His next meeting that Friday afternoon was with Pauline, director of HR, which he still had to stop himself calling Personnel. Pauline, like Marigold, was not a career SIS officer but had been recruited from the Department for Work and Pensions. She was competent and conscientious. After they had gone through the usual gamut of recruiting and retention figures, the possibility of another Treasury-funded early retirement scheme, senior management gender balance, the Service’s age profile and sickness records, she coughed and said, ‘There is another issue, CSS, which we’ve been watching for a while but which I haven’t mentioned before because it hadn’t come to a head. It still hasn’t, not really, but neither has it gone away. So I thought I ought to raise it.’

Charles waited. She coughed again and shifted in her seat. ‘It’s a sexual harassment matter, I’m afraid. It is alleged that one of our board colleagues has been harassing one of his junior staff.’

‘Not Gareth Horley, by any chance?’

She looked surprised. ‘Yes, were you aware . . . ?’

‘There have been rumours in the past, that’s all. What does the girl – presumably it is a girl? – allege?’

‘The female’ – Pauline stressed the word, correctively – ‘is not herself the source of the allegations. It’s a friend in whom she has confided. The friend is making them on her behalf, although without her knowledge.’

‘What is Gareth alleged to have done?’

‘Nothing physical, no touching-up or anything like that. No propositions either, not directly. It’s his manner, apparently, the way he says things. He makes the victim uncomfortable. They call him the bus conductor, his female staff, that is.’

‘Why? Are bus conductors notorious for . . . ?’

‘No, it’s because he’s always jiggling the loose change in his pocket when he’s talking to them. The older ones coined the phrase – so to speak – because they can remember buses with conductors and change. But that’s got nothing to do with the allegation, of course. It’s difficult to know what to do about it because the victim hasn’t actually—’

‘The complainant hasn’t complained?’

‘Not yet, no.’

‘Can the girl— person who has complained on her behalf get her to come forward?’

‘We’ve tried that but the trouble is the victim doesn’t know her friend has reported to us and her friend doesn’t want her to know. We can’t act without a complaint, you see. We could ask the victim if she’s suffered any form of harassment but her friend doesn’t want us to do that because she thinks that will point the finger at her.’

‘And the allegation – the allegation that isn’t, yet – is about innuendo and suggestive remarks, is it?’

‘I think it’s more a question of tone.’

‘Tone.’ Charles looked up at the clock again, though not to check the time. ‘Have you ever noticed anything in his tone?’