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dialled the Ghost exchange number and switchboard answered. I put a hand over the mouthpiece while asking Jean, ‘What is the code word for the week-end?’
    ‘Fine pickle you’d be in without me,’ she said from the kitchen.
    ‘Don’t carp, girl. I haven’t been in to the office for a week.’
    ‘It’s “cherish”.’
    ‘Cherish,’ I said to the switchboard operator, and he connected me to the W.O.O.C.(P) duty officer, ‘Tinkle’ Bell.
    ‘Tinkle,’ I said, ‘cherish.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Tinkle. I heard the click of the recording machine being switched into the circuit. ‘Go ahead.’
    ‘I have a tail. Anything on W.M.?’ Tinkle went to look at the Weekly Memoranda sheets that came from the Joint Intelligence Agency at the Ministry of Defence. I heard Tinkle’s outsize brogue shoes pad lightly back to the desk. ‘Not a sausage, old boy.’
    ‘Do me a favour, Tinkle.’
    ‘Anything you say, old boy.’
    ‘You have someone you could leave in charge if you nipped down to Storey’s Gate for me?’
    ‘Certainly, old chap, pleasure.’
    ‘Thanks, Tinkle. I wouldn’t bother you on Saturday if it wasn’t important.’
    ‘Precisely, old boy. I know that.’
    ‘Go up to the third floor and see Mrs Welch – that’s W-e-l-c-h – and tell her you want one of the C-SICH * files. Any one. I tell you what, make it a file we’re already holding. You with me?’
    ‘Sinking fast, old boy.’
    ‘Ask her for some file we already have and she’ll tell you we already have it, but you say we haven’t. She will show you the receipt book. If she doesn’t offer to, raise hell and insist that she does. Get a good eyeful of all the receipt signatures down the right-hand column. What I want to know is who receipted file 20 W.O.O.C.(P) 287.’
    ‘That’s one of our personal dossiers,’ said Tinkle.
    ‘Mine, to be precise,’ I said. ‘If I know who’s handled my file lately I have a lead on who might be tailing me.’
    ‘Very crafty,’ said Tinkle.
    ‘And, Tinkle,’ I added, ‘I want a quick check on two car registrations, a black Anglia and a Bristol 407.’ I waited while Tinkle read back the numbers.
    ‘Thanks, Tinkle, and ring me back at Jean’s.’
    Jean poured me a third cup of coffee and produced some pancakes with sugar and cream. ‘Youare a bit careless on an open line, aren’t you?’ she said. ‘C-SICH and file numbers and all that.’
    I said, ‘If anyone listening isn’t in the business it will be gibberish, and if they are, they were taught that stuff in Dzerzhinski Street.’
    ‘While you were on the phone your Anglia arrived.’
    I walked to the window. Four men were talking, well down the road. Soon two of them got into the Bristol and drove away, but the Anglia remained outside.
    Jean and I spent a lazy Saturday afternoon. She washed her hair and I made lots of coffee and read a back issue of the Observer. The TV was just saying ‘… a Blackfoot war party wouldn’t be using a medicine arrow, Betsy …’ when the phone rang.
    ‘It was the Director of Naval Intelligence,’ I said into the phone before he could speak.”
    ‘Blimey,’ said Tinkle, ‘how did you know?’
    ‘I thought D.N.I. would screen a visiting civilian pretty thoroughly before letting him into their diving school.’
    Tinkle said, ‘Well, good thinking, old boy. Central Register * and C-SICH both booked your files out to D.N.I. on September 1st.’
    ‘What about the car registrations, Tinkle?’
    ‘The Anglia belongs to a man named Butcher, initials I. H., and the Bristol to a Cabinet Minister named Smith. Know them?’
    ‘I’ve heard the names before. Perhaps you would do an S6 report on both of them and leave it in the locked “in” tray.’
    ‘O.K.,’ said Tinkle and rang off.
    ‘What did he say?’ Jean asked.
    ‘I’m riding shotgun on the noon stage,’ I said. Jean made a noise and continued to paint a finger-nail flame orange.
    Finally I said, ‘The cars belong to a Cabinet Minister