From seven in the morning to a quarter to five in the afternoon, I watched and listened to Horace Whalley at work. From ten until five past ten he slurped at a cup of hot coffee that was brought to him, and from one until a quarter past he munched his way through an egg and cress wholemeal bread sandwich, followed by a spam and chutney wholemeal bread sandwich, followed by two chocolate digestive biscuits and a small carton of milk, all supplied by his wife. From a quarter past three until twenty past three he slurped at a cup of hot tea. His daily adventures into the world of gastronomy were unlikely to land him a job as an inspector for the Michelin Guide.

Apart from the brief interludes to nourish the inner man, Whalley was a prolific worker. His official title was controller of system safeguards, and his job was to ensure that the safety systems and procedures at the sixteen nuclear power stations in Great Britain were properly maintained and adhered to, within the confines of their budgets. Much of his work was to check up on the work done by the Nuclear Installations Inspectorate and the National Radiological Protection Board, and to analyze their recommendations.

Whilst most of Whalley’s work was done from his office, he was entitled to, and did frequently, make random checks on the stations, and in order to be able to carry out these checks effectively he was allowed access, without having to seek any permission whatsoever, to every square inch of every power station in Britain.

For the past seventeen days he hadn’t made any such checks; in fact he had done nothing of any interest at all. From the camera that was concealed above his desk, I could read any of his documents that I wanted to; I hadn’t yet noticed anything that was my taste in literature. It was the third week of October, over six weeks since my rudely curtailed meeting with Ahmed in the lavatory, and in that short time, I had added a new subject to that list of subjects upon which I could talk, if required, at great length, without actually knowing very much at all: this new subject was, not surprisingly, nuclear power. From my visits to each of the stations in Britain, and my seventeen days in the Atomic Energy Authority, I had acquired, whilst certainly not sufficient knowledge to build a nuclear power station, more than was adequate to blow one up. But if this was what was in the mind of my friend Whalley, in seventeen days he hadn’t yet showed his hand. Not at any rate until this particular day when, at 1.00 p.m., instead of taking out his sandwiches, he got up from his desk, put on his coat, picked up his briefcase and left the office.