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  Bachelor closed his eyes and counted to ten. When he opened them again, nothing had improved, but he thought his heart had slowed a little. Was beating at more like its usual pace.

  Think, he commanded himself. Arriving here, full of his nighttime furies, he’d gone off like a Viking, which would only have made sense if Dieter had been a Viking too. But Dieter had been an old man who’d lived a careful life. A careless one would have proved much shorter. His habits of secrecy were unlikely to be laid bare by a whirlwind uprooting of the contents of his kitchen . . . Think.

  Leaving the mess in the kitchen, he walked through the rest of the flat.

  Hess’s sitting room—the room in which Bachelor had found him—was the largest, occupying as much space as the others put together. Bookshelves covered three of the four walls; against the fourth, below the window and facing inwards, was Dieter’s armchair. His books were the view he appreciated most, and Bachelor had spent many afternoons listening to the old man rabbit on about their contents; sessions that had reminded him of interminable childhood Sundays in the company of his grandfather, whose mind, like his shelves, was not as well stocked as Dieter’s, but whose appetite for rambling on about the past was just as insatiable. At least in Dieter’s case the view backwards was panoramic. He had studied history. On his shelves was collected as much of the past as he’d been able to squeeze onto them; mostly early twentieth century, and post-war too, of course. He’d once confided to Bachelor—being a handler meant hearing all sorts of secrets: romantic, political, emotional, religious; meant hearing them and passing them on—that he nursed a fantasy of finding, in all that convoluted argy-bargy of politics and revolution, pogrom and upheaval, the key error; the single moment that could be retrospectively undone, and all the messiness of modern Europe set to rights. In Dieter’s perfect world, he’d have stayed the German he was born. East and west would have been directions on a map.

  Borderline obsessive, had been the verdict from the Park. But then, if your retired assets weren’t borderline obsessive, they’d never have been assets in the first place.

  There was poetry too, and fiction in a segregated corner, but Hess’s taste in that area had been stern. He’d admired Flaubert above all writers, but had a compulsion to arrange, and rearrange, the great Russians in order of merit, as if the bulky tomes were jostling for a place in the starting line-up. Just looking at these novels’ width aggravated Bachelor’s headache. Their colours were as dull as their contents threatened, but a cheekier red-and-white spine nestled among its beefy brothers and sisters proved to be a paperback of Robert Harris’s Fatherland. He wondered if that, too, had offered a glimpse of a happier twentieth century for Dieter Hess. One in which the war had fallen to the other side.

  He moved on. The flat was near the railway line, and from the bathroom window could be seen trains heading for London and deeper into the commuter belt. It was a sash window and the wood had rotted round the edges of the frame, and its white paint flaked at the touch. It was about a year past the point Dieter should have had something done about it, just as the carpet—fraying around the rods holding it in place at the bathroom and kitchen doorways—was beyond shabby and edging into hazard country. It wasn’t a big flat. If you tripped in a doorway, your head was going to hit something—the bath, the cooker—on its way down. Bachelor supposed he should have pointed this out back when it was likely to do some good, but the way things turned out, it hadn’t mattered. He opened the bathroom cabinet, then closed it again. He wasn’t looking for anything hidden in plain view.

  The bedroom was small, with a single bed, and a wardrobe full of old-man shirts on wire hangers, their collars frayed. A faint smell he couldn’t put a finger on brought hospitals to mind. The window overlooked the front street, and was near enough to a lamp post for the light to have been a bother. More books were stacked in piles along one wall. On a chest of drawers sat a hairbrush still clogged with old-man hair. Bachelor shuddered, as if something with a heavy tread had stomped across his future. Except even this, even this much, was going to look pretty desirable if he wound up paying the price for Dieter’s secret life.

  It was all neat enough. Everything where it was supposed to be. What if the only things hidden were hidden inside Dieter’s head? What if there were no clues, no evidence, and the bank account was nothing more than his own savings, channeled through various offshore havens in order to, whatever, hide it from the taxman? But would Dieter have known how to do that? He’d been a bureaucrat. He’d known how to open a filing cabinet and use a dead-letter drop, and even that much had been decades ago. Money laundering would have been a whole new venture, and why would he be laundering his own money anyway? Bachelor was grasping at twigs, and knew it. He needed to stop the panicky theorising and get to work.

  He was there for hours. He started over in the bathroom, prising the cabinet off the wall and shining a torch into the corners of the airing cupboard. In the bedroom he upturned the furniture and ran a hand round the skirting board, checking for hidden compartments. He worked the bookshelves, because he had no alternative, opening book after book, holding them by the spines and shaking, half-expecting after the first few hundred that words would start floating loose; that he’d drown in alphabet soup. Halfway done he gave up and returned to the kitchen, stepped around the mess he’d made and put the kettle on, then had to rescue an untorn teabag from the pile. He drank the unsatisfactory cuppa upright, leaning against the kitchen wall, glaring at the fraying ends of the carpet where it met the rod at the doorway. And then, because he couldn’t face returning to the unending bookshelves, he knelt and prised the rod up. It came away easily, as if used to such treatment, and one of its screws dropped onto the lino and rolled under the fridge. Setting the rod aside he raised the carpet. Below it was an even thinner, disintegrating underlay, part of which came away in Bachelor’s hand as he tugged.

  In the exposed gap, so obviously waiting for him it might as well have been addressed, lay a plain white envelope.

  ♠

  In a pub on a nearby corner, Bachelor took stock. It was early doors, and he was first there, so he spread the contents of the envelope on his table as he supped a pint of bitter and felt his hangover recede slightly, to be replaced by something larger, and worse. If he’d hoped for an innocent explanation for Dieter’s secret bank account, these papers put the kibosh on that. Dieter hadn’t been innocent. Dieter had been hiding something. Had hidden it not only in an envelope beneath his carpet, but in code.

  3/81.

  4/19.

  5/26.

  And so on . . .

  There were two pages of this, the numbers grouped in random sequences: four on one line, seven on the following, and so on. Twenty lines in all. Typed, they’d have taken up less than half a sheet, but Dieter Hess had been old school, and Dieter Hess didn’t own a typewriter let alone a computer. And what this was was old-school code, a book cipher. They still taught book ciphers to newbies, in the same way they still taught Morse, the idea being that when it all went to pot, the old values would see you through. A book cipher was unbreakable without the book in front of you. Alan Turing would have been reduced to guesswork. Because there were no repetitions, no reliable frequencies hinting that this meant E and that was a T or an S. All you had were reference points. Without the book they were drawn from you were not only paddleless, you didn’t have a canoe. And one thing Dieter had had in abundance was books—with all that raw material on his shelves, he could have constructed a whole new language, let alone a boy-scout code. An impossible task, thought Bachelor. Impossible. No sensible place to begin.

  Then he took the old man’s copy of Fatherland from his pocket, and deciphered the list.

  ♠

  Two pints later, he was on the train heading back into London. It was mostly empty, but he could still hear that demonic whisper—maybe it was Dieter. Maybe he was haunted by Dieter Hess.

 
The list had been precisely that: a list. A list of names, none of which meant anything to Bachelor. Four women, six men: Mary Ableman to Hannah Weiss; Eric Goulding to Paul Tennant. Dum de dum de dum de dum. Just thinking them, they took on the rhythm of the railway. Why had Dieter copied them out, hidden them under his carpet? Because it was a crib sheet, Bachelor answered himself. Whoever these people were, Dieter had referred to them often in whatever coded messages he had sent, ciphered letters painstakingly printed in his large looping hand. To save reciphering them every time, he’d copied out this list. It wasn’t Moscow Rules—was shocking tradecraft—but to be fair to Dieter, he’d grown old and died before anybody stumbled on his lapse.

  Dum de dum de dum de dum. It was the sound of Bachelor’s own execution growing nearer. He’d gone to find proof of Dieter’s innocence. What he had in his pocket proved the bastard’s guilt: he’d been writing, often enough that he needed a crib sheet, to someone with a paperback of Fatherland to hand—3/81 = third page, eighty-first character = M; 4/19 = A; 5/26 = R; 6/18 = Y, and so on, and so very bloody forth … Lady Di would have him flayed alive. Just knowing there were names being bandied round in code: she’d have him peeled and eaten by fish. And god only knew what she’d come up with if it turned out these coded characters were up to mischief.

  He could abscond, the three pints of bitter suggested. He could flit home, grab his getaway kit—passport and a few appearance-adjusting tools, including fake glasses and a shoe-insert, to give him a limp: heaven help him—but even if the bitter had been convincing, the plan fell apart at the first hurdle, which was made of money. Divorce had cleaned him out, and it had been years since his escape kit had included the couple of grand that was the bare minimum for a disappearing trick. And it was one thing imagining himself a stylish expat in Lisbon, admiring the sunshine from a café on the quay; quite another to picture the probable reality: hanging round bus stations, begging for loose change.

  Besides, even if he’d had the money, did he any longer have the nerve? The view through the windows was dreary, a grey parade of unidentifiable crops in boring fields, soon to be replaced by the equally unappetising back-ends of houses, with flags of St. George’s hanging limply from upstairs windows, and mildewed trampolines leaning against fences—but it was where he belonged. Everyone needs somewhere to imagine escaping from, which didn’t mean they wanted to leave it for good. Those young-man dreams of living each day as if it were your last, they wore off; showed up, in the cold light of after-fifty, for the magpie treasures they were. Live every day as if it were your last. So come nightfall, you’d have no job, no savings, and be bloody miles away. He wanted to stay where he was. He wanted his job to continue, his pension to remain secure. His life to continue unruffled.

  Which meant he had to do something about this list before Lady Di got her hands on it.

  He could destroy it, but if he did that before unravelling its meaning, he might be storing up grief to come. That was the trouble with the spying game: there were too many imponderables. But a list of names that meant nothing . . . He wouldn’t know where to start.

  The train ploughed on, and fields gave way to houses. Even after it came to a halt, Bachelor remained in his seat, watching without seeing the half-busy platforms. At length, he stood. He had a plan. It wasn’t much of a plan, and involved a lot of luck and twice as much bullshit, but it was the best he could do at short notice.

  And let’s face it, he told himself as he headed for the underground. You’ve been coasting for years. If there’s any spook left in you, let’s see if he can pull this off.

  ♠

  Bachelor was headed across the river. This wasn’t as bad as it sounded. In a profession whose every activity came encrypted in jargon, this one was happily literal, and didn’t betoken an over-the-Styx moment, or not yet it didn’t.

  Some who worked there might have taken issue with this. The office complex from which various Service Departments operated—Background, Psych Eval and Identities, among others—was far removed from the dignity of Regent’s Park, and a sense of second-class citizenry permeated its walls. Had it been just across the river—had it enjoyed a waterside view, for instance—things might have been different, but in this case over the river meant quite some distance over; far enough to leave its more ambitious inhabitants feeling they’d bought a loser’s ticket in the postcode lottery. Nevertheless, the phrase was geographical, not metaphorical, which meant that those working across the river were in better shape, linguistically and otherwise, than the denizens of Slough House, which wasn’t in Slough, wasn’t a house, and was where screw-up spooks were sent to make them wish they’d died.

  But not everyone who screws up gets to join the slow horses. Only those it’d be impolitic to sack . . .

  He’d made calls, discovered who the newbies were. In an organisation this size there was always someone who’d just walked through the door, and while the training they’d been put through was more intense than most office jobs demanded, they’d still be the easiest pickings. With three names in his head, he checked their current whereabouts with security: showing his pass, barking his requests, to forestall any inquisition into his motives. Two of the newbies were out of the building. The third, JK Coe, was hot-desking on the fourth floor, not having been assigned a permanent workstation yet.

  “Thanks,” Bachelor said. His card had been logged on entry, and for all he knew this exchange had been recorded, but he’d come up with something plausible, or at least not outrageous, to use if he were quizzed. Coe. Thought I’d known his father. Turned out to be a different branch.

  Coe, when Bachelor tracked him down, looked to be early thirties or thereabouts, which was old for a recruit, but not as unusual as it had once been. “Hinterland” was a buzzword now; it was good to have recruits with hinterland, because, well, it just was—Bachelor had forgotten the argument, if he’d even been listening when he’d heard it. Somehow, the Service had evolved into the kind of organisation which most of its recruits had joined it to avoid, but that was a rant for another day. Coe, anyway: early thirties. His particular hinterland lay in the City; he’d been in banking until the profession had turned toxic, but his degree had been in psychology.

  “You’re Coe?”

  The young man’s eyes were guarded. Bachelor didn’t blame him. The first few weeks in any job, you had to be on your mettle. In the Service, that went times a hundred. Most unscheduled events were official mind games—googlies bowled at newbies, to see how they’d stand up under pressure—and some were co-workers’ mind-fucks, to see whether the virgin had a sense of humour. Depending on the department, this meant laughing off anything from a debagging to life-threatening harm, to show you weren’t a spoilsport.

  All or most of which probably went through JK Coe’s head before he replied.

  “Yes.”

  “Bachelor. John.” He showed Coe his ID, which was about twenty-five generations older than Coe’s own. “You’re through with induction, right?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “Good. I’ve a job for you.”

  “And you’re . . .”

  “From the Park. I work with Diana Taverner.”

  And there was the word with stretched far as it would go; way beyond where it might snap back in his face and lay him open to the bone.

  From his pocket, he produced a sealed envelope containing the deciphered list of names. Before handing it over, he scribbled Coe’s own name on the front.

  “I want background on each of them, including current whereabouts. ‘All significant activities,’ is that still the phrase you’re taught?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “Good, because that’s what I want to hear about. All significant activities, meaning jobs, contacts, travels abroad. But I don’t need to tell you your job, do I?”

  “You kind of do,” said Coe.

  “You work here, right?”

/>   “Psych Eval. I’m putting together a questionnaire for new recruits? Even newer ones, I mean.”

  A sheepish smile went with this.

  “Maybe you’d like to call Lady Di, then. Explain why you’re knocking her back.” Bachelor produced his mobile. “I can give you her direct line.”

  “All I meant, no, nothing. Sure. Here.” Coe took the envelope. “Am I looking for anything . . . in particular?”

  “Information, Coe. Data. Background.” Bachelor leaned forward, conspiratorially. The cubicle he’d found Coe in was surrounded by vacant workstations, but it was always worth making the effort. “In fact, let’s say that what you’ve got here’s a network. Deep cover. And you’re looking to prove it. Ten ordinary people, and what you’re after is the connection, the thread that links them. Which could be—well, you don’t need me to tell you. It could be anything.”

  Coe’s eyes had taken on a vague cast, which on a civilian might mean he was tuning out. Bachelor assumed it here meant the opposite; that Coe was drawing up a mental schedule: where he’d start, what channels he’d take. Analysts, in Bachelor’s experience, were always drawing mental maps.

  He wondered whether he should stress how confidential this was, but decided not to rouse the newby’s suspicions. Besides, how stupid would Coe have to be to go blabbing to all and sundry?