'Not, anyway,' he said, 'for a few days.'

'A few days?'

He looked surprised.

'Yes.'

The thing is that after two months you get the feeling you'll never be able to do it again unless you do it soon, and it bring the nerves to the boil. I thought he'd meant weeks, not days.

'Look, if it's Pekin — is it Pekin?'

'Yes.'

'If it's Pekin, why don't you put me into Hong Kong, so I can wait for the signal?'

He looked up sharply. 'Why Hong Kong?'

'Well, I'd be right on the doorstep.' Even to get out of London would be something, I'd at least be on my way. He was thinking it over so I sat down again and caught a spring of that bloody Louis Quinze right on the buttock.

'Bring me the blue file,' he told someone on the phone, and put it down and looked at me and said: 'Frankly I'd rather you waited here. We're expecting signals.'

He could switch them to Hong Kong, it was a Crown colony, but it wasn't my job to remind him of that. A woman came in, brogues and a bun and a whiff of carbolic, typical Bureau staff, and left a blue file on Egerton's desk, and then of course I realized why he'd popped a tuck when I'd suggested Hong Kong: it looked as though they had something running there and he was wondering how I knew.

NIAVONVW

He brooded over the folder, slipping one sheet out at a time and craning his neck instead of moving it nearer, he ought to have those things changed, the tears running down his long thin face while the rain pattered at the window. I wouldn't mind, once I could get him off the pot. Once I'd elbowed him into putting me out there I wouldn't mind having him as my London Control. He was a miserable sod and over-cautious (he'd brought Walsh back from Beirut a month ago just because they'd bust a cypher), but he wouldn't ever make the kind of mistake that would leave you without a chance.