'Changes in policy,' I said. 'Averting dangerous results.'

'Yes.' He studied his shiny hands. 'We've just taken on someone new.'

'Long live the king,' I said.

He looked at me quickly but there was no reproof in his tone. 'He's not replacing Gilchrist. He's too young. And he's been given his first mission before he's had time to feel his way.' Carefully he said: 'That is my opinion. Unfortunately it's for me to send him out. The exercise isn't inherently dangerous but you know better than I do how easily things can turn awkward.'

No, I thought, I won't bloody well play.

He was hunched over his clasped hands, as if without any heat of their own they could warm each other. 'His name is Merrick. Good background in the Foreign Office; he was in Prague as an assistant attache during August 1968 and was deeply affected by events there; he is now with a different embassy and is at present here in London on sick leave, following a slight accident. His father is Sir Walford Merrick, an equerry of the Queen's Household. Would you like some tea?'

'Not really.' I got out of the chair, not wanting to sit there while he tried to truss me up. In the raw chill here I felt suffocated by the deadness of his eyes and the smoothly intoned innuendoes and the way he'd thrown the epitaph across the wreath: It's inconsiderate. 'Look,' I asked him, have you got a mission for me?'

'No.'

'Well it's time somebody had. I've been out for nearly three months and I'm going to seed.'

'That's why I thought you might like a little trip abroad.’

'Where to?' Durban would be all right, or Mexico. Anywhere out of this freezing hole.