John Carré - A Delicate Truth

‘I’m receiving royalty tonight.’

‘Literally?’

‘Figuratively. But probably a damn sight richer.’ Chuckle. ‘You help out with the honours, make your mark, go home. How’s that?’

‘My mark , Minister?’

‘Circles within circles, Tobe. There’s a chance you may be invited aboard a certain very secret ship. I’ll say no more.’

Aboard? Invited by whom ? What ship? Under whose captaincy?

‘May I know the names of your royal visitors, Minister?’

‘Absolutely not ’ – beaming smile of complicity – ‘I’ve spoken to the front gate. Two visitors for the minister at seven. No names, no pack drill. Out by eight thirty, nothing in the book.’

Spoken to the front gate? The man’s got half a dozen underlings at his beck and call, all bursting to speak to the front gate for him.

Returning to the anteroom, Toby rallies the reluctant staff. Judy, social secretary, is provided with a ministerial car and dispatched post-haste to Fortnum’s to buy two bottles of Dom Pérignon, one jar of foie gras, one smoked salmon pâté, a lemon and assorted crispbreads. She’s to use her own credit card and the minister will reimburse. Olivia, the diary secretary, phones the canteen and confirms that two bottles and two jars, contents unstated, can be kept on ice till seven provided it’s all right with Security. Grudgingly, it is. The canteen will supply an ice bucket and pepper. Only when all this is achieved may the remaining staff go home.

Alone at his desk, Toby affects to work. At 6.35 he descends to the canteen. At 6.40 he is back in the anteroom spreading foie gras and smoked salmon pâté on crispbread. At 6.55 the minister emerges from his sanctum, inspects the display, approves it and places himself before the anteroom door. Toby stands behind him, on his left side, thus leaving the ministerial right hand free to greet.

‘He’ll be on the dot. Always is,’ Quinn promises. ‘So will she, the darling. She may be who she is, but she’s got his mindset.’

Sure enough, as Big Ben strikes he hears footsteps approach down the corridor, two pairs, the one strong and slow, the other light and skittish. A man is outstriding a woman. Punctually at the last stroke, a peremptory rap resounds on the anteroom door. Toby starts forward but is too late. The door is thrust open and Jay Crispin enters.

The identification is immediate and definite and so expected as to be anticlimactic. Jay Crispin, in the flesh at last, and high time too. Jay Crispin, who caused an unsung scandal at Defence and will never grace the corridors of Whitehall and Westminster again; who spirited Quinn from the lobby of his grand hotel in Brussels, sat in the front passenger seat of the Citroën sedan that took him to La Pomme du Paradis, breakfasted with him in the ministerial suite and orated from the lectern in Prague: not a ghost, but himself. Just a trim, regular-featured, rather obviously pretty man of no depth: a man, in short, to be seen through at a glance; so why on earth hasn’t Quinn seen through him?

And halfway down Crispin’s left arm, clinging to it with one bejewelled claw, trips a tiny woman in a pink chiffon dress with matching hat and high-heeled shoes with diamanté buckles. Age? It depends which parts of the lady we are talking about, monsieur .

Quinn reverently takes her hand and ducks his heavy boxer’s head over it in a crude half-bow. But Quinn and Crispin are old buddies reunited: see the rugged handshake, the manly shoulder-patting of the Jay-and-Fergus show.

It’s Toby’s turn to be acknowledged. Quinn lavishly to the fore:

‘Maisie, allow me to present my invaluable Private Secretary, Toby Bell . Tobe, kindly pay your respects to Mrs Spencer Hardy of Houston, Texas, better known to the world’s elite as the one and only Miss Maisie .’

A touch like gauze drawn across Toby’s palm. A Deep South murmur of ‘Why hullo there, Mr Bell !’ followed by a vampish cry of ‘Hey, now listen, Fergus, I’m the only belle around here!’ to gusts of sycophantic laughter in which Toby obligingly joins.

‘And Tobe, meet my old friend Jay Crispin. Old friend since – when , for God’s sake, Jay?’

‘Good to meet you, Toby,’ Crispin drawls in upper-end English of the very best sort, taking Toby’s hand in a kinsman’s grasp and, without releasing it, vouchsafing him the sort of sturdy look that says: We’re the men who run the world.

‘And good to meet you ’ – omitting the ‘sir’.

‘And we do what here, exactly?’ – Crispin, still gripping his hand.

‘He’s my Private Secretary, Jay! I told you. Bound to me body and soul and assiduous to a fault. Correct, Tobe?’

‘Pretty new to the job, aren’t we, Toby?’ – finally letting his hand go, but keeping the ‘we’ because they’re these two blokish chaps together.

‘Three months,’ the minister’s voice chimes in again excitedly. ‘We’re twins. Correct, Tobe?’

‘And where were we before, may one enquire?’ – Crispin, sleek as a cat and about as trustworthy.

‘Berlin. Madrid. Cairo,’ Toby replies with deliberate carelessness, fully aware that he’s supposed to be making his mark , and determined not to. ‘Wherever I’m sent, really’ – you’re too fucking close. Get out of my airspace .

‘Tobe was posted out of Egypt just when Mubarak’s little local difficulties started to appear on the horizon, weren’t you, Tobe?’

‘As it were.’

‘See much of the old boy?’ – Crispin enquires genially, his face puckering in earnest sympathy.

‘On a couple of occasions. From a distance’ – mainly I dealt with his torturers .

‘What do you reckon to his chances? Sits uneasy on his throne, from all one hears. Army a broken reed, Muslim Brotherhood rattling at the bars: I’m not sure I’d like to be in poor Hosni’s shoes right now.’

Toby is still hunting for a suitably anodyne reply when Miss Maisie rides to his rescue:

‘ Mr Bell . Colonel Hosni Mubarak is my friend . He is America’s friend, and he was put on earth by God to make peace with the Jews , to fight communism and jihadist terror. Anybody seeking the downfall of Hosni Mubarak in his hour of need is an Iscariot, a liberal and a surrender monkey, Mr Bell.’

‘So how about Berlin ?’ Crispin suggests, as if this outburst has not taken place. ‘Toby was in Berlin , darling. Stationed there. Where we were just days ago. Remember?’ – back to Toby – ‘what dates are we talking here?’

In a wooden voice, Toby recites for him the dates he was in Berlin.

‘What sort of work, actually, or aren’t you allowed to say?’ – innuendo.

‘Jack of all trades, really. Whatever came up,’ Toby replies, with assumed casualness.

‘But you’re straight – not one of them ?’ – tipping Toby the insider’s smile. ‘You must be, or you wouldn’t be here, you’d be the other side of the river’ – knowing glance for the one and only Miss Maisie of Houston, Texas.

‘Political Section, actually. General duties,’ Toby replies in the same wooden voice.

‘Well, I’m damned’ – turning delightedly to Miss Maisie – ‘Darling, the cat’s out of the bag. Young Toby here was one of Giles Oakley’s bright boys in Berlin during the run-up to Iraqi Freedom .’

Boys? Fuck you.

‘Do I know Mr Oakley?’ Miss Maisie enquires, coming closer to give Toby another look.

‘No, darling, but you’ve heard of him. Oakley was the brave chap who led the in-house Foreign Office revolt. Got up the round robin to our Foreign Secretary urging him not to go after Saddam. Did you draft it for him, Toby, or did Oakley and his chums cobble it together all by themselves?’