‘Whatever they’re plotting, Toby, you are not to join it. You hear something, you take note, you text me on the cellphone number you already have. Marginally that will be more secure than email. Say you’ve been jilted by your girlfriend and need to weep on my shoulder, or some such nonsense.’ And as if he hasn’t made his point strongly enough: ‘You do not on any account become part of it, Toby. You agree to nothing, you sign nothing. You do not become an accessory in any way.’
‘But accessory to what, Giles, for pity’s sake?’
‘If I knew, you’d be the last person I’d tell. Crispin looked you over and mercifully didn’t care for what he saw. I repeat: count yourself lucky you didn’t pass the test. If it had gone the other way, God alone knows where you might have ended up.’
The cab arrives. Extraordinarily, Oakley holds out his hand. Toby takes it and discovers that it is damp with sweat. He releases it and climbs into the cab. Oakley taps on the window. Toby lowers it.
‘It’s all prepaid,’ Oakley blurts. ‘Just give him a pound tip. Don’t pay twice, whatever you do, dear man.’
*
‘A quickie, Master Toby, sir, of your goodness.’
Somehow, a whole week has passed. Isabel’s resentment at Toby’s neglect has erupted into sullen fury. His apologies – abject, but distracted – have further incensed her. Quinn has shown himself equally intractable, now fawning on Toby for no good reason, now cutting him dead, now vanishing without explanation for an entire day and leaving him to pick up the pieces.
And on the Thursday in the lunch hour, a strangled call from Matti:
‘That game of squash we never had.’
‘What about it?’
‘It didn’t happen.’
‘I thought we’d already agreed that.’
‘Just checking,’ said Matti, and rang off.
Now it’s ten o’clock in the morning of yet another Friday and the familiar summons Toby has been dreading has rung out over the internal phone.
Is the Champion of the Working Classes about to pack him off to Fortnum’s for more Dom Pérignon? Or is he shaping up to tell him that, appreciative as he is of Toby’s talents, he proposes to replace him with a low flyer and wants to give Toby the weekend to recover from the shock?
The big mahogany door ajar as before. Enter, close, and – anticipating Quinn’s command – lock. Quinn at his desk, looking like ministerial thunder. His officious voice, the one he uses for gravitas on Newsnight. The Glaswegian accent all but forgotten:
‘I fear I am about to interfere with your plans for a mini-break with your significant other, Toby,’ he announces, managing to imply that Toby has only himself to blame. ‘Is that going to cause you major problems?’
‘None at all, Minister,’ Toby replies, mentally saying goodbye to a brief getaway in Dublin, and probably to Isabel as well.
‘I happen to be under considerable pressure to hold an extremely secret meeting here tomorrow. In this very room. A meeting of the highest national importance.’
‘You wish me to attend it, Minister?’
‘Far from it. On no account may you attend, thank you. You’re not cleared; your presence is in no way desirable. Don’t take that personally. However, once again I wish your assistance in making the advance preparations. No champagne this time, alas. No foie gras either.’
‘I understand.’
‘I doubt it. However, for the meeting that has been thrust upon me, certain exceptional security measures require to be taken. I wish you, as my Private Secretary, to take them for me.’
‘Of course.’
‘You sound puzzled. Why?’
‘Not puzzled, Minister. It’s just – if your meeting is so secret, why does it have to be held in this room at all? Why not outside the Office altogether? Or in the soundproof room upstairs?’
Quinn jerks up his heavy head, scenting insubordination, then consents to answer:
‘Because my very insistent visitor – visitors plural, actually – are in a position to call the shots, and it is my bounden duty as minister to deliver. Are you up for it, or do I look for someone else?’
‘Entirely up for it, Minister.’
‘Very well. You know, I take it, a certain side door leading into this building from Horse Guards? For the tradesmen and non-classified deliveries? A green metal door with bars in front of it?’
Toby knows the door but, not being what the Man of the People calls a tradesman, hasn’t had occasion to use it.
‘You know the ground-floor corridor that leads to it? Beneath us now, as we stand here? Two floors down?’ – losing patience – ‘As you come in by the main doors, for God’s sake, on the right-hand side of the lobby. You pass it every day. Yes?’
Yes, he knows the corridor, too.
‘Tomorrow morning, Saturday, my guests – my visitors, all right? – whatever they want to call themselves’ – the note of resentment now becoming a refrain – ‘will arrive at that side entrance in two parties. Separately. One after the other. In short order. Still with me?’
‘Still with you, Minister.’
‘I’m glad. From 11.45 to 13.45 hours precisely – for those two hours only, got it? – that side entrance will be unmanned. No member of security staff will be on duty for those one hundred and twenty minutes. All video cameras and other security devices covering that side entrance, and the route from that side entrance to this room, will be rendered inert. Deactivated. Switched off. For those two hours only. I’ve fixed it all personally. You don’t have to do anything on that front, so don’t even try. Now follow me closely.’
The minister raises a squat, muscular palm to Toby’s face and demonstratively tweaks the little finger with the thumb and index finger of the other hand:
‘On your arrival tomorrow morning at 10 a.m. you go straight to Security Department and confirm that my instruction to vacate and unlock the side entrance and turn off all surveillance systems has been duly noted and is about to be complied with.’
Ring finger. The gold ring very thick, with the cross of St Andrew embossed in bold blue.
‘At 11.50 a.m. you proceed to the external side entrance by way of Horse Guards and enter the building by means of the said door, which has been unlocked in accordance with my instructions to Security Department. You then advance along the ground-floor corridor, establishing en route that the corridor and the rear staircase leading up from it are in no way occupied or obstructed. Still with me?’
Middle finger:
‘You then make your way at your usual pace and, acting as my personal guinea pig, proceed by way of the rear staircase and adjoining landing – don’t skip or pause for a pee or anything, just walk – to this very room where we are now standing. You then confirm with Security, by internal telephone, that your journey has passed undetected. I’ve squared them, so again don’t do anything beyond what I’ve told you to do. That’s an order.’
Toby wakes to discover he is the beneficiary of his master’s election-winning smile:
‘So then, Toby. Tell me I’ve ruined your weekend for you, the way they’ve ruined mine.’
‘Not at all, Minister.’
‘But?’
‘Well, one question.’
‘Many as you like. Fire away.’
Actually he has two.
‘If I may ask, Minister, where will you be? You personally. While I am taking’ – he hesitates – ‘taking these precautions.’
The electoral smile widens.
‘Let’s say, minding my own fucking business, shall we?’
‘Minding your own business until you arrive, Minister?’
‘My timing will be impeccable, thank you. Any more?’
‘Well, I was wondering, perhaps gratuitously: how will your parties get out again? You said the systems will be deactivated for two hours. If your second party is arriving in short order and the system is reactivated at 13.45, that leaves you not much more than ninety-odd minutes for your meeting.’
‘Ninety minutes will hack it easy. Don’t give it a thought’ – the smile by now radiant.
‘You’re absolutely sure of that?’ Toby urges, seized by a need to extend the conversation.
‘Of course I’m bloody sure. Dinna fash yersel’! Couple of handshakes all round and we’re home free.’
*
It is the lunch hour of the same day before Toby Bell feels able to slip away from his desk, hasten down Clive Steps and take up a position beneath a spreading London plane tree on the edge of St James’s Park as a prelude to composing his emergency text to Oakley’s cellphone.
During the time since Quinn has served him with his bizarre instructions, he has mentally drafted any number of versions. But rumour has it that Office security staff keep a watch on personal communications emanating from inside the building, and Toby has no wish to excite their curiosity.
The plane tree is an old friend. Set on a rise, it stands a stone’s throw from Birdcage Walk and the War Memorial. A hundred yards on, and the bay windows of the Foreign Office frown sternly down on him, but the passing world of storks, mallards, tourists and mums with prams deprives them of their menace.
His eye and hand are dead steady as he holds his BlackBerry before him. So is his mind. It is a truth that puzzles Toby as much as it impresses his employers that he is immune to crisis. Isabel may be mercilessly dissecting his shortcomings: she did so in spades last night. Police cars and fire engines may be howling in the street, smoke pouring out of adjoining houses, the enraged populace on the march: they did all that and more in Cairo. But crisis, once it strikes, is Toby’s element, and it has struck now.
Say you’ve been jilted by your girlfriend and need to weep on my shoulder, or some such nonsense.
Natural decency dictates he will not take Isabel’s name in vain. Louisa comes to mind. Has he had a Louisa? A hasty roll call assures him he has not. Then he will have her now: Giles. Louisa just walked out on me. Desperately need your urgent advice. Can we speak soonest? Bell.
Press ‘send’.
He does, and glances at the illustrious bay windows of the Foreign Office with their layers of net curtain. Is Oakley sitting up there even now, munching a sandwich at his desk? Or is he locked in some underground fastness with the Joint Intelligence Committee? Or ensconced in the Travellers Club with his fellow mandarins, redrawing the world over a leisurely lunch? Wherever you are, just for God’s sake read my message soonest and get back to me, because my nice new master is going off his head.
*
Seven interminable hours have passed, and still not a peep out of Oakley. In the living room of his first-floor flat in Islington, Toby sits at his desk pretending to work while Isabel potters ominously in the kitchen. At his left elbow lies his BlackBerry, at his right the house telephone, and in front of him a draft paper Quinn has commissioned on opportunities for private–public partnerships in the Gulf. In theory, he is revising it. In reality, he is mentally tracking Oakley through every possible version of his day and willing him to respond. He has re-sent his message twice: once as soon as he was clear of the Office, and again as he emerged from Angel underground station before he arrived home. Why he should have regarded his own flat as an insecure launch pad for text messages to Oakley he can’t imagine, but he did. The same inhibitions guide him now, when he decides that, importunate though it may be, the time has come to try Oakley at his home.
‘Just popping out to get us a bottle of red,’ he tells Isabel through the open kitchen door, and makes it to the hallway before she can reply that there’s a perfectly good bottle of red in the stores cupboard.
In the street, it is pouring with rain and he has not thought to provide himself with a raincoat. Fifty yards along the pavement, an arched alley leads to a disused foundry. He dives into it and from its shelter dials the Oakley residence.
‘Who the hell’s this, for God’s sake?’
Hermione, outraged. Has he woken her? At this hour?
‘It’s Toby Bell, Hermione. I’m really sorry to trouble you, but something a bit urgent’s come up, and I wondered whether I could have a quick word with Giles.’
‘Well, I’m afraid you can’t have a quick word with Giles, or a slow one, for that matter, Toby. As I suspect you’re thoroughly aware.’
‘It’s just work, Hermione. Something urgent’s cropped up,’ he repeated.
‘All right, play your little games. Giles is in Doha, and don’t pretend you didn’t know. They packed him off at crack of dawn for a conference that’s supposed to have blown up. Are you coming round to see me or not?’
‘They? Which they?’
‘What’s it to you? He’s gone, hasn’t he?’
‘How long will he be gone for? Did they say?’
‘Long enough for what you’re after, that’s for sure. We’ve no live-in servants any more. I expect you knew that too, didn’t you?’
Doha: three hours ahead. Brutally, he rings off. To hell with her. In Doha they eat late, so it’s still the dinner hour for delegates and princelings. Huddled in the alleyway, he gets through to the Foreign Office resident clerk and hears the ponderous voice of Gregory, unsuccessful contender for his job.
‘Gregory, hullo. I have to get in touch with Giles Oakley rather urgently. He’s been rushed to Doha for a conference and for some reason he’s not picking up his messages. It’s a personal thing. Can you get word to him for me?’
‘If it’s personal? Tricky, I’m afraid, old sport.’
Don’t go there. Stay calm:
‘Do you happen to know if he’s staying with the ambassador?’
‘Up to him. Maybe he prefers big, expensive hotels like you and Fergus.’
Exert Herculean restraint:
‘Well, kindly give me the number of the residence anyway, will you? Please, Gregory?’
‘I can give you the embassy. They’ll have to put you through. Sorry about that, old sport.’
Delay, which Toby perceives as deliberate, while Gregory hunts for the number. He dials it and gets a laborious female voice telling him, first in Arabic and then in English, that if he wishes to apply for a visa he should present himself in person at the British Consulate between the following hours and be prepared for a long delay. If he wishes to contact the ambassador or a member of the ambassador’s household, he should leave his message now.
He leaves it:
‘This is for Giles Oakley, currently attending the Doha Conference.’ Breath. ‘Giles, I sent you several messages, but you don’t seem to have picked them up. I’m having serious personal problems, and I need your help as soon as possible. Please call me any time of day or night, either on this line or, if you prefer, on my home number.’
Returning to his flat, he realizes too late that he has forgotten to buy the bottle of red wine that he went out to get. Isabel notices, but says nothing.
*
Somehow, morning has broken. Isabel lies asleep beside him, but he knows that one careless move on his part and they will either quarrel or make love. In the night they have done both, but this has not prevented Toby from keeping his BlackBerry at his bedside and checking it for messages on the grounds that he is on call.
Neither have his thought processes been idle during this time, and the conclusion they have reached is that he will give Oakley until ten o’clock this morning, when he is pledged to perform the antics required of him by his minister. If by that time Oakley has not responded to his messages he will take the executive decision: one so drastic that at first glance he recoils at the prospect, then cautiously tiptoes back to take a second look.
And what does he see in his mind’s eye, lying in wait for him in the deep right-hand drawer of his very own desk in the ministerial anteroom? Covered in mildew, verdigris and, if only in his imagination, mouse droppings?
A Cold War-era, pre-digital, industrial-sized tape recorder – an apparatus so ancient and lumbering, so redundant in our age of miniaturized technology as to be an offence to the contemporary sou
l: for which reason, if for no other, Toby has repeatedly requested its removal on the grounds that if any minister wished for a secret recording of a conversation in his Private Office, the devices available to him were so discreet and varied that he would be spoiled for choice.
But thus far – providentially or otherwise – his pleas have gone unanswered.
And the switch that operates this monster? Pull out the drawer above, hunt around with your right hand, and there it is: a sharp, hostile nipple mounted on a brown Bakelite half-cup, up for off, down for record.
*
0850 hours. Nothing from Oakley.
Toby likes a good breakfast but this Saturday morning doesn’t feel peckish. Isabel is an actress and therefore doesn’t touch breakfast, but she is in conciliatory mode and wishes to sit with him for friendship and watch him eat his boiled egg. Rather than precipitate another row, he boils one and eats it for her. He finds her mood suspect. On any past Saturday morning when he has announced he must pop into the office to clear up a bit of work, she has remained demonstratively in bed. This morning – although by rights they should be enjoying their weekend, sampling the delights of Dublin – she is all sweetness and understanding.
The day is sunny so he thinks he will leave early and walk it. Isabel says a walk is just what he needs. For the first time ever, she accompanies him to the front door, where she bestows a fond kiss on him, then stands watching him down the stairs. Is she telling him she loves him, or waiting till the coast is clear?
*
0952 hours. Still nothing from Oakley.
Having maintained a vigil over his BlackBerry while marching at exaggerated speed through the sparsely populated London streets, Toby starts his countdown to Birdcage Walk by way of The Mall and, adjusting his pace to that of the sightseers, advances on the green side door with metal bars in front of it.
He tests the handle. The green door yields.
He turns his back on the door and with studied casualness takes in Horse Guards, the London Eye, a group of wordless Japanese schoolchildren and – in a last, desperate appeal – the spreading London plane tree from whose shade he had yesterday dispatched the first of his unanswered messages to Oakley.