A Delicate Truth A Novel

looking forward to a one-to-one with Mr Bell.’
    And Toby, he decides, is looking forward to a one-to-one with the Chief. But alas, on entering Crispin’s grand office, he feels only a sense of anticlimax, reminiscent of the anticlimacticfeelings he experienced that evening three years ago, when the shadowy ogre who had haunted him in Brussels and Prague marched into Quinn’s Private Office with Miss Maisie hanging from his arm and revealed himself as the same blankly handsome, forty-something television version of the officer-class business executive who was this minute rising from his chair with an orchestrated display of pleasurable surprise, naughty-boy chagrin and mannish good fellowship.
    ‘Toby! Well, what a way to meet. Pretty damned odd, I must say, posing as a provincial hack writing up poor Jeb’s obituary. Still, I suppose you couldn’t tell Shorty you were Foreign Office. You’d have frightened the pants off him.’
    ‘I was hoping Shorty would tell me about Operation Wildlife .’
    ‘Yes, well, so I gather. Shorty’s a bit cut up about Jeb, understandably. Not quite himself, ’twixt thee and me. Not that he’d have talked much to you. Not in his interests. Not in anyone’s. Coffee? Decaf? Mint tea? Something stronger? Not every day I hijack one of Her Majesty’s best. How far have you got?’
    ‘With what?’
    ‘Your investigations. I thought that’s what we were talking about. You’ve seen Probyn, seen the widow. The widow gave you Shorty. You’ve met Elliot. How many cards does that leave you with? Just trying to look over your shoulder,’ he explained pleasantly. ‘Probyn? Spent force. Didn’t see a sausage. All the rest is pure hearsay. A court would chuck it out. The widow? Bereaved, paranoid, hysterical: discount. What else have you got?’
    ‘You lied to Probyn.’
    ‘So would you have done. It was expedient. Or hasn’t the dear old FO heard of lies of expediency? Your problem is, you’re going to be out of a job pretty soon, with worse to come. I thought I might be able to help out.’
    ‘How?’
    ‘Well, just for openers, how about a bit of protection and a job?’
    ‘With Ethical Outcomes?’
    ‘Oh Christ, those dinosaurs,’ said Crispin, with a laugh to suggest he’d forgotten all about Ethical Outcomes until Toby happened to remind him of them. ‘Nothing to do with this shop, thank God. We got out early. Ethical put the chairs on the tables and went all offshore. Whoever owns the stock owns the liability. Absolutely no connection visible or otherwise with Castle Keep.’
    ‘And no Miss Maisie?’
    ‘Long gone, bless her. Showering Bibles on the heathens of Somalia when last heard of.’
    ‘And your friend Quinn?’
    ‘Yeah, well, alas for poor Fergus. Still, I’m told his party’s busting to have him back, now it’s been slung out of power, past ministerial experience being worth its weight in gold, and so on. Provided he forswears New Labour and all its works, of course, which he’s only too happy to do. Wanted to sign up with us, between you and me. On his knees, practically. But I’m afraid, unlike you, he didn’t cut the mustard.’ A nostalgic smile for old times. ‘There’s always the defining moment when you start out in this game: do we risk the operation and go in, or do we chicken? You’ve got paid men standing by, trained up and rarin’ to go. You’ve got half a million dollars’ worth of intelligence, your finance in place, crock of gold from the backers if you bring it off, and just enough of a green light from the powers that be to cover your backside, but no more. Okay, there were rumbles about our intelligence sources. When aren’t there?’
    ‘And that was Wildlife ?’
    ‘Pretty much.’
    ‘And the collateral damage?’
    ‘Heartbreaking. Always is. The absolute worst thing about our business. Every time I go to bed, I think about it. But what’sthe alternative? Give me a Predator drone and a couple of Hell-fire missiles and I’ll show you what real collateral damage looks like. Want to take a stroll in the garden? Day like this, seems a pity to waste the sunshine.’
    The room they were standing in was part office, part conservatory. Crispin stepped outside. Toby had no choice but to follow him. The garden was walled and long and laid out in the oriental style, with pebble paths and water trickling down a slate conduit into a pond. A bronze Chinese woman in a Hakka hat was catching fish for her basket.
    ‘Ever heard