“I am forced to such daring,” she said, “in the circumstances. Instead of your outrage with me, you should, perhaps, devote your energies to explaining things to the prime minister after Fife-Simpson has put a flea in his ear. I’m sure, given his past, that will be his next move.”

Sir Oswald diverted his eyes and sagged a little. “All right,” he said, “let us be frank.”

“I don’t believe I have been less than frank,” Felicity replied.

He turned back toward her and made a placating motion with both hands. “All right,” he said, “what do you have on Fife-Simpson?”

“Well,” Felicity said. “Let me see.” She was quiet for a moment. “Perhaps you have been regaled, at some point, with Fife-Simpson’s story of how he killed two IRA men and harmed three others in a Belfast public house—this in his youth, of course.”

Sir Oswald sighed. “He made sure someone else told me about that occasion.”

“It never happened,” Felicity said. “At least, not the way he tells it.”

Sir Oswald leaned forward and rested his elbows on his desk. “Tell me,” he said.

So Dame Felicity apprised the foreign minister of the true events on that day and cited her sources.

“Does Tim Barnes know about this?”

“Sir Tim was his companion on that day and saved his life by summoning a team of military policemen.”

“Why were they together?”

“One of them, I’m not sure which, had expressed a keen interest in finding a pub he had heard about which catered to, shall we say, a more effete clientele than that found in your typical Belfast watering hole. They stupidly wandered into the wrong pub.”

“And you think Tim has been a victim of Fife-Simpson?”

“Yes, and I believe he remains so. Why else would he press Fife-Simpson on you and, thus, me?”

“And after Tim saved the man’s life!”

“Quite so.”

“Then he must be dealt with,” Sir Oswald said, slapping his palm on the leather top of his desk.

“Then he should be dealt with carefully,” Felicity said.

“How?”

“I think it would be best for us not to converse on that topic again. We should just let nature take its course.”

“Yes,” Sir Oswald said, “but with a boot up nature’s arse.”