I was standing under the picture now. It's the only place to stand, because of the disposition of the desk and the filing cabinets and the briefing table. It may be arranged like that because when Parkis talks to you he looks at the picture most of the time, just above your head, to remind you that you don't exist any more than he does, any more than the Bureau does.

He had got up when I came in. He stood in front of me with his hands clasped together, looking at the Lowry.

'How was Munich?'

'All right.'

They'd pulled me out of Munich to watch the fly.

'Did anything happen there?'

'Munich?'

'Yes.'

'I sent in my report.'

'Ah.' It sounded as if he hadn't seen it but I knew he had. They would have pulled me out before long anyway for lack of 'positive lead-in data', by which they mean the smell of anything fishy.

'I expect you'll be going to Paris, will you?'

'No one mentioned leave,' I said.

'Waring is due back.' He looked at me instead of the picture.

'There was nothing doing in Munich. That was as good as leave.'

'Not quite Paris, is it?'

'This aeroplane,' I said.

'It isn't for you.'

'Why not?'

'You're a shadow executive.'

He turned away.

'Why was I sent there?'

To observe.'

'Well I did.'

'But you didn't observe anything. It just fell down, so you said. We wanted to know why.' He was staring out of the window at the winter sky.

The portfolio on his desk had a word on the cover.

'That's all I saw. You read my report. It just came down like a ton of bricks.'

The word on the cover was Striker.

'Quite.'

'Look, is it because I mucked up the Bangkok thing?'