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twelve, two twelves are twenty four…. Charlie didn’t have the slightest doubt that the penny-pinching fart wouldn’t let him off the hook without a convincing explanation about those damned receipts: if he couldn’t think of one he supposed he’d have to accept the amounts being cut off, which would be losing out. Charlie didn’t like losing, certainly not fiddled expenses money. Not the biggest problem at the moment. The biggest problem at the moment was trying to find answers when he didn’t even know what the questions were. Or have a clue where to find them.
    His speed was reduced when he had to quit the motorway for the minor road going to Pulborough but he was still ahead of the appointed time so he stopped at a pub promising home cooked food, deciding that if it served anything like he cooked at home he wouldn’t bother. It wasn’t. Instead of his customary Islay malt he chose beer, which was drawn from the wood, and ordered crisply baked bread and fresh pickles and tangy cheese and carried it all out to a table and bench which a craftsman had clearly spent hours fashioning to appear as something that had been knocked up in minutes by a child with a Christmas gift carpentry set. All around geraniums blazed from tubs and window boxes and there was a dovecot for real birds which commuted between it and the thatched roof of the pub. Charlie identified it as just the sort of place to which people drove for those Saturday lunchtime sessions, wearing cravats tucked into checked shirts and cavalry twill trousers and suede shoes and complained that the English cricket selectors didn’t have a damned clue, did they? Charlie stretched his feet out before him. At least he had the suede shoes. And they looked bloody marvellous after the going-over he’d given them, for the meeting with the bank manager. Last another year at least: maybe longer, if he were careful. It was always important to be careful, about his Hush Puppies. Took a long time to break them in properly: had to be moulded, like a sculptor moulded his clay. What was the saying about feet of clay? Charlie couldn’t remember precisely but it didn’t apply to him anyway. His feet usually felt as if he were walking on that other stuff sculptors worked with, hard and sharp.
    He used the car radio system to advise the gatehouse of his imminent arrival, so they were waiting for him when he pulled into the driveway of the house, about five miles outside of the town. The first man wore an unidentifiable but official-looking uniform and was posted at what appeared to be the proper gate, a huge and secured affair with a crest on top. His function – apart simply from opening the gate – was to deter casually enquiring or wrongly directed strangers. The real checks came at the guard post out of sight of the road, where the electronic surveillance began and where the guard staff were armed. Charlie presented his documentation and stood obediently for his photograph to be taken and checked by one of those electronic systems not just against the picture on his pass but against the film records to which it was linked in London.
    One of the guards, who knew Charlie from other debriefings at other safe houses, nodded to his bank manager’s outfit of the previous day and said: ‘Dressed up for this one, then?’
    â€˜I like to make an effort,’ said Charlie.
    He continued slowly up the winding drive, locating some of the electronic checks and cameras and sensors but knowing there were others he missed. The drive was lined either side by thick rhododendron and Charlie regretted they were not in bloom; it would have been quite a sight.
    The driveway opened on to a huge gravelled forecourt, with a grassed centrepiece in the middle of which was a fountain with nymphs spitting water at each other. The house was a square, Georgian structure, the front almost completely covered with creeper and ivy. Charlie parked