He was back in Head Office with minutes to spare before the monthly A&S – Admin and Support – meeting. He summoned Sonia to brief her on the revised submission.

‘How do you think Gareth will take this?’ she asked.

‘Badly.’

‘He might do something.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘I don’t know. I gather from a friend in HR that he’s under more pressure about bullying, with a bit of groping thrown in now. Historic cases but more’s coming to light. Can’t be a very happy bunny. How much time do I have? When does the sub have to be over the river?’

‘About ten minutes ago.’

‘Thanks.’

He was tempted to delegate chairing the A&S meeting but he had done that the month before and was aware that he had a reputation for focusing on operational and Whitehall political matters at the expense of anything administrative and financial. It was another manifestation of what he now acknowledged to be a career-long professional failing and a lifelong character flaw: attending to what interested him and ignoring what didn’t. Sarah, far more conscientious, pointed it out with increasing frequency. There had been periods in his career when personal preference and professional requirement coincided but as he became more senior they became less frequent. For the next hour, therefore, he strove to make amends by concentrating on BEE (Building Evacuation Exercise), HOSIP (Head Office Signage Installation Programme), on the venue for the APR (Annual Pensioners Reunion), on the monthly EDA (Equality and Diversity Assessment) and on the long-running issue of the provision of armoured cars for heads of station in dangerous parts of the world.

The latter had been running since well before he became chief and seemed likely to outlast him. Cath, director A&S, outlined progress since the last discussion. ‘The MOD say that nothing, not even a tank, can be made fully bombproof but we know from work on ministerial and royal cars that worthwhile explosive mitigation and projectile resistance – blast and bulletproofing – can be installed on sound everyday vehicles. It wouldn’t stop large bombs, of course, nor armour-piercing ammunition, but it’s not bad with lesser stuff. The problem is, all the cars we use have to be UK-sourced. Made here, in other words.’

‘Why is that a problem?’ asked Charles.

‘Well, as you know, CSS, most of our heads of station have diplomatic cover and therefore have to be seen to be driving British or British-made cars. It’s a problem because when they’re trying to blend in locally or do anything clandestine they don’t want to use obviously British cars with diplomatic registrations. They want to use local cars with local registrations. In fact, they hardly ever use diplomatically registered cars, for obvious security reasons.’

‘So what’s the point in having them expensively armoured?’