‘Do you?’ said Arthur, somewhat surprised. ‘I didn’t know you were a person who believed in leaving things to luck. It’s certainly not the reputation you have. You’re known by most people in Intelligence as the Digger, because that’s exactly what you’ve always done; you’ve kept on digging until you’ve found something. That’s the only way in our game; Fifeshire’s Law of Intelligence: facts, facts, facts! We’d all be useless without them – Wotan would be fifteen million quid’s worth of scrap ironmongery without facts. And facts aren’t acquired by luck – at least, in my view, not often. People can say they got a lucky break, but I always disagree. People say a golfer is lucky if he gets a hole in one. I don’t agree with that at all. Heck, that’s what the chap’s trying to do. When he drives off he aims at that pin – even if he can’t see it, he’s still aiming for it – and every time he stands on a tee throughout his life, he aims for that pin. If he goes to his grave without ever getting that hole in one, in my view he has been unlucky. If he has succeeded in getting a hole in one, I wouldn’t say he had been lucky; I’d say he had been successful – he had done what he tried to do.’

‘Well, I’m going to need an awful lot of golf balls, Arthur,’ I said.

He grinned.

‘Anyway, what have you come up with?’

‘We’ll go through it,’ he said. He looked at his watch. ‘We’ll have to be quick – I have to leave here in exactly half an hour. Now that the Home Secretary has discovered, after eighteen months in office, that he has an Intelligence organization under him, he wants to know all about it – ruptured anus or no ruptured anus.’

‘And what will you tell him?’

‘What Fifeshire thinks he needs to know.’

‘Which is?’ I asked.

‘Not a lot,’ he said abruptly, and then grinned.

‘Did you have any luck with the voice-prints?’

Arthur shook his head. ‘It would be a damned sight easier if you could remember where you had heard that voice. What about hypnosis?’

‘Tried it. Negative.’

‘You don’t think it’s your imagination?’

‘No. I am certain I heard it before.’