‘So what you have to remember, Michael,’ he said after outlining procedures and protocols, ‘is that everything we do here is of the utmost importance. And that’s why the closest attention must be paid to detail. Take nothing for granted and know that a single word might carry more significance than you could ever imagine. Lives might depend on it. Many, many lives.’

He nodded at the pleasing solemnity of what he had just uttered, and made a little bridge of his fingers, and because of his height it felt as if I was a boy being addressed by my high-school principal. When he went on speaking I registered more clearly the breathlessness that underlaid his speech, so that it was as if his words were afloat on a current of air that at any moment might expire.

‘And of course I don’t need to tell you that everything you see is classified and carries a high security rating. And nothing, but nothing, goes in and out of this building without my knowledge and approval,’ he added, his hollow cheeks tightening with effort and a light stipple of sweat beading his brow.

By the end of the first month I pondered how the supposed high level of security he spoke of allowed a daily delivery of lunchtime meals from various vendors, the frequent appearance of young women from a nearby flower kiosk who flirted with the guards, a rota of cleaning maids who moved through the building like silent ghosts at irregular times of the day and never looked anyone in the eye, as if being noticed would challenge the reality of their existence, and of course the constant arrival of couriers. I never quite got used either to seeing lizards scurrying across walls or suddenly appearing from under cabinets.

We were never a large sophisticated operation like the one they had run in the Combined Intelligence Centre out at Tan Son Nhut, with their microfilm databases and automatic data processing systems. Although I never fully discovered how our role related to a wider context, it struck me that we were a quiet, low-tech offshoot that existed at the discreet behest of certain interests. Despite at times feeling like a cottage industry, there was a steady stream of work landing on my desk – telexes and tapes of what I assumed were prisoner or defector interviews; written reports from various agents in the field who had probably done the same job for the French; updates from our sources inside Thieu’s administration which mostly outlined in sometimes lurid detail the latest machinations and corruptions of high-ranking officials. Machiavellian plots from Cambodia on supposed attempts by the French to restore Sihanouk and generally mischief-make. There was, too, an ongoing investigation into the existence of ‘ghost soldiers’ – a lucrative scam where military commanders added names of non-existent soldiers to their lists and creamed off their wages. In addition there were endless reports continuing to arrive from Paris, where a range of supposed insiders filed on everything: from the daily facial expressions of the North Vietnamese, to what groceries were delivered to their places of residence. Often it came to feel that, just as a daily newspaper needed to fill its columns, so these sources needed to justify their existence by the number of words on the page.