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from his lips. “Bits of the prime minister spread all over Downing Street? Funny? A cause for amusement? You regard that as funny? To me it suggests a preparation for assassination, a suicide bombing, doesn’t it?”
    “No, really, it is funny, a British sort of a joke. A Monty Python sort of joke…”
    “You are a traitor, prisoner. A bastard and an asshole.”
    “Yes, sir, oh yes, I am a fool, but—but really no traitor—and I regret I wrote that passage since things have become so bad. I mean the recent—well, the recent terrorist attacks getting worse. But an innocent fool, sir, please believe—Ohhhhh!”
    Again, the gesture, the shock, the agony, the blindness.
    “No one is innocent in this world. You abused the privilege of living in a civilized country. Take this wretch away, guards,” said Abraham Ramson.
    As they dragged the prisoner off, he called back, “Please, sir, please repatriate me to England. I don’t deserve this punishment!”
    “Shut up, you prick,” said one of the guards. But in a good-humored way.
             
    A FTER CONDUCTING THIS BRIEF INTERROGATION, Inspector Abraham Ramson walked at his steady pace down the corridor to the washroom. He fitted tightly into his neat suit. His leather shoes shone. On the way to the washroom, passing a pile of rubbish, he was met by Algernon Gibbs, the controller of the establishment, a wispy little man with designer stubble and rimless eyeglasses. His dyed dark hair was parted exactly in the middle of his skull.
    “Er, everything going well, Inspector?” he asked, with a forced smile.
    Without pausing in his stride, Ramson said, “Prisoner B says he is a fool and I believe him. He
is
a fool.”
    Gibbs gave an uncertain titter. He did not like the burly Ramson and regretted that higher authorities had sent him here to interfere with the working of the organization. He followed Ramson into the washroom.
    White tiles and mirrors on the walls. Stains on the floor. Controller Gibbs slyly regarded himself in the mirrors. He approved of what he saw, contrasting his own pale hands—“refined,” as he thought of them—with the big, brutish knuckles of his visitor.
    “Who’ve we got next?” Ramson asked, as he removed his jacket and hung it on a hook. “Someone worthy of a proper interrogation, I hope. Someone with a heap more nastiness in him, eh?” As he rolled up his sleeves, Gibbs brought out a packet of cigarettes and offered one to the American.
    “You’re not still smoking those filthy things?” Ramson said, by way of refusal.
    “The burden of office, you know. Sometimes the prisoners…”
    His voice was drowned as Ramson turned on the tap and water came gushing forth. Repeatedly jabbing the liquid soap button, he worked up a fine lather, energetically turning his hands about and about, soaping them up to his hairy wrists.
    “I’ll take a look at the records. I have concluded that you are wasting your time on this guy B, Algy.”
    “The records are of course available, Inspector.” Gibbs spoke stiffly, irritated by the familiarity of the abbreviation—even the use—of his first name.
    Ramson grabbed two paper towels and dried himself vigorously, ignoring the smaller man. “Help me on with my jacket, will you?”
    In the record room, he sat down in front of a computer and tapped in the coded password.
    “Would you care for a drink? A lager, or something stronger?” Gibbs inquired.
    “I don’t drink, Algy. I would have thought you knew that well enough.”
    “A glass of mineral water, then? Or something even stronger? A lemonade?” A thin smile.
    “Mineral water’s fine. Fizzy. With ice, if you have it. Plenty of ice.”
    Going to the door, Gibbs summoned an assistant, saying quietly, “A glass of mineral water for our guest. No ice.”
    Ramson pulled up Prisoner B’s file.
    The screen revealed an extensive record of Prisoner B’s antecedents.
    His grandfather had left the state of Hyderabad in India to serve as