there."
The Reading Room was next to the Dead Files Section, Richardson remembered. In fact you had to go through the Reading Room to get to the section, a claustrophobic, windowless box, with a table and chair which nobody used, partly because those in the Reading Room were much more comfortable and partly because the weight of the decaying past contained in the surrounding metal cabinets was oppressive. It would be easy to check up on whether David had used it, however, because although the dead files had a low classification they still rated as secret and could only be consulted after signing for the Archivist's key.
"Yes?" said Sir Frederick patiently.
"Eh?" Macready looked at his watch nervously, as though trying to remember some more pressing and congenial engagement. "Oh— well, he just wanted the rundown on Narva. Actually, he seemed to know most of it already—" he gestured towards the desk "—it's in the file, and he'd read it."
"Yes, but of course David wanted to know about the very beginning, didn't he?"
Smooth. Very smooth.
"So he did. But that was before my time here. And it's all conjectural, anyway—even though David had got one of his bees in the bonnet about it."
"Conjectural—yes. But it's interesting all the same, the way Narva moved into the North Sea so early, don't you think?"
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Macready looked up at the high ceiling above him morosely without replying. It was almost as though he was no longer interested himself in the possibilities of further conversation.
"What do you think put him on to it in the first place, Neville?"
Richardson looked from one to the other with intense curiosity. By any normal standard Macready's silence was at the least rude, bordering on offensive; and Sir Frederick's restraint was remarkable, bordering on surprising, since there was no indication that the screwball was inclined to save himself by his exertions, like William Pitt's England. Yet instead of annihilating him Sir Frederick was damn near pleading with him. If this was how screwballs were treated there was obviously a percentage in the role.
Macready sighed. "Frankly, Fred, I haven't the faintest idea.
And that's what I told David. It's not merely inexplicable . . .
it's irrational."
There was an undercurrent of irritation in Macready's tone, as though Narva had been needling him personally. And that, thought Richardson with a sudden flash of insight, might very well be close to the truth after all. He had assumed initially that Macready had been unwilling to shop David, but it now seemed more likely that David had merely asked a question—the very question that Sir Frederick was now remorselessly pursuing—which had been bugging Macready for a long time without any satisfactory answer.
"Yes, that's very much the way we felt about it," said Sir dummy2
Frederick. "The—ah—the timing of it."
"That's exactly it!" Macready swung his arms and started to pace away from the desk towards the window in an oddly disjointed fashion. "He ducked out of the Italian miracle—
but everyone knew that was going to slow down sooner or later, apart from the political mess . . . and Libya . . .
"But the North Sea—" he swung round towards Sir Frederick
"—you know what it's like? It's a sod of a sea, the weather and the waves. And until three years ago they really didn't know how to drill in water deeper than 300 feet anyway.
"And they didn't know enough about the geological structures either. I wouldn't have put any of my money in looking for hydrocarbons in the younger Tertiary sequences, maybe not even after Phillips found that gas condensate field."
Young Tertiary—? Richardson didn't dare look at Sir Frederick.
But Macready was fairly launched now on a submarine voyage far below those treacherous winds and waves. "Even now no one knows for sure whether the block next to where someone's struck it rich is going to show anything. The salt dome structures—"
He paused momentarily and Sir Frederick moved into the hiatus quickly.
"Narva took a big risk, certainly."
"That's what David suggested—" Macready shook his head dummy2
vehemently "—but it's just not on at all. Narva didn't make his stake by taking risks, and men like Narva don't change overnight."
Richardson gave up trying to place younger Tertiary sequences and salt domes and grabbed at what sounded like much more relevant information.
"What sort of chap is this Narva, then?"
Macready missed his step, glancing up at Richardson as though taken aback by the dumb half of his audience suddenly exhibiting the power of speech.
"What sort?" He raised his eyes to a point above Richardson's head. "He's a man who believes that making money is a science, not an art—that's what sort of man. He never has played outsiders. Or he didn't until he went into the North Sea, anyway."
So that was it straight from the horse's mouth: Macready the hard-headed economist and Howard the hard-headed oilman confirmed each other's mystification, and in so doing justified David Audley's excitement. For if David knew no more than any well-informed layman about the oil business (and for all Richardson knew he might be a great deal better informed than most), he would assuredly know all about Eugenio Narva from his days in the Middle Eastern section.
This time he couldn't resist catching Sir Frederick's eye, but before he could speak Macready gave a derisive snort.
"And now you're going to suggest that he had some sort of dummy2
inside information!"
Sir Frederick looked at him innocently. "What makes you think that, Neville?"
"Because that's what David believed. He practically suggested that the Russians had given Narva the green light."
"Which is nonsense?"
Macready squared up decisively in front of the desk.
"Fred—I simply don't believe it was possible for anyone—not the Russians, not us, not anyone—to forecast the presence of oil in commercial quantities. Small amounts, yes—everyone knew there might be some there. After all, it's got the same rock sequences as the major producing basins in the Middle East and the States. But when Narva moved nobody—and I mean nobody— could have known what was there."
Sir Frederick did not attempt to reply; he merely watched Macready with a curiously deferential intentness, almost as though he was the junior partner in the exchange, waiting for enlightenment. Indeed, from the moment Macready had blundered into the room like a fugitive from Alice in Wonderland he had said remarkably little except to spark the economist on from one burst of exasperation to the next. It was, thought Richardson with a small twinge of bitterness, a very different technique from that which had been applied in his own case: it was like David himself had once observed after a tough session—there were some you led, and some you drove, and some you ran behind, hoping to keep up with.
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"But suppose—" Macready turned away from the desk and started to walk the carpet, following its pattern like a child on the cracks of a pavement. "That's what you want me to do, just like David did— suppose . . . suppose, suppose, suppose. . . ."
He stared into space, his brow furrowed.
"Well, they wouldn't help Narva, the Russians wouldn't for a start. He's right wing Christian Democrat—not neo-fascist, but the MSI have certainly made a play for him. And I can't think of any reason why they might want to tempt him out of Italy either, and certainly not into North Sea investment—it wasn't in their interests to encourage that at all. Quite the opposite, in fact."
"Could his movement of capital have had that sort of effect?"
asked Sir Frederick encouragingly.
Macready thought for a moment, still moving like a robot over the carpet. "It's hard to gauge exactly. He's nowhere near in the big league even now, and the companies were pretty well committed by then. . . . But he damn well boosted their morale—and he certainly gave Xenophon a shot in the arm just when they needed it. ... Except that all militates against the Russians giving him anything, even if they had it