There wasn’t any formal introduction because that wasn’t the way these sorts of interviews were conducted, but Brinkman knew the man’s name was Maxwell and that he was number three on the Moscow desk and the person who would, after analysis and checking, ultimately receive his report. Maxwell waved him to a chair and offered a round tub of cigarettes which Brinkman, who didn’t smoke, refused. Maxwell took one, coughed lighting it and said, ‘Shouldn’t, I know. Filthy habit.’

Brinkman smiled, politely, but said nothing, waiting for his superior to lead. There was a protocol about everything in the Foreign Office and Brinkman knew every coda of it.

‘Finished the rounds?’ Maxwell had a rough, hello-me-hearties voice. If the tie the man was wearing designated a rugby club then Brinkman guessed he knew all the bar-room songs.

‘I think so, sir,’ said Brinkman. ‘It seems a lot of advice is necessary.’

‘Civil servants, justifying their existence,’ said Maxwell.

Brinkman decided he liked the man. He said, ‘What’s the proper briefing?’

‘If it were thought necessary to give a lecture you wouldn’t have been selected in the first place,’ said Maxwell, gruffly. ‘As it is you’ve jumped over quite a few heads.’

His father’s influence? wondered Brinkman at once. But that didn’t follow, if the man were trying to prevent his joining the department. Unless he’d accepted that persuasion was impossible and decided instead to get the best possible posting for his son. Probing, he said, ‘I’d hoped I’d got it on merit.’