John Carré - A Delicate Truth

‘And what, so far as you are aware, is Stormont-Taylor’s business with your nice new master?’

‘Quinn doesn’t trust government lawyers, so he consults Stormont-Taylor for an independent opinion.’

‘And on what particular matter, do you happen to know, does Quinn consult the bold and beautiful Stormont-Taylor, who happens also to be an intimate of Jay Crispin?’

A fraught silence while Toby asks himself just who is being held to account here – Quinn or himself.

‘How the fuck should I know?’ he demands irritably – to which Oakley offers only a sympathetic ‘How indeed?’

The silence returns.

‘ So , Giles,’ Toby announces finally, ever the first to break on such occasions.

‘So what , dear man?’

‘ Who the hell – or what the hell – is Jay Crispin in the scheme of things?’

Oakley pulls a sigh and shrugs. When he offers a reply, it comes in grudging fragments:

‘Who’s anybody ?’ he demands of the world at large, and breaks into grumpy telegramese. ‘Third son of a posh Anglo-American family. Best schools. Sandhurst at second attempt. Ten years of bad soldiering. Retirement at forty. We’re told voluntary, but one doubts it. Bit of City. Dumped. Bit of spying. Dumped. Sidles up alongside our burgeoning terror industry. Rightly observes that defence contractors are on a roll. Smells the money. Goes for it. Hullo, Ethical Outcomes and Miss Maisie. Crispin charms people,’ he goes on in puzzled indignation. ‘All sorts of people, all the time. God alone knows how. Granted, he does a lot of bed. Probably goes in both directions – good luck to him. But bed doesn’t last the whole drink through, does it?’

‘No, it doesn’t,’ Toby agrees, his mind darting uncomfortably to Isabel.

‘So tell me,’ Oakley continues, executing yet another unannounced change of direction. ‘What possessed you to spend precious hours of the Queen’s time trawling through Legal Department’s archives and pulling out files on such obscure places as Grenada and Diego Garcia?’

‘My minister’s orders,’ Toby retorts, refusing to be surprised any longer either by Oakley’s omniscience or his penchant for dealing questions from the bottom of the pack.

‘Orders delivered to you personally?’

‘Yes. He said I should prepare a paper on their territorial integrity. Without the knowledge of Legal Department or the special advisors. Actually, without the knowledge of anyone’ – now that he came to think of it. ‘Classify it top secret, bring it to him by Monday 10 a.m. without fail.’

‘And you prepared such a paper?’

‘At the cost of a weekend, yes.’

‘Where is it?’

‘Spiked.’

‘Meaning?’

‘My paper went out on submission, didn’t have the traction and was spiked. According to Quinn.’

‘Do you mind treating me to a short precis of its contents?’

‘It was just a résumé. The alphabet. An undergraduate could do it.’

‘Then tell me the alphabet. I’ve forgotten it.’

‘In 1983, following the assassination of Grenada’s leftist president, the Americans invaded the island without our say-so. They called the operation Urgent Fury . The fury was mainly ours.’

‘How come?’

‘It was our patch. A former British colony, now a member of the Commonwealth.’

‘And the Americans invaded it. Shame on them. Go on.’

‘The American spies – your beloved Suburb – had fantasies that Castro was about to use Grenada’s airport as a launch pad. It was bullshit. The Brits had helped build the airport and weren’t best pleased to be told it was a threat to America’s lifeblood.’

‘And our response, in a word?’

‘We told the Americans, please be so good as never to do anything like that again on our turf without our permission in advance, or we’ll be even more cross.’

‘And they told us ?’

‘To go fuck ourselves.’

‘And did we?’

‘The American point was well taken’ – resorting to sarcastic Foreign Office mode. ‘Our grip on our Crown territories is so tenuous that the State Department considers it’s doing us a favour by acknowledging it. They only do it when it suits them, and in the case of Grenada it didn’t suit them.’

‘So go fuck ourselves again?’

‘Not quite. They rowed back and an entente was hacked out.’

‘To what effect, this entente? Go on.’

‘In future, if the Americans were going to do something dramatic on our turf – a special op under the guise of going to the assistance of the oppressed inhabitants, et cetera – they had to ask us nicely first, get our approval in writing, invite us to be part of the action and share the product with us at the end of the day.’

‘By product, you mean intelligence.’

‘I do, Giles. That’s what I mean. Intelligence by another name.’

‘And Diego Garcia?’

‘Diego Garcia was the template.’

‘For what?’

‘Oh for God’s sake, Giles!’

‘I am unencumbered by background knowledge. Kindly tell me exactly what you told your nice new master.’

‘Ever since we obligingly depopulated Diego Garcia for them back in the sixties, the Americans have our permission to use it as a convenience for their blind-eye operations, but only on our terms.’

‘The blind eye being in this case a British one, I take it.’

‘Yes, Giles. I see I can get nothing past you. Diego Garcia remains a British possession, so it’s still a British blind eye. You know that much, I trust?’

‘Not necessarily.’

It is a principle of Giles when negotiating never to express the smallest satisfaction. Toby has watched him apply it in Berlin. Now he is watching him apply it to Toby.

‘Did Quinn discuss the finer aspects of your paper with you?’

‘There weren’t any.’

‘Come. It would only be courteous. What about the application of the Grenada experience to more substantial British possessions?’

Toby shakes his head.

‘So he didn’t discuss with you, even in the broadest brush, the rights and wrongs of an American intrusion into British Crown territory? On the basis of what you had unearthed for him?’

‘Not even.’

A stage pause, of Oakley’s making.

‘Does your paper point a moral?’

‘It limps to a conclusion, if that’s what you mean.’

‘Which is?’

‘That any unilateral action by the Americans on British-owned territory would have to have a British fig leaf for cover. Otherwise, it would be no go.’

‘Thank you, Toby. So what or who, I wonder, in your personal judgement, sparked this enquiry?’

‘Honestly, Giles, I’ve no idea.’

Oakley raises his eyes to Heaven, lowers them, sighs:

‘Toby. Dear man. A busy minister of the Crown does not instruct his gifted young Private Secretary to burrow his way through dry-as-dust archives in search of precedent without first sharing his game plan with said underling.’

‘This one fucking well does !’

And there you have Giles Oakley, the consummate poker player. He springs to his feet, tops up Toby’s Calvados, sits back and declares himself content.

‘So tell me’ – all-confiding now that they are at ease with each other again – ‘what on earth does one make of your nice new master’s bizarre request of the Office’s hard-pressed Human Resources Department?’

And when Toby protests yet again – but meekly this time because, after all, they are so relaxed – that he hasn’t a clue what Oakley is talking about, he is rewarded with a satisfied chuckle.

‘For a low flyer , Toby! Come! He’s looking for a low flyer by yesterday. You must know that! He’s got half our resourceful humanoids standing on their heads, looking for the right fellow. They’ve been calling round the houses, asking for recommendations.’