The Long Room Read Online Free PDF Page B

slate and fill in the details for yourself, gradually, as they emerge. Discover him through what you hear. Because that way we will have a truer picture. Or at least that’s what I hope.’
    ‘But that won’t work! I’ll be completely in the dark!’
    ‘Yes, but not for long. We have level Bravo Plus – telephone intercept and eavesdropping – orange-label naturally – so that’s coverage for twenty-four hours a day. You’re going to be with him every minute that he spends at home. You’ll soon get to know him as well as you know your closest friend.’
    ‘What about when he’s at work?’
    ‘Separate coverage,’ Rollo said. ‘For entirely obvious reasons.’
    ‘Hang on, they’re not that obvious to me.’
    Rollo sighed. ‘I’ve already said that I can’t discuss the details. It must be obvious to you that we can’t deploy the same techniques in here that we can outside. Ergo, there have to be different operations at his home and when he is at work. And at this point the latter is no concern of yours.’
    ‘What if I already know him? If I’ve worked with him before?’
    ‘I’ve considered that. He has nothing to do with your group of listeners. And so there’s no particular reason why you should know him out of all the hundreds of people working in this building. But, if by chance you find you do, please inform me soonest. Meanwhile, please don’t try to find out anything about him other than what emerges from the stuff you’re hearing. I’m sorry to repeat myself but it’s very important. We mustnot load the dice. Just note down every move he makes, everyone he sees, anything he says that strikes you as unusual. Note everything, in other words. We won’t know what we are looking for until we’ve found it.’
    ‘All right. I’ll give it a go,’ said Stephen.
    *
    Now, on this Monday morning, he must take Friday’s report up to the seventh floor, where Rollo Buckingham has his office. It’s too soon, though: Buckingham probably won’t get in until ten o’clock, and the tapes from the weekend won’t be sorted until lunchtime at the earliest. Stephen whiles away the spare time by reading through the weekly bulletin, copies of which are circulated to each department. Every member of the Institute must certify they’ve read it by putting their initials on the cover-sheet; by such means the Executive ensures that no one can plead ignorance of new rules. They intersperse their admonitory messages with snippets of Institute news, the canteen menus, and the weather for the week ahead. The news is necessarily pruned of sensitive intelligence and tends to be mystifyingly anodyne. A planned bomb attack was foiled in County Antrim. Two East German diplomats have been declared personae non gratae and will leave the country. The special of the day is chicken curry. Tomorrow there will be no more snow but it may rain.
    The current bulletin contains an updated list of pubs and restaurants in which hostile operatives have been spotted and which are consequently out of bounds to Institute staff. Some of the pubs are close to the Institute – The Fox and Grapes, The Queen’s Head – but others are unfamiliar to Stephen. The Windsor Castle, The Sherlock Holmes, The Eight Bells – he had better write them down.
    He wonders if these faceless officials of foreign powers are similarly forbidden to visit places frequented by members of the Institute. Or would they conversely be exhorted to drink in them as often as they could? How would the different factions recognise each other, unless against all the rules, they were talking shop? Stephen knows enough to know that spies do not loudly advertise themselves but are mostly shabby little men whom no one notices in the quiet corners of rundown cafés. He was shown photographs on his training course for new recruits. Now, imagining opposing ranks of operatives facing each other across the patterned carpet of a busy saloon bar, Stephen is reminded of the model