You'd have to give me longer than that.

How much longer?

I don't know. I'd have to think.

Egerton looked up.

'Is this the third cycle?'

'Fourth, sir.'

'Can we have isolations?'

The man with the headphones put the tape on fast-forward and stopped and corrected, I assumed the thing was a voice spectograph.

I… I… I… I…

Am… Am… Am… Am…

Afraid… Afraid… Afraid… Afraid…

So…So… So… So…

Idiom all right but an Englishman wouldn't say 'I am afraid', he'd say 'I'm afraid', it didn't sound like a speech, more like an intimate conversation.

'How many have we done?' Egerton asked.

'Seventy-four, sir.'

'You mean altogether?'

'Well, the whole series of matching spectograms, and then the fixed contexts. We did the randoms yesterday.'

Egerton sat like a quiet thin-legged bird on the edge of the table, looking at nothing, saying nothing, until after half a minute the man behind m5 gave a little embarrassed cough and in the silence I heard the cloth of his sleeve rustling as he moved his arm, fingering his hair back, probably not used to Egerton's holy silences.

'What?'

'I didn't say anything, sir.'

'Ah yes.' He got off the table. 'Yes, well, that's fine. Do those again, will you, and double check?'

The man with the headphones took them off slowly. 'The whole seventy-four?'

'Yes. And let me have the report from Williams.'

Somebody whispered oh Jesus and flipped a switch rather sharply, but Egerton didn't seem to notice anything because he wanted the whole seventy-four comparisons done again so they were going to have to do the whole seventy-four comparisons again and that was the only thing that had the slightest interest for him, 'Did you want to see me, Quiller?'