The Glory Boys

'Off home then, Henry? Not been much for you tonight.'

'Not a damn thing, Sarge.'

'Seeing Doris this weekend?' He'd need that for his dossier, knew every damn thing about everyone, the old boy.

Davies paused near the door. 'No way, she's staying in through today and tomorrow. Won't be coming out till Monday.'

'Need a good bath and all, then,' said the sergeant. 'I don't know how she does it. Nice clean girl, living with all that muck.'

The constable smiled. 'She doesn't seem to mind. Gets a bit deep about it all, says it's what police work is all about.

Laughs at me for lugging this piece of dog-flesh about.'

'Well, I couldn't do it. Might manage if it was nine to five, Monday to Friday. But not living in among them twenty-four hours, weekends and all.'

The sarcasm was gentle and kindly meant. 'No one's going to ask you to blend into the hippie scene, now are they? Not your style, Sarge. But seriously, she says all the coming and going is at the weekend. When she was at the place behind the Angel they got the pusher at the weekend.

You have to be there the whole time – part of the furniture.'

An old lady moved across the hall towards the desk, diverting the sergeant's attention. Lost her bloody cat, most likely, thought Davies. He gave the dog's lead a slight pull, and the alsatian was up off its haunches. They went together to his van.

He had told Doris, but only half-heartedly, that he wasn't that keen on her living in the commune, and she had dismissed it – told him it was a damned sight more interesting than driving round with a dog for company.

But he'd see her on Monday when she came out of the half-world that she'd infiltrated, when she came out to file her twice-weekly report.

SEVEN

It was Lord Denning who wrote in his report in the wake of the Profumo scandal: 'The Security Service in this country is not established by Statute, nor is it recognized by Common Law. Even the Official Secrets Acts do not acknowledge its existence.' Since its conception back in the late sixteenth century the department has insisted that its moves and practices are cloaked in total secrecy. For years it was successful, and the Security Service remained shrouded in mystery, with its operators able to congratu-late themselves that they had found a near-divine formula for the working of the department. But all good things come to an end, and that very secrecy, once so jealously protected, had now brought the Security Service into hard times. Politicians looking for economic savings in the 1960s and early 1970s found a familiar scapegoat to carry the burden of financial cut-backs; few of them understood what went on in Leconfield House, and those that wanted to discover the strange activities of the personnel there were actively dissuaded from pursuing their inquiries.

The numbers of men employed in the department shriv-elled as fewer funds were channelled towards them. Worse followed when their political masters decided that the autonomy of the service should be curtailed, and appointed a career Civil Servant to take charge. Only recently, after a series of publicly-castigated mishaps, had the Prime Minister reverted to tradition and put a senior man from the service itself into the Director General's office. His identity was unknown to the mass of the population, and was covered by a 'D' Notice, requesting that the media keep it confidential.

The present DG spent much of his working day wrestling with the budget the Security Service was allowed by Parliament, striving to keep his force efficient, while at the same time remaining solvent. It was a soul-destroying job, and one which he detested. Nor was he paid much for his pains – slightly less than the Fleet Street average for a middle-ranking columnist. But inside the department the new man had revitalized morale simply because his subordinates knew that the man who now controlled them understood their work, was sympathetic to their problems, and was always available. The Irish problem had also played its part in lifting the tempo in Curzon Street. Instead of their dealing almost to the exclusion of everything else with the activities of the Iron Curtain embassies and the huge Soviet trade mission on Highgate Hill, an extra dimension had been brought into the work. On top of that came the more recent wave of Arab terrorism throughout Europe. The DG could note with satisfaction that the building no longer operated on a five-day week, and that many of the heads of key sections were at their desks through the weekend, even in high summer.

The Director General was a short, heavily-built man.