A Delicate Truth A Novel

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 andweren’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 themback 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’