"My name is Curwen. I'd like to see someone, please, who deals with South Africa."

There was a very slight smile at the commissionaire's mouth. The security man looked as though he hadn't heard.

The woman said, "Do you have an appointment?"

"If I had an appointment, I'd have said so."

"You have to have an appointment."

"I don't have an appointment, but I do insist on seeing someone who deals with South Africa, on a matter of urgency."

Jack wondered what the word urgency might mean under this roof. He'd used it forcefully enough for her to hesitate.

"What's it in connection with?"

"Are you an expert on South Africa?"

"No."

"Then it won't help you to know what it's about."

A flush spilled through the make-up on her cheeks. She turned her back on him and spoke into a telephone, then told him to take a seat.

He sat on a hard chair away from the desk. He reckoned he'd spoiled her day. He was more than half an hour on the chair, and she began to look herself again. He wondered what they would be doing upstairs that meant he had to sit for more than thirty minutes waiting for them. Getting the coffee machine working? Sharing out the sandwiches?

Filling in the South African Department's football pool coupon?

"Good morning, Mr Curwen, would you come this way, please."

The man might have been in his late forties, could have been the early fifties. His suit didn't look good enough for him to be important, but he had a kindly face that seemed worn thin with tiredness. They went down a long and silent corridor, then the man opened a door and waved Jack inside.

It was an interview room, four chairs and a table and an ashtray that hadn't been emptied. Of course they weren't going to invite him into the working part of the building.

They were in the quarantine area.