Jason Elliot - The Network

‘Why the approach?’ I ask casually, hoping to disguise my astonishment. ‘Am I a target? There’s not very much that’s secret about the landscaping business. I know some frogs and newts you could recruit.’

‘Don’t be facetious, Ant,’ he says, taking another sip from his glass. ‘We thought you might want to go back to Afghanistan. Courtesy of the Firm this time.’ He studies my reaction. I try not to have one. ‘There’s an op there if you want it. The Chief’s been looking for someone and I’ve managed to convince him that this one’s got your name on it. Think you might want to give it a try? Nobody’s poked around the place as much as you have, or speaks the languages.’ He pauses while the proposition sinks in. ‘You failed the first time and I’m giving you a second chance.’

‘I didn’t fail,’ I say, ‘I opted out.’

‘That’s not quite what your file says, Ant,’ he says with a sceptical tilt of his head. So he’s seen my PF after all. Then his manner changes completely and he looks around the room as if he’s just arrived.

‘Do they do food here?’ he asks loudly.

‘I haven’t got much of an appetite,’ I say.

Seethrough goes to the bar and orders two more beers, and I watch as he engages the barman in conversation, laughing with him as though the two of them are old friends. He has the gift of immense and apparently spontaneous charm. He can convince a complete stranger of nearly anything with what looks like untainted sincerity, and adapt his conversation to whatever subject comes up, even if he knows nothing about it. I can see he’s deliberately misleading the barman with an invented story about his reasons for being in the area, something about buying a yurt for his kids to play in. At the end of this contrived encounter, he reaches into his wallet for a note and hands it over with a theatrical flourish.

As I watch him, my thoughts are shunting back to the chapter I’ve allowed myself to forget. I didn’t fail. I wanted to join the Firm because I’d seen the effects of war first hand and believed that the weaknesses in intelligence that led to conflict could only be shored up by the more diligent use of human assets. I’d gone through the conventional channels, cleared the vetting and selection hurdles, signed Section 5 over tea in a room overlooking the Mall, and sat my qualifying tests in a gloomy office near Admiralty Arch. But the events of my personal life sent me spinning in a different direction. I was in the midst of my divorce at the time and my wife had told me I’d never see my children again if I was posted overseas. I had two young daughters and the prospect of not seeing them was too much. Then my wife had moved back to America with the girls, and my life felt as though it had been cut into small pieces.

When the trap came, I decided to walk into it rather than admit to the ongoing humiliations of my private life. A month after my QTs, while I was still under review, an old friend had contacted me out of the blue. He worked in the City and enjoyed the lifestyle that went with it. He’d introduced me to a new and distracting world, given me flying lessons in his private plane, lent me money and generally raised my spirits. Then came the offer of dinner with a married couple who liked, as he’d put it, to swing.

I’d known it was a set-up, and was deeply disappointed that my prospective employers had managed to persuade a friend to deceive me. The woman propositioned me the same evening, and I’d taken her up on the offer knowing that it would destroy my chances of a career in the Service. She looked a bit like Madonna, I now remember. But an aspiring Intelligence Branch officer can’t afford to be susceptible to sexual entrapment. He might one day be drugged while his computer is searched, or seduced into giving away secrets. The risk is too high. Shortly afterwards a curt letter had informed me that I had no future in the Service. As I’d expected.

‘Sorry,’ says Seethrough, after I briefly explain my motives for sabotaging my own career. ‘I don’t buy it. They assessed you in the old-fashioned way, and you fell for it. Don’t tell me you saw it coming. Nobody outwits the Firm.’

‘I don’t know about that,’ I say. ‘People have been known to run imaginary sources and been paid handsomely for it.’

‘Only if it suits us, Ant. Look. Someone wants you on board and I’m willing to approve it. If you don’t want the op you can forget we ever met and go back to building ponds.’

‘Landscaping,’ I correct him. ‘Ponds are only a part of what I do, but they’re arguably the most fascinating aspect.’

‘Don’t fuck about, Ant. This affects you.’

I enjoy our sparring, but he sounds serious.

‘So where do we go from here?’ I ask.

‘Talk about it outside,’ he says. As he glances at his watch he sees that his shirt cuff is wet with beer, and curses quietly.

‘There’s a sale on at Turnbull and Asser,’ I tell him.

‘Ended last week,’ he corrects me. ‘How would you know, anyway? Can you afford to buy shirts in Jermyn Street? Building homes for newts?’

‘Actually I have them made by my tailor in Rome.’ It isn’t entirely true. I only had the one shirt made because it cost so much.

‘You haven’t changed, Ant,’ he says thoughtfully as we stand up, and for a moment the mask drops and I’m reminded of the young soldier I had so much fun with. ‘But it’s nice to see you.’

We walk through the corridor to the car park, where I unlock Gerhardt. Seethrough climbs into the passenger seat and looks disapprovingly over the dashboard, then tugs absent-mindedly on one of the differential lock levers.

‘What’s wrong with an English car?’ he asks. ‘Why can’t you just have a Land Rover like a normal person?’

I ignore the question, although it’s true I occasionally long for a different car. A later-model version of Gerhardt, with full-time four-wheel drive and electronic centre-diff control.

‘Are you going to tell me about the op or not?’ I ask.

He sighs to himself, as if making way again for the serious side of his personality. He looks at me, and then out of the windscreen towards some far-off place.

‘Not right now. You’re going to go home and carry on as normal, building ponds or doing whatever it is you do. You don’t call anyone, you don’t tell anyone, you don’t write anything down. A week today, you come to Legoland at midday.’

‘Is that what they call it? Legoland?’ A picture of the Secret Intelligence Service headquarters, perched on the lip of the Thames beneath the southern end of Vauxhall Bridge, flashes into my head. It does look a bit like a giant Lego construction.

‘You go to the main entrance,’ says Seethrough, ignoring my interruption, ‘and ask for Macavity at reception. Introduce yourself as Plato, and someone will come for you.’

‘Macavity? Plato? They’re T. S. Eliot’s cats, aren’t they? That’s very original.’

‘Quite,’ he replies, ruffled.

He opens the door and turns to me just before stepping out.

‘And for God’s sake, Ant, just don’t blab about it in the meantime. Otherwise,’ he adds with a schoolteacherish look, ‘Macavity won’t be there.’

He’s alluding to the poem, a fragment of which now returns to me.

You may meet him in a by-street, you may see him in a square

But when a crime’s discovered, Macavity’s not there!

The door bangs shut, and his manner changes again as he gives an uncharacteristically cheerful wave as if seeing off an old friend. For the benefit, I suppose, of whoever he thinks might be watching. Perhaps it’s his habitual tradecraft kicking in. The grey BMW slides quietly and swiftly away like a shark into deep water, and I’m alone again.