A Delicate Truth A Novel

like?’
    The concierge again hesitates.
    ‘Like yourself but a little older, and the hair shorter, monsieur.’
    ‘And they spoke what language? Did you hear them talking?’
    ‘English, monsieur. Natural English.’
    ‘Have you any idea where they went? Did you gather where they were going?’
    The concierge summons the chasseur , a cheeky black Congolese boy in a red uniform with a pillbox hat. The chasseur knows exactly where they went:
    ‘To La Pomme du Paradis restaurant close to the palace. Three stars. Grande gastronomie! ’
    So much for Quinn’s nauseous headache, thinks Toby.
    ‘How can you be so sure of that?’ he demands of the chasseur , who is bobbing about in his anxiety to be of help.
    ‘It was the instruction he gave to the driver, monsieur! I heard all!’
    ‘ Who gave the instruction? To do what ?’
    ‘The gentleman who collected your minister! He sat down beside the driver and said: “Now one goes to La Pomme du Paradis” just as I was closing the door. His exact words, monsieur!’
    Toby turns to the concierge:
    ‘You said the gentleman who collected my minister rode in the back. Now we hear he sat in the front when they drove off. Couldn’t the gentleman who collected him have been security?’
    But it is the little Congolese chasseur who holds the floor, and he is not about to relinquish it:
    ‘It was necessary , monsieur! Three persons in the back with an elegant lady: that would not be polite!’
    A lady , thinks Toby, in despair. Don’t tell me we’ve got that problem too.
    ‘And what kind of lady are we talking about?’ he asks, all jocular, but heart in mouth.
    ‘She was petite and very charming, monsieur, a person of distinction.’
    ‘And of what age, would you say?’
    The chasseur cracks a fearless smile:
    ‘It depends which parts of the lady we are talking about, monsieur,’ he replies, and darts off before the concierge’s wrath can strike him down.
    But next morning, when Toby knocks at the door of the ministerial suite under the pretext of presenting Quinn with a sheaf of flattering British press stories that he has printed off the Internet, it is not the shadow of a young lady or an old one that he glimpses seated at the breakfast table behind the frosted-glass partition to the salon as his minister brusquely opens the door to him, grabs the papers and slams the door in his face. It is the shadow of a man: a trim, straight-backed man of average height in a crisp dark suit and tie.
    Like yourself but a little older, and the hair shorter, monsieur.
     
    *
     
    Prague.
    To the surprise of his staff, Minister Quinn is only too happy to accept the hospitality of the British Embassy in Prague. The ambassadress, a recent Foreign Office conscript from the City of London, is an old buddy of Quinn’s from Harvard days. While Fergus was post-gradding in good governance, Stephaniewas notching up a Master’s in Business Studies. The conference, which takes place in the fabled castle that is Prague’s pride, is spread over two days of cocktails, lunches and dinners. Its subject is how to improve intelligence liaison between NATO members formerly under the Soviet maw. By the Friday evening the delegates have departed, but Quinn will stay another night with his old friend and, in Stephanie’s words, enjoy ‘a small private dinner all for my old schoolmate Fergus’, meaning that Toby’s presence will not be required.
    Toby passes the morning drafting his report on the conference, and the afternoon walking in the Prague hills. In the evening, captivated as ever by the glories of the city, he strolls beside the Vltava, wanders the cobbled streets, enjoys a solitary meal. On returning to the embassy, he chooses for his pleasure the long way past the castle and notices that the lights in the first-floor conference room are still burning.
    From the street his view is constricted, and the lower half of each window is frosted. Nonetheless by climbing the hill a few paces and standing on tiptoe, he is able to discern the outline of a male speaker silently holding forth from a lectern on the raised platform. He is of average height. The bearing is erect and the jaw action perfunctory; the demeanour – he cannot say quite why – unmistakably British, perhaps because the hand gestures, while brisk and economic, are in some way inhibited. By the same token Toby has no doubt that English is the language being spoken.
    Has Toby made the connection? Not yet. Not quite. His eye