Her efficiency, or at least her view of what efficiency should be, drove everyone to the depths of despair. She was not merely protective towards Fifeshire, she protected him like a nuclear-blast shelter. To get a telephone call put through to Fifeshire required a university degree in diplomacy, an enormous amount of patience, and plenty of time to spare. ‘Who is calling?’ she would say, followed by, ‘Is he expecting you?’, followed by ‘I’ll see if he wishes to speak to you.’ No one escaped this treatment – not even those who called every day; nor those who called several times every day; not the low-grade bosses, nor the middle-grade bosses, nor the top bosses; not even the Home Secretary, nor the Prime Minister. All got exactly the same treatment. She had been mentally strangled a thousand times, and several hundred of those times by me alone.

By an act of secrecy worthy of the entire organization, Fifeshire had had installed a direct line of which she was unaware, so that he could once again receive urgent calls in time to take some action.

The double doors opened and two men came in; one, a short man, balding, with greying strands of hair, aged about fifty-five, in a green worsted suit that was too small for him and a cream shirt that was too big; the other was in his late thirties, with jet black hair, about six foot tall, wearing a brown double-breasted blazer with plain gold buttons and dark-grey flannel trousers.

‘Sir Charles,’ I said, introducing them, ‘this is Ken Wardle and Dick Coleman from the Playroom.’ The Playroom was the nickname given to the gadgetry department of the Combined Central Information base underneath Hyde Park. Some of the most up-to-date equipment in the world was down there, constantly being improved and adapted and applied to all forms of Intelligence work by a team of some of the finest underpaid technicians in the country. Wardle and Coleman were two of these.

‘How do you do,’ said Fifeshire. ‘How very nice of you to come. I’m looking forward to seeing the show!’

Wardle and Coleman smiled politely, and caught my eye. Without moving an eyelid, the three of us winked at each other. We were together in the big boss man’s room, like privileged schoolboys; we had to be on our best behaviour and as time was even more precious to Fifeshire than to most people, we hoped he wasn’t going to feel we’d wasted his time.

‘Shall we start?’ I said.

Fifeshire nodded. Wardle switched on the monitor, and Coleman pushed the play button on the video-cassette machine.

The picture that came on the screen was a steady pan across Moscow’s Red Square. Into the camera, wearing a Burberry mackintosh over a suit, walked Sir Isaac Quoit. He strode straight up towards the camera, until he was in full close-up, and then stopped.