Alexander McCall Smith - The Dog Who Came In From The Cold

Dee opened the door to him when he reached the landing. As he came in, she bent forwards to give him a kiss. James winced.

“I’m not going to bite,” said Dee.

James was embarrassed. “I know that.”

“Then why not let me give you a little kiss? Caroline won’t be jealous.”

James blushed. “I don’t normally kiss,” he said. “It’s not just you. I don’t like all this kissing that goes on. Why not just shake hands?”

Dee laughed. “I won’t kiss you if you don’t want me to,” she said. “Anyway, come in.”

She took him into the kitchen, where she had been sitting at the table tackling a newspaper sudoko. James noticed that the puzzle was marked extremely easy.

“If you took ginkgo-what’s-its-name you’d be able to do difficult sudokos,” he said. “In fact, why don’t you sell ginkgo in little bottles marked Sudoko Remedy?”

Dee stared at him. “That’s a rather good idea,” she said.

“I wasn’t serious,” said James. “Just a joke.”

“No,” said Dee quickly. “It’s not a joke, James – it’s a really good idea. That’s exactly what they’ve done with echinacea, isn’t it?”

James was not sure what they had done with echinacea.

“They sell it as protection from infection while you’re travelling,” Dee explained. “Then they sell it as a protection against flu. And so on. It’s the same basic stuff, of course – it simply boosts your immune system. But you can package it in a hundred different ways.”

“Well,” said James. “I didn’t know about that. But will people who do sudokos want help? If they did, then surely they could just put the figures into their computers and the computers would come up with the solution.”

Dee shook her head. “That’s not the way they think,” she said. “People who do puzzles want to solve them themselves.”

James was not so sure. “So what about those gadgets that help with crosswords? You put in a couple of letters and it comes up with the solution for you.”

“No self-respecting crossword person uses one of those,” said Dee. “But every self-respecting crossword person would be quite happy to take something to help get their mind in gear. A cup of coffee, for instance. That would not be cheating. Neither would some ginkgo.” She paused. “And we could market a Crossword Remedy too.”

James smiled. “You’d get very rich,” he said. He looked at his watch. “Where’s Caroline?”

“She’s gone to a party,” Dee replied. “Or I think that’s what she said. Something about a drinks party. I wasn’t paying much attention.”

“But she’s meant to be having dinner with me,” said James. “We made a date over the phone.”

Dee shrugged. “Well, maybe she’s forgotten. I did that once, you know. Maybe she needs to take some ginkgo.”

“It’s not funny. I’m cooking dinner for her. Here. And she’s gone to a party.”

Dee’s instinct was to protect her flatmate. “Maybe I got it wrong,” she said. “I wasn’t really listening.”

“Well, she’s not here, is she?” said James. “She’s stood me up.”

“Oh come on, James. Anybody can get dates mixed up. I remember once—”

James interrupted her. “Something that’s arranged a week or two ahead, yes, you can forget about that sort of thing if you don’t put it in your diary. But not the same day.”

“Oh. Well,” said Dee.

James looked at his watch again. “It’s really inconsiderate. I was going to cook something and then we were going to watch a DVD together.” He paused. “Are you doing anything, Dee?”

Dee thought quickly. She would love to have dinner with James. She had nothing in the fridge except a small piece of cheddar and a tub of yoghurt. Anything would be better than that.

“Not really. Why?”

“I’ll take you out to dinner,” said James. “We could go to the Poule au Pot.”

“The Poule au Pot!” She had walked past the restaurant many times but of course she had never been able to go inside. Dee was permanently hard-up, and a meal out, even in a much more modest restaurant, was a rare treat for her.

“Yes,” said James. “Let’s go and see if they can take us. If they can’t, I know somewhere else. There’s a really nice Greek restaurant ten minutes away. Would that suit you?”

Anything would suit Dee, who felt only a slight pang of doubt as she went into her room to change. It’s her fault, she thought. She takes James for granted – anybody can tell that. If he belonged to me, I wouldn’t do that. I’d spoil him. I’d do everything for him. I’d make him really happy.

They left the flat and walked the short distance to the restaurant. It was not a busy night, as it happened, and a table was quickly found. They sat down, and James ordered a bottle of wine. Then, while waiting for their starters to appear, James said, “I’m really cross with Caroline, you know.”

Dee looked around her at the room. She was basking in the pleasure of being out for dinner, in an expensive restaurant, with somebody as good-looking and as generally nice as James. She turned her gaze to him.

“I don’t blame you,” she said quietly. “Poor you.”

When William awoke the following morning, he did so with the realisation that this was a significant day. But it was one of those realisations, only too common, when the actual reason for the day’s significance fails to come immediately to mind. So might a politician, on the morning of his inauguration into high office, awake with a feeling that something was about to happen, but, in that curious stage between drowsiness and full wakefulness, not remember what lay ahead; or so might a prisoner, facing release after long years of incarceration, forget that the front door to freedom would open for him within hours. Yes, something important was due to happen, but what was it? It took a moment or two for him to remember: today was the day that he was due to meet his contact, following the instructions he had received.

Ever since the surprise visit from Angelica Brockelbank, former bookshop owner and now employee of MI6, William had been puzzling over the implications of what she had said. Although she had not been reticent in admitting that she worked in intelligence, and had been direct in her suggestion that MI6 wanted William to do something for them, she had been coy about saying exactly what it was.

“We can’t talk too openly here,” she had said, glancing about her at William’s kitchen, as if to imply that their conversation might be overheard.

William had been tempted to laugh. “What do you mean by that?” he asked. “Are you suggesting my flat’s bugged?”

Angelica looked at him with complete seriousness; she had not been joking – not at all. “You’d be astonished,” she said. “If I were to give you a list – even a highly abbreviated one – of the places in this city that are bugged, you’d be utterly astonished.”

William looked at her with amusement. These cloak and dagger people, he thought – too much imagination. On the other hand, there had been those journalists who had hacked into the telephones of prominent people. How dare they? They did not even have the excuse of protecting national security – which Angelica and her people could at least advance; they had been motivated by pure salacious interest or, in some cases, a desire to humiliate and embarrass public figures.

“But people’s private houses …” William began.

Angelica smiled. “An Englishman’s home is his castle? Not any more, William, not under our current masters. Remember that these are the people who want to keep a record of every mobile phone call, every single email you send, no matter how banal. The authorities want to know about it. They really do.”