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nearly two minutes. Very few people had his number, and of that few only a handful would ring that long. Tom always let it ring long before he bothered to answer. When he was asked to explain why, he’d say that only callers who had something important to say or something equally important to ask would hang on that long. And Tom was only interested enough in the machine to use it for such reasons. He used much the same simple logic to explain why he kept his phone on the bedroom floor. If the phone rang during the day, he’d say, it was no bother walking to it.
    He picked up the phone and listened. No name, no number, not even a hullo.
    Tom, you are supposed to be here!’ A woman’s voice, ‘cultivated’ was how Tom always described it.
    ‘Christ!’ he said, ‘you only asked me a couple of minutes ago. Haven’t even got my pants on yet.’
    Tom, I rang you at 11.30 this morning. It is now 1.30 and you’re still in bed!’
    ‘How the hell can you tell I’m still in bed?’
    ‘You have a different voice when you’re in bed,’ she said. ‘And I’m alone in bed too, if you…’
    She interrupted. Tom, I don’t care who or what you have with you! The appointment was for one o’clock, Tom. I’m trying to help you! Some people I’ve had contact with over the years, officially through the Department, want someone in the trade to do a job for them unofficially. Nothing dangerous: well paid. He’s asked me. . .’
    ‘He?’
    ‘I met him in Stockholm during the Seven Nation Summit Conference years ago. He was in charge of some aspect of security there for the Swedes; now he runs his own agency. He wants a job done by someone we - that’s us, not you - can trust.’
    ‘What’s his name?’ Tom asked.
    ‘No name, Tom, not now. If you want the job - and you will when you know what he is paying - you had better take the trouble of getting up. When can you meet me?’
    ‘Kate,’ said Tom, ‘whenever we meet I always try to do things that make you say things that upset me.’ He scratched himself.
    ‘Tom! I’m serious. Yes or no?’
    ‘Okay. Where and when?’
    ‘In half an hour, at two o’clock. Wait at your window and come down when you see me. We’ll talk in the car.’
    ‘Just like old times, Kate! Can we park by the Serpentine and steam up the windows?’ But he was already talking to himself.
    Kate Cathcart replaced the receiver and looked across to Kellick and Fry sitting on the opposite side - the host side - of the desk. Kellick put down the extension receiver and smiled across at her.
    ‘Thank you, Kate,’ he said. ‘Keep it just like that, fairly light for the time being. We mustn’t have him thinking it is anything more than a routine domestic check.’
    ‘And what is it, Mr Kellick?’ she asked. ‘What am I to ask him to do? Is it an A.D. contract?’
    ‘Kate!’ Kellick smiled again. ‘Remember what I told you this morning. For reasons that have been decided by people way above me I cannot tell you now. Maybe later, but I think most probably not.’
    Kellick had a way, when talking about people ‘above him,’ of looking at his shoes, invariably black-soled Hush Puppies, so earnestly that you almost expected The People to rise out from under the dark stains on the suede uppers.
    He went on, ‘You know, Kate, from your familiarity with the A.D. file that Tom is one of our better men. When he works for us he is paid a lot of money. When he works, that is, because I know that when he isn’t working for this Department he isn’t working at all. Not because he is lazy, which he undoubtedly is, but because there are few openings for his very special kind of skills. We are his only source of income. He is not pensionable, but with a little persuasion, a little pressure on certain people above me’ - again the shoes - ‘we might just manage to work him into one through some department or other.’
    ‘Mr Kellick,’ Kate said, ‘what you are trying to say to me is clear enough. You