‘Oh master,’ he said. ‘Please don’t be difficult. Not before the harvest is in, and the mules are rested.’
‘Just tell me where we’re going.’
‘Down the road, in a big shiny car. You’ll love it. And on the way home you can have an ice-cream.’
Slowly, I got to my feet and shrugged on the blazer. ‘David,’ I said.
‘Still here, master.’
‘What’s happening?’
He pursed his lips and frowned slightly. Bad form to ask questions like that. I stood my ground.
‘Am I in trouble?’ I said.
He frowned a little more, and then looked up at me with his calm, steady eyes.
‘Seems like it.’
‘Seems like it?’
‘There’s a foot of heavy cable in that drawer. The young master’s weapon of choice.’
‘So?’
He gave me a small, polite smile. ‘Trouble for somebody.’
‘Oh come off it, David,’ I said. ‘I’ve had that for months. Been meaning to wire up two things that are very close to each other.’
‘Yes. Receipt’s from two days ago. Still in the bag.’ We looked at each other for a while.
‘Sorry, master,’ he said. ‘Black arts. Let’s go.’
The car was a Rover, which meant it was official. Nobody drives these idiotically snobbish cars, with their absurd bundles of wood and leather, badly glued into every seam and crevice of the interior, unless they absolutely have to. And only the government and the board of Rover have to.
I didn’t want to interrupt Solomon as he drove, because he had a nervous relationship with cars, and didn’t even like it if you switched on the radio. He wore driving gloves, a driving hat, driving glasses and a driving expression, and he fed the wheel through his hands in the way everyone does until four seconds after they’ve passed their test. But as we trickled past Horseguards Parade, more or less flirting with twenty-five miles an hour, I thought I’d risk it.
‘Don’t suppose there’s any chance of me knowing what it is I’m supposed to have done?’
Solomon sucked his teeth and gripped the wheel even harder, concentrating furiously as we negotiated a particularly awkward stretch of wide, empty road. When he’d checked the speed, the revs, the fuel, the oil pressure, the temperature, the time, and his seatbelt, twice, he decided he could afford an answer.
‘What you were supposed to have done,’ he said, through clenched teeth, is stay good and noble, master. As you always were.’
We pulled into a courtyard behind the Ministry of Defence. ‘Haven’t I done that?’ I said.
‘Bingo. Parking space. We’ve died and gone to heaven.’
In spite of a large security notice proclaiming that all Ministry of Defence installations were in a state of Bikini Amber alert, the guards at the door let us through with no more than a glance.
British security guards, I’ve noticed, always do this; unless you happen actually to work in the building they’re guarding, in which case they’ll check everything from the fillings in your teeth to your trouser turn-ups to see if you’re the same person who went out to get a sandwich fifteen minutes ago. But if you’re a strange face, they’ll let you straight through, because frankly, it would just be too embarrassing to put you to any trouble.
If you want a place guarded properly, hire Germans. Solomon and I travelled up three sets of stairs, down half a dozen corridors and in two lifts, with him signing me in at various points along the way, until we reached a dark green door labelled C188. Solomon knocked, and we heard a woman’s voice shout ‘wait’, and then ‘okay’.
Inside there was a wall three feet away. And between the wall and the door, in this unbelievably tiny space, a girl in a lemon-coloured shirt sat at a desk, with word processor, potted plant, mug of pencils, furry gonk, and wadges of orange paper. It was incredible that anyone or anything could function in such a space. It was like suddenly discovering a family of otters in one of your shoes.
If you’ve ever done that.
‘He’s expecting you,’ she said, nervously holding both her arms out across the desk in case we dislodged anything. ‘Thank you, madam,’ said Solomon, squeezing past the desk.
‘Agoraphobic?’ I asked, following him, and if there’d been enough room I would have kicked myself, because she must have heard that fifty times a day.
Solomon knocked on the inner door and we walked straight through.
Every square foot the secretary had lost, this office had gained.
Here, we had a high ceiling, windows on two sides hung with government-issue net curtains and, between the windows, a desk about thesizeof a squash court. Behind the desk, a balding head was bowed in concentration.
Solomon headed for the central rose of the Persian carpet, and I took up a position just off his left shoulder.
‘Mr O’Neal?’ said Solomon. ‘Lang for you.’ We waited.
O’Neal, if that really was his name, which I doubted, looked like all men who sit behind large desks. People say that dog-owners resemble their dogs, but I’ve always thought the same is true, if not truer, of desk-owners and their desks. It was a large, flat face, with large, flat ears, and plenty of useful places for keeping paper-clips. Even his lack of any beard growth corresponded with the dazzling French polish. He was in expensive shirt sleeves, and I couldn’t see a jacket anywhere.
‘I thought we said nine-thirty,’ said O’Neal without looking up or at his watch.
This voice was not believable at all. It strained for a patrician languor, and missed it by a mile. It was tight and reedy, and in other circumstances I might have felt sorry for Mr O’Neal. If that really was his name. Which I doubted.
‘Traffic, I’m afraid,’ said Solomon. ‘Got here as fast as we could.’
Solomon looked out of the window, as if to say he’d done his bit. O’Neal stared at him, glanced at me, and then went back to his performance of Reading Something Important.
Now that Solomon had delivered me safely, and there was no chance of getting him into any trouble, I decided it was time to assert myself a little.
‘Good morning, Mr O’Neal,’ I said, in a stupidly loud voice. The sound bounced back from the distant walls. ‘Sorry to see this isn’t a convenient time. It’s not that good for me either. Why don’t I have my secretary make another appointment with your secretary? In fact, why don’t our secretaries have lunch together? Really put the world to rights.’