Christmas Island was a real pig of a place. We were in tents for four weeks before the Test. That's no joke, not enough fresh water to keep clean in. Couldn't swim, currents were treacherous, sharks and all out there. Mind you, we had a shark in Cornwall once. .. "

He wondered how often the others had heard it all. If he'd had to share their table morning after morning, he would have hidden himself behind a newspaper or given up breakfast.

Time to go and ring Penny, and then time to go and find out whether Frederick Bissett was a fool or a traitor.

He felt the cold of the barrel against the nape of his neck.

He slipped his hand behind his head, and took the pistol that had been under his pillow while he had slept.

His fingers nestled loosely round the grip. He held the Ruger . 22, and his eyes wavered over the sights towards the bulb in the ceiling. He couldn't be sure that it was the same weapon that had been given him for the hit in London, because all their weapons had the serial smoothed off, but it was a Ruger/MAC Mark I, . 22 calibre, and wavering towards the light bulb was the snake body shape of the integrally silenced barrel.

It was as if it was his reward. Been good, hadn't he? Delivered little Bissett right into their laps so they could fill him with whisky and bullshit, and drop a thousand in notes into his inside pocket.

If it had been the one that he had used in London then they had cleaned it since he had abandoned it in the lock-up garage, and their work was there for him to see, oil on his hands, and oil on the sheet under the pillow.

He put the Ruger into an unmarked plastic bag. He took out two magazines, unloaded them and slowly loaded them again and then wiped the 20 or so Long Rifle hollow-point bullets that were spare, folded them back into the dishtowel and put them into the plastic bag. It would go everywhere with him. Meanwhile he would wait for the call. The call might come that day, might not.

Might come the next day, might not.

Nothing more to it, than to wait for Frederick Bissett to make contact again.

Rutherford knocked. He stood in the corridor outside H3/2, holding his sheaf of papers behind his back. The door opened.

Bissett was a mess. He had cut the edge of his nostril shaving and there was still a staunching peck of cottonwool on the wound.

His hair wasn't combed. His shirt was unironed.

"Good morning, Dr Bissett. Could I come in, please?"

"Who are you? I'm sorry, I don't know… "

"My name's Rutherford, James Rutherford."

He could see into the office. More confusion. Paper on the floor and over the desk, and around the console, and covering two of the chairs.

"I don't know who you are."

" M r Boll said you would be willing to spare me a few minutes."

Rutherford walked in. The door was closed behind him. He looked around him. He had been careful not to step on any of the print-out sheets.

"What can I do for you?"

Rutherford smiled his ingratiating smile. "You could find me somewhere to sit, Dr Bissett… "

He thought the man had scarcely slept the night before. He had dark grey shadows under his eyes, and his cheeks were pale as death.

Bissett cleared the papers off one of the chairs.

"A few minutes, what for? I've got rather a lot on, well, as you can see."

It would be a brisk interview, that was how Rutherford had planned it over breakfast. Businesslike, straight to the point, no introductory chat.

Bissett had his back to him, was picking his way through the paper minefield, towards the chair behind his desk.

" D r Bissett, I'm from the Security Service… "

The man froze for several seconds and when he reached his desk and turned, the man looked pole-axed.

"… I'm here to deal with your attempt to take classified documents off Establishment premises…"

Bissctt put his hand on his desk, as if to steady himself. He seemed to topple into his chair

"I've… surely, that's… already…"

"Your Security Officer called us in."

"I was told, my department head, Boll, that is, told me it was all finished, cleared up." A wind-blown reed of a voice.

"How would you rate the material in the files you were attempting to take out?"

"We've been through all this, for heaven's sake. It's low-grade, my own work."

"Dealing with what exactly?"

It was as if, all of a sudden, some confidence returned to the man. " D o you understand nuclear physics?"

"I don't."

"Then you won't understand the interaction of a fission explosion."

"I don't, no."

"Then there is not a great deal of point in my explaining the material contained in those papers. Anyone here will tell you it was low-grade."

"Have you ever been approached, Dr Bissett?"

"Approached? I beg your pardon. I don't know… "

" Y o u don't need to be a nuclear physicist to know what that means. Have you ever been approached by an outsider, anyone outside the Establishment, for information concerning your work?"

"That's ridiculous."

"Just answer the question. Yes or no?"

Rutherford thought the man was hyperventilating. Straight question. Should be a straight answer…

" N o. "

"If you were to be approached, Dr Bissett, what would be your reaction?"

"That's hypothetical."

"Then hypothesize… "

"I suppose, well, I'd go, you know, I'd go to the Security Officer."

"But you haven't been approached?"

"I have not."

Rutherford watched Bissett's hands. Bissett's hands were moist. He watched Bissett's lips. The tongue was flicking. If he hadn't been from Curzon Street he might have thought there was something to be made of damp hands and dry lips. But he had learned that the very mention of the Security Service frightened perfectly innocent people into irrational anxiety, even outright fear.

" H o w are your personal finances, Doctor Bissett?"

" M y what?"

" Y o u r personal finances." Good grief, the man was an imbecile.

" I work here… "

"I know that. Just answer the question."

" I f you worked here, then you'd understand. We happen to live in the most affluent part of the country… Don't you work for the government, Mr… I didn't catch your name?"

" D o you have an overdraft, Dr Bissett?"

" D o I have an overdraft?"

" Y e s or no…? "

" Y e s, I have an overdraft. Is this the sort of question you. .."

There was a pattern emerging. It didn't matter one way or the other to Rutherford whether Bissett said he had an overdraft or whether he did not. The pattern was more interesting. Every question bred a return question. Not too much to read into it, that the man threw questions back at him, buying him space to think. Interesting. .. He glanced down at his notes. He had the transcript of a telephone call in front of him.

"Were you at home last night, Dr Bissett?"

"Where was I? "

"Were you at home, Dr Bissett."

"When…?"

"Last night."

" N o. "

"Where were You?"