A Delicate Truth (13 page)

‘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.’

Low flyer?

For a fleeting moment Toby’s mind
wrestles with the spectre of a daredevil pilot gearing up to fly under the radar of one
of Britain’s vanishing protectorates. And he must have said something of this,
because Giles almost laughs aloud and vows it’s the best thing he’s heard in
months.

‘
Low
as opposed to
high
, dear man! A reliable has-been from the ranks of our own dear Service!
Job qualifications: an appropriately lacklustre record, his future behind him. An
honest-to-God Foreign Service dobbin, no frills, one shot left in his locker before
retirement. You in twenty-eight years’ time or whatever it is,’ he ends
teasingly.

So that’s it, thinks Toby, trying his
best to share Giles’s little joke. He’s telling me, in the gentlest possible
way, that Fergus
Quinn, not content with cutting me out of the loop, is
actively seeking my replacement: and not just any replacement, but a has-been who will
be so scared of losing his pension that he will bend whichever way he is ordered by his
nice new master.

The two men stand side by side on the
doorstep, waiting in the moonlight for Toby’s cab. Toby has never seen
Oakley’s face more earnest – or more vulnerable. The playfulness in his voice, the
little grace notes, are gone, replaced by a note of urgent warning:

‘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?’