‘All of them? How many are there?’

‘Depends how you define it. They’re not all at the table. There are quite a few backroom people.’

‘But which of them tell him things?’ Charles reached for the notepad and pencil he had placed on the table in advance.

Gareth shrugged, as if this were a minor matter. ‘Not sure I can remember offhand but I’ll have a go.’

He paused, then listed three names, which Charles noted. Two were familiar to him from Foreign Office reporting. It was worrying that Gareth should struggle to remember. The Gareth of their youth, his fellow case officer, would have had all his agents’ sub-sources off pat. ‘Any idea what their responsibilities are?’

‘Not without looking them up.’

Charles put down his pencil, picked up his whisky and sat back, as if relaxing. ‘Why do you think he talks to you? What’s his motivation?’

Gareth also sat back. ‘Good question. I’m not sure I really know. Friendship is part of it, I guess. Must be. We’ve known each other a long time. He trusts me.’

‘But he must realise you’re reporting it, given that he knows what you do?’

‘Trusts me not to let him down. Knows I’ll protect his identity. And I think he genuinely wants an amicable Brexit. He’s quite an Anglophile, like a lot of Dutch. Wants both sides to win. He probably sees giving me their fallback position as helping us all to a reasonable compromise. I’m sure there are plenty of Foreign Office Remainers who would do the same if the boot were on the other foot.’

‘He’s taking a hell of a risk – his job and Brussels are his life – for nothing in return.’

‘Not quite nothing. He gets the best meals in Brussels, better than any he’d get in Paris.’

‘And his expenses.’

‘Christ, yes. He likes his expenses, does Timber Wolf.’

‘What for?’

‘What?’

‘What are his expenses for?’

Gareth turned his head towards the long-case clock, as if to read the answer in its face. It was the Cumming clock, made by the first chief of MI6, probably from materials scrounged from naval dockyards. Charles had had it rescued from the lumber room to which his predecessor had confined it. Gareth looked back with the grin of a sheepish schoolboy. ‘Okay, fair cop, guv. He doesn’t really have any expenses, of course. It’s effectively a payment, which he knows very well and finds very acceptable so long as he’s not confronted with the unpalatable fact that he’s being paid for intelligence. I’ve called it expenses from the moment I offered it.’

‘No mention of this on file.’