A Delicate Truth A Novel

view your nice new master is disposed to share. He is notionally employed by the United States government, but in practice by a fly-by-night company of defence contractors trading under the name of Ethical Outcomes Incorporated, of Texas and elsewhere. The sole shareholder and chief executive officer of this company is Maisie Spencer Hardy. She,however, has devolved her duties to one Jay Crispin, with whom she is having a ball. Jay Crispin, besides being an accomplished gigolo, is the intimate of your distinguished minister, who appears determined to outdo the militarist zeal that informs his late great leader, Brother Blair, though not, it seems, his luckless successor. Should Ethical Outcomes Incorporated ever find itself supplementing the feeble efforts of our national intelligence agencies by mounting a privately funded stealth operation, your friend the Music Man will be tasked with supplying the offshore logistics.’
    And while Toby is digesting this, Oakley, as so often, changes direction:
    ‘There’s an Elliot somewhere in the mix,’ he muses. ‘Is Elliot a name to you? Elliot? Carelessly dropped? Overheard at the keyhole?’
    ‘I don’t listen at keyholes.’
    ‘Of course you do. Albanian-Greek renegade, used to call himself Eglesias, ex-South African Special Forces, killed some chap in a bar in Jo’burg and came to Europe for his health? That sort of Elliot? Sure?’
    ‘Sure.’
    ‘ Stormont-Taylor? ’ Oakley persists, in the same dreamy tone.
    ‘Of course!’ Toby cries in relief. ‘Everyone knows Stormont-Taylor. So do you. He’s the international lawyer’ – effortlessly evoking the strikingly handsome Roy Stormont-Taylor, Queen’s Counsel and television idol, with his flowing white mane and too-tight jeans, who three times in the last few months – or is it four? – has, like Bradley Hester, been warmly received by Quinn before being spirited behind the mahogany door.
    ‘And what, so far as you are aware, is Stormont-Taylor’s business with your nice new master?’
    ‘Quinn doesn’t trust government lawyers, so he consults Stormont-Taylor for an independent opinion.’
    ‘And on what particular matter, do you happen to know, does Quinn consult the bold and beautiful Stormont-Taylor, who happens also to be an intimate of Jay Crispin?’
    A fraught silence while Toby asks himself just who is being held to account here – Quinn or himself.
    ‘How the fuck should I know?’ he demands irritably – to which Oakley offers only a sympathetic ‘How indeed?’
    The silence returns.
    ‘ So , Giles,’ Toby announces finally, ever the first to break on such occasions.
    ‘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 LegalDepartment’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