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me now to look at Champion’s file with an objective eye.
    When you read old files, you realize how the paperwork itself decides the progress of an inquiry. Schlegel gave Bonn’s report a twelve-week life cycle, so the coordinator decided not to give it a file number. He attached it as an appendix to Champion’s abstract. Then I had to do a written report, to glue it all together. With everyone satisfied, the file would have gone over to Current Storage and then gone sliding down the priorities until it ended in a tin archive box in Hendon.
    But it didn’t.
    It was activated by an alert slip that came from the officer who was ‘running’ Melodie Page. She failed to report for two cycles. This would normally have meant the opening of an orange Caution File with its own file number. But with Champion’s abstract signed out to me, it caused the girl’s alert slip to be pinned on to my desk diary.
    Suddenly the Champion file was wearing red stickers in its hair, and everyone concerned was trying to think of a ‘Latest action’ to pin to it, in case the Minister wanted to read it himself.
    â€˜I don’t like it,’ said Schlegel.
    â€˜Perhaps she’s fallen for Champion,’ I said.
    He looked at me to see whether I meant it. ‘That’s all I need,’ said Schlegel. ‘You coming in here inventing new things for me to worry about.’
    â€˜And you want me to go to this flat that Champion is supposed to have kept as some kind of bolt-hole?’
    â€˜It’s a ten-minute job. Special Branch will send Blantyre and one of the Special Branch break-in specialists. Just take a look round, and file a short report tomorrow. No sweat – it’s only to show we’re on our toes.’
    â€˜Are you sure I’m experienced enough to handle something like this?’
    â€˜Don’t go touchy on me, bubblebrain. I want a piece of paper: something recent, with a senior operative’s signature, to put in the file before it leaves here.’
    â€˜You’re right,’ I said.
    â€˜Goddamn! Of course I’m right,’ he said in exasperation. ‘And Mr Dawlish will be looking in there on his way back from his meeting in Chiswick.’
    The top brass! They really expected questions in the House, if Dawlish was going to do an I-was-there piece for them.
    Steve Champion’s hideaway, in Barons Court. Well, I don’t have to tell you what kind of house it was: Gothic horror comes to town! Depressing place, with no sign of any tenants, and a dented metal grille that asks you who you are, and buzzes when it opens the lock.
    That bugger Blantyre was already there, chatting away merrily with his ‘break-in specialist’ who’d already splintered the paintwork on the outer door and left a wet footprint in the hall, and who, on closer inspection, turned out to be Blantyre’s old buddy Detective-Inspector Seymour.
    There they were, striding all over the clues and pouring each other double portions of Champion’s booze.
    â€˜I didn’t know you were coming,’ said Blantyre.
    â€˜So I see.’
    Blantyre held up his glass and looked at it, like one of those white-coated actors in TV commercials about indigestion. He said, ‘We were wondering whether to send samples to the lab.’
    â€˜Send a whole bottle,’ I said. ‘Order a case from Harrods, and give them his Diner’s Card number.’
    Blantyre’s face reddened, but whether in shame or anger I could not be sure. I said, ‘Good. Well, if I’m not disturbing you two, I’ll take a look round while there’s still some evidence left.’
    Blantyre gave me both barrels of a sawn-off twelve-bore, sighed and left the room wearing a sardonic smile. His drinking companion followed him.
    I’d hardly started having a look round when Dawlish arrived. If Schlegel was hoping to keep our break-in inconspicuous, I’d say that