A Delicate Truth A Novel

tape, the torn-off ends of which were folded round to the front. No sender’s name was offered, and if the antiquated Esquire , spelt out in full, was intended to reassure him, it had the opposite effect. The contents of the envelope appeared to be flat – so technically a letter, not a package. But Toby knew from his training that devices don’t have to be bulky to blow your hands off.
    There was no great mystery about how a letter could be delivered to his first-floor flat at such an hour. At weekends the front door to the house was often left unlocked all night. Steeling himself, he picked up the envelope and, holding it at arm’s length, took it to the kitchen. After examining it under the overhead light, he cut into the side of it with a kitchen knife and discovered a second envelope addressed in the same hand: ATTENTION OF T. BELL, ESQ . ONLY .
    This interior envelope too was sealed with sticky tape. Inside it were two tightly written sheets of headed blue notepaper, undated.
As from:
The Manor,
St Pirran,
Bodmin,
Cornwall
My dear Bell,
Forgive this cloak-and-dagger missive, and the furtive manner of its delivery. My researches inform me that three years ago you were Private Secretary to a certain junior minister. If I tell you that we have a mutual acquaintance by the name of Paul, you will guess the nature of my concern and appreciate why I am not at liberty to expand in writing.
The situation in which I find myself is so acute that I have no option but to appeal to your natural human instincts and solicit your complete discretion. I am asking you for a personal meeting at your earliest possible convenience, here in the obscurity of North Cornwall rather than in London, on any day of your choosing. No prior warning, whether by email, telephone or the public post, is necessary, or advisable.
Our house is presently under renovation, but we have ample room to accommodate you. I am delivering this at the start of the weekend in the hope that it may expedite your visit.
Yours sincerely,
Christopher (Kit) Probyn.
PS Sketch map and How to Reach Us attached. C.P.
PPS Obtained your address from a former colleague under a pretext. C.P.
    As Toby read this, a kind of magisterial calm descended over him, of fulfilment, and of vindication. For three years he had waited for just such a sign, and now here it was, lying before him on the kitchen table. Even in the worst times in Beirut – amid bomb scares, kidnap fears, curfews, assassinations and clandestine meetings with unpredictable militia chiefs – he had never once ceased to wrestle with the mystery of the Operation That Never Was, and Giles Oakley’s inexplicable U-turn. The decision of Fergus Quinn, MP, white hope of the powers-that-be in Downing Street, announced just days after Toby was whisked off to Beirut, to step down from politics and accept the post of Defence Procurement Consultant to one of the Emirates, had provided fodder for the weekend gossip writers, but produced nothing of substance.
    Still in his dressing gown, Toby hurried to his desktop. Christopher (Kit) Probyn, born 1950, educated Marlborough College and Caius, Cambridge, second-class honours in Mathematics and Biology, rated one tight paragraph in Who’s Who . Married to Suzanna née Cardew, one daughter. Served in Paris, Bucharest, Ankara, Vienna, then various home-based appointments before becoming High Commissioner to a pattern of Caribbean islands.
    Knighted en poste by the Queen, retired one year ago.
    With this harmless entry, the floodgates of recognition were flung wide open.
    Yes, Sir Christopher, we do indeed have a mutual acquaintance by the name of Paul!
    And yes, Kit, I really do guess the nature of your concern and appreciate why you are not at liberty to expand in writing!
    And I’m not at all surprised that no email, telephone or public post is necessary or advisable. Because Paul is Kit, and Kit is Paul! And between you, you make one low flyer andone red telephone, and you are appealing to my natural human instincts. Well, Kit – well, Paul – you will not appeal in vain.
     
    *
     
    As a single man in London, Toby had made a point of never owning a car. It took him ten infuriating minutes to extract a railway timetable from the Web, and another ten to arrange a self-drive from Bodmin Parkway station. By midday he was sitting in the buffet section watching the rolling fields of the West Country stutter past so slowly that he despaired of arriving at his