He next rang Shelley. ‘He’s just left. I think he’s going straight home by tube.’

‘That’s fine. The team is out now and we’ve pulled back surveillance.’

‘Did they find anything?’

‘I’ll hear when they get back and let you know.’

‘He’s hoping to travel, maybe soon. Aid to suffering Muslims. We didn’t go into where. I assume the Middle East rather than Chechnya or China. Seems pretty serious about it. I’ll report in writing when I’m back in the office.’

‘Thank you, CSS, this could be very important.’

Chapter Eight

‘Sorry, Marigold, but I’m not sure I followed everything you said. My fault entirely. Could you bear to go through it again?’

Marigold was a short energetic woman in her forties with black hair and vivid red lipstick. She was the Health and Safety Advisor. H&S was embedded deep in the administrative structure, a part of his responsibility that Charles was happy to know little about provided it enabled core tasks without impinging too much upon them. He picked up occasional groans about it but no one complained directly. He had asked Gareth at a board meeting whether it was a problem.

‘More containable irritant than operational inhibitor,’ Gareth had said. ‘As yet, people moan about it and the wretched procedures delay things but it hasn’t actually stopped anything. Personally, I ignore it and advise others to do the same if they complain. What H&S don’t know they can’t bugger up.’

‘Leaves us legally vulnerable,’ said the legal advisor.

Gareth smiled. ‘Calculated risks. So long as we can show they’re reasonable.’

Charles was happy to avert his gaze, another example of complacency, he now acknowledged to himself as Marigold began to expound. She enjoyed expounding. ‘The essence, CSS, is that whenever anyone leaves Head Office, an overseas station or any other Service premises on operational business there has to be an H&S assessment of potential risk and measures taken to mitigate it. That’s why we have Form HS37/4/A. Most officers complete them online but there is a procedure for people who like yourself find’ – she struggled momentarily – ‘who like yourself prefer to do them by hand. When an operational trip is logged it comes up automatically on our screen in H&S and we check that there is a completed HS37/4/A and chase it up if there isn’t. Now, I know your secretary logged this as an official not an operational trip but our system automatically logs any trip by CSS as operational on the grounds that CSS is an obvious target for terrorists and other ill-wishers and so all his or her official trips should be treated as if they were operational. And so I’m afraid I have to ask you to complete an HS37/4/A.’ She held up the form and laughed nervously.