“I certainly will,” promised Gideon, opening the door. Not even this created a breeze and as Scott-Marie walked off, Gideon closed the door and went slowly to the window.

Scott-Marie always provoked him to thought and speculation. His first thought, now, was: how characteristic of the man to take his jacket off  —  a simple gesture to show that he also felt the heat of the office, and to put Gideon at his ease. His second thought was that the Home Secretary was probably simply making sure the Yard kept on its toes. Taken by and large this particular incumbent, James Teddall, the Minister in charge of Britain’s home affairs, was a good one. The police, through the Commissioner, were directly responsible to him, and he had never pushed the Force too far: never tried to over-assert his authority. As Gideon had said, the police hadn’t done badly by him yet.

The recollection made him smile. At the beginning of Teddall’s ministry there had been threats of a mammoth, combined, anti-Vietnam war, anti-colour bar, anti-colonialism demonstration. Several organisations had joined forces to concentrate four columns, each over twenty thousand strong, in a march on the time-honoured venue for political demonstrations: Trafalgar Square. There had been a great deal of newspaper panic-publicity — even a demand for troops to be brought in to help maintain order, since troops could be armed more easily than the police.

Scott-Marie had presided at a meeting of the several Commanders of the Metropolitan Force together with their chief assistants and Home Office officials. At the end of the meeting, he had said simply: “I think we can cope, gentlemen. We need a minimum of force and a maximum of good-humour. That is the phrase Commander Gideon used and I cannot think of a better. I shall advise the Home Secretary that we do not need help.”