‘Absolutely they’re aware. They always are, aren’t they? Terrified of embarrassment rather than simply refusing to be embarrassed. Anyway, it’s kept very tight. Those memos can only be opened by named officials.’

Now, midway through a Saturday evening, sitting in Gareth’s office with the lighting subdued and the plane tree leaves rustling in the breeze, Charles had once more to suppress his doubts. If what Gareth’s draft memo said about the EU’s bottom line was true, it was truly important. Lower than what the EU hinted at in public, it was still significantly higher than British estimates of what would be an acceptable compromise. There were important public policy implications for what the country could afford, as well as immediate presentational issues. ‘Who’s this going to?’ he asked.

Gareth read aloud the list of addressees in Number Ten, the Cabinet Office, the Foreign Office and the Department for Exiting the EU. ‘Longer than it was when I first started issuing them. More ministerial private offices. Ministers have heard about the case and are gagging to see the reports.’

‘That’s what worries me. People talk. And internally here?’

‘As before. Just our directors and main board members.’

‘Assessments?’

Gareth’s eyes went back to his screen. ‘Head of Assessments. Yes, she’s here.’

Charles wasn’t convinced that Sonia really had been on the distribution. She would be now. There was a long-standing antipathy between her and Gareth, dating back to an affair he had had, or half-had, or not had – according to him – with a girlfriend of hers, who had since left. More importantly, it was the task of Assessments to assess reports, whether they were true, whether they were timely, whether they met customers’ requirements, whether they were supported by other reporting or whether they merely replicated what was already available through open sources. Assessments also had the right, in a change forced through by Charles in the wake of earlier security failures, to conduct assessments of agents – were they reliable, what were their motives, did they have direct access to what they reported, was their access oral, documentary or other visual, who were their sub-sources? In essence, who had said what, to whom, when, where, who else was there?

There had been several cases in which Gareth, whose job it was to enhance the production of intelligence, had been frustrated by what he called Sonia’s meddlesome negativity. She, in turn, had complained that he was too gung-ho, too much inclined to uncritical acceptance and over-promotion of the product. ‘The Salesman,’ she called him, when talking to Charles. She shared some of Charles’s earlier doubts about the Timber Wolf reporting.

‘Great stuff, eh?’ said Gareth with a smile when Charles handed him back the draft memo. ‘Not bad for half a weekend’s work.’

Interesting if true, was what Charles wanted to say, recalling the old Foreign Office put-down. Instead, he nodded. ‘Great stuff indeed. Well done.’

Chapter Three