John Carré - A Delicate Truth

The television still blaring, she came a stride closer.

‘Are you here instead of Jeb ?’ she demanded, straight into his face.

‘Who?’

‘ Jeb . J–E–B.’

‘No. No, I’m not.’

‘Do you know Jeb?’

‘No. I don’t.’

‘Well, Dad does. It’s his big secret. Except Jeb calls him Paul. He was supposed to be here last Wednesday. He didn’t show. You’re in his bed, actually,’ she added, still regarding him with her brown gaze.

On the television, a quiz-show host was whipping up a furore.

‘I don’t know a Jeb, and I’ve never met a Jeb in my life,’ Toby replied in a carefully measured voice. ‘I’m Toby Bell, and I’m Foreign Office.’ And as a calculated afterthought, ‘But I’m also a private person, whatever that means.’

‘So which are you being now?’

‘A private person. Your family’s guest.’

‘But you still don’t know Jeb?’

‘Not as a private person, nor as a Foreign Service official do I know a Jeb. I thought I made that clear.’

‘So why’ve you come?’

‘Your father needs to talk to me. He hasn’t yet said why.’

Her tone eased, but only a little:

‘My mother’s discreet unto death. She’s also ill and doesn’t respond well to stress, which is unfortunate because there’s a lot of it about. So what I’m wondering is, are you here to make things worse or better? Or don’t you know that either?’

‘I’m afraid I don’t.’

‘Does the Foreign Office know you’re here?’

‘No.’

‘But on Monday, it will.’

‘I don’t think you should presume that at all.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because first I need to listen to your father.’

Howls of jubilation from the television set as somebody wins a million pounds.

‘You talk to my father tonight and leave in the morning. Is that the plan?’

‘Assuming we’ve done our business by then.’

‘It’s St Pirran’s turn for Matins. My parents will be on church parade at ten. Dad’s a sidesman or a beadle or something. If you say your goodbyes before they leave for church, you could stay behind and we could compare notes.’

‘So far as we can, I’d be happy to.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘If your father wants to talk confidentially, then I have to respect his confidence.’

‘What about if I want to talk confidentially?’

‘Then I would respect your confidence too.’

‘Ten o’clock then.’

‘Ten o’clock.’

Kit was standing in the hall, clutching a spare anorak:

‘Mind if we do whisky later? Spot of weather coming up.’

They tramped through the drenched walled garden, Kit flourishing an old ash walking stick, Sheba at his heels and Toby struggling after them in a pair of borrowed wellingtons that were too big for him. They followed a towpath lined with bluebells and crossed a rickety bridge marked DANGER. A granite stile gave on to the open hillside. As they climbed, a west wind blew fine rain into their faces. There was a bench on the hilltop, but it was too wet to sit on, so they stood partly facing each other, eyes half closed against the rain.

‘All right up here?’ Kit asked, meaning, presumably: do you mind standing here in the rain?

‘Of course. Love it,’ Toby said politely, and there was a hiatus in which Kit seemed to screw up his courage, then plunge.

‘ Operation Wildlife ,’ he barked. ‘Roaring success, we were told. Drinks all round. Knighthoods for me, promotion for you – what?’

And waited, scowling.

‘I’m sorry,’ Toby said.

‘What for?’

‘I’ve never heard of Operation Wildlife .’

Kit was staring at him, the affability draining from his face. ‘ Wildlife , for Christ’s sake, man! Hugely secret operation! Public-private enterprise to kidnap a high-value terrorist’ – and when Toby still gave no sign of recognition: ‘Look here. If you’re going to deny you ever heard of it, why the devil did you come down here?’

Then stood there glowering, with the rain running down his face, waiting for Toby’s answer.

‘I know you were Paul,’ Toby said, in the same measured tone he had employed with Emily. ‘But I’d never heard of Operation Wildlife until you mentioned it just now. I never saw any papers relating to Wildlife . I never attended meetings. Quinn kept me out of the loop.’

‘But you were his Private Secretary, for Christ’s sake!’

‘Yes. For Christ’s sake, I was his Private Secretary.’

‘How about Elliot? You heard of Elliot ?’

‘Only indirectly.’

‘Crispin?’

‘Yes, I’ve heard of Crispin,’ Toby conceded, in the same level tone. ‘I’ve even met him. And I’ve heard of Ethical Outcomes, if that’s any help.’

‘ Jeb? How about Jeb? Heard of Jeb ?’

‘Jeb is also a name to me. But Wildlife isn’t, and I’m still waiting to know why you asked me to come here.’

If this was supposed to mollify Kit, it had the opposite effect. Jabbing his stick at the dip directly below them, he roared above the wind:

‘I’ll tell you why you’re here. That’s where Jeb parked his bloody van! Down there! Tyre marks till the cows trampled them. Jeb . Leader of our gallant British detachment. The chap they chucked on the scrapheap for telling them the truth. Down on his uppers. And you had no part in any of it, I suppose?’

‘None whatever,’ Toby replied.

‘Then maybe you’ll tell me,’ Kit suggested, his rage abating slightly, ‘before one or other of us goes mad, or we both do: how come you don’t know what Operation Wildlife was about, whereas you do know Paul and Jeb and the rest of them despite the fact that your own minister kept you out of the loop, which I personally find bloody hard to believe? ’

Delivering his simple answer, Toby was surprised to discover that he had undergone no crisis of the soul, only an agreeable sense of catharsis:

‘Because I tape-recorded your meeting with the minister. The one where you said you were his red telephone.’

Kit took a while to absorb this:

‘Why the hell would Quinn do that? I never saw a man so jumpy. Tape his own secret meeting? Why?’

‘He didn’t tape it. I did.’

‘Who for?’

‘Nobody.’

Kit was having trouble making himself believe this:

‘Nobody told you to do it? You did it absolutely on your own. Secretly? With nobody’s permission?’

‘Correct.’

‘What an absolutely bloody filthy thing to do.’

‘Yes. Wasn’t it?’ Toby agreed.

In single file they returned to the house, Kit stomping ahead with Sheba and Toby trailing at a respectful distance.

Heads down, they sat at the long pine table drinking Kit’s best Burgundy and eating Mrs Marlow’s steak-and-kidney pie while Sheba watched covetously from her basket. It was beyond Kit’s powers to neglect his duties as a host, and Toby, whatever his faults might be, was his guest.

‘Don’t envy you bloody Beirut, I will say,’ he said stiffly, replenishing Toby’s glass.

But when, in a spirit of reciprocity, Toby enquired after Kit’s tour of the Caribbean, he was curtly warned off:

‘Not a good subject in this house, I’m afraid. Bit of a sore point.’

After which, they had to make do with Foreign Office chit-chat – who the big guns were these days, and whether Washington might finally come back to the Office, or be given to another outsider. But Kit very quickly lost patience and soon they were scurrying across the stable yard in pouring rain, Kit leading the way with a torch as they skirted piles of sand and granite setts. Then the sweet smell of hay as they passed empty horseboxes on their way to the old saddle room, with its brick walls, high, arched windows, and iron Victorian fireplace, ready laid.