Then they were in the new wing, and Rowe, deputising for Macintosh, was showing Nobbs all the equipment so far installed, which consisted of several office tables and a number of chairs. Almost the last thing Goldwasser was conscious of was Rowe reading off a piece of paper:

‘And this is a table, ma’am. What in essence it consists of is a horizontal rectilinear plane surface maintained by four vertical columnar supports, which we call legs. The tables in this laboratory, ma’am, are as advanced in design as one will find anywhere in the world.’

Which was how, when everybody else was standing up for the National Anthem, Goldwasser came to be lying on the floor, sprawling face downwards with great casualness. Nunn, who was keeping an eye on various security aspects from a discreet distance, was not surprised. The case against Goldwasser was open and closed already; he would be in no position to demonstrate his feelings about the National Anthem on the day.

What Nunn was really worrying about now was Nobbs’s thighs. The more he saw of them in action the less he liked them. Were they a secret weapon in the pay of Goldwasser? They didn’t appear to be in the pay of Nobbs. He watched them intently as they knocked things off desks and split chairs they came up against. They appeared to pursue their programme of sabotage and disruption quite independently of Nobbs.

Of course, they might be unconscious agents of Goldwasser’s. It was possible that Nobbs had been brainwashed by Goldwasser without knowing about it. But then so might anyone else in the room. Such things could happen. Nobody who was in security was likely to underestimate what could be done these days with brainwashing techniques. For all Nunn knew, he might have been brainwashed himself. He might well be an unconscious agent of Goldwasser’s. His whole campaign against Goldwasser might be the result of a posthypnotic suggestion implanted by Goldwasser himself. Indeed, his very realisation that he might be acting under Goldwasser’s orders, even as Goldwasser took his ease down there on the floor, might itself be a response engineered by Goldwasser.

As soon as the anthem was over he retired to his room and brooded for a long time over a favourite niblick. These were deep waters he was fishing, and in deep waters there was nothing to do but keep one’s eye on the ball and wait for an opening. He took a nap to clear his head and was awakened, greatly refreshed, by the sound of the Director collapsing heavily into his chair in the office next door after finishing the day’s rehearsals. The Director, when he went in to see him, looked surprisingly old and tired, and Nunn spent nearly an hour trying to cheer him up by telling him the full medical histories of everyone who had dropped dead while running the marathon.

26

26