‘And after that he suggested I take a look at the current favourable terms for early retirement, eighty per cent funded by the Treasury. They’re not going to last very long, he said. Is that right?’

‘I’d close them tomorrow if I thought it would keep you.’

‘I won’t go until this is sorted out.’ They took their coffees back out onto the terrace. The breeze had lessened, making the A40 less audible. ‘One more thing, while we’ve still got Gareth on the dissecting table, dating from his time as head of the Geneva station. Do you remember Ian Catsfield?’ Charles did not. ‘A probationer under Gareth. A nice boy, rather academic, more analyst than operator. He and Gareth were chalk and cheese. Gareth asked him to cultivate an Iranian scientist who had access to Iranian nuclear. But after a few meetings the Iranian didn’t want to see any more of Ian. Maybe he’d been warned off him, or warned off Westerners in general. Gareth wasn’t impressed. He then got Ian to take on one of his own recruited cases, a Lebanese with terrorist connections. It had never been very productive and became less so under Ian. When Gareth asked why Ian said he didn’t trust the agent, that he was in it for the money and cooking up any old story he thought we would swallow. Gareth took the case back and the product improved – surprise, surprise. The upshot was that Gareth recommended that Ian’s probation should not be confirmed and he was sacked. The Office found him a job – with the Department of Health, I think – but he later left that for a think tank.

‘Well, it now appears – in these litigious times – that Ian is involved with lawyers and is claiming unfair dismissal on the grounds that he should have been given a second chance under another boss, that Gareth only gave him dead-end tasks and exaggerated the intelligence product of his own cases. I suspect his think tank, which is pretty left-wing, has put him up to it. So that’s another thing camping on Gareth’s screen at the moment.’

Gareth hadn’t mentioned it. Neither had the legal advisor who sat on the board and with whom Charles had weekly solo meetings, as with all his directors.

Sonia held up her coffee cup as if toasting him. ‘Just wanted to get your week off to a good start.’

Back in London that night Charles went through all the Timber Wolf reports. By the time he had finished it wasn’t only the possibility of fabrication that worried him.

Chapter Four