I was met off the Oxford train on Tuesday morning, fifteen days after my dinner with Bonneville. Two men in dark coats in an unmarked but seriously luxurious car drove me from Paddington Station to a tall elegant building in Carlton Gardens just off Pall Mall. I had half-expected to be dumped into a cab and directed to some outmoded, middle-class hotel but frankly; I was too dizzy from excessive caffeine, nicotine and lack of sleep to care. The last two weeks had been manic. I had a semi-permanent headache, hadn't slept since Saturday night and had convinced Lewis Kershaw of my unalloyed insanity.
"Second floor, Flat Thirteen," the man in the front passenger seat handed me a set of keys after dumping my trunk on the pavement outside the building. "The Director wants to see you at nine tomorrow morning and said you should get some rest before then. A car will be here for you at eight-thirty." Without another word, he returned to the vehicle and it drove off.
Fortunately, for my fatigued state, there were several lifts. I dragged my heavy luggage in through the building's impressive glass entranceway towards the nearest set of steel doors, hitting the button for the second floor. Of course, number thirteen was down the far end of the wide corridor. Gritting my teeth, I heaved myself and my trunk to the designated doorway and unlocked the door.
It was still only mid-morning and a grey January light filtered through pleasingly tall windows and long voile curtains into a properly furnished apartment. Had I been in my more usual frame of mind, I would have investigated the entire place before I did anything else. As it was, my brain told me to find the nearest horizontal surface that would do for a bed.
Throwing my coat over the back of an expensive leather sofa, I left my trunk sitting in the middle of the hallway and looked for a door suggestive of bedroom. I found two; both furnished with a full suite of furniture and an ensuite bathroom, though one was slightly bigger than the other and had a King-sized bed. Never having slept in so luxurious a billet before, the choice was subconscious. Pulling the heavy curtains closed, I peeled off down to my underwear and crawled between the soft and sweet-smelling linens in abject relief. I conked out immediately because the next time I opened my eyes, a bedside clock I'd not noticed before told me it was after seven in the evening. I'd been asleep for nine hours.
My stomach advised me I was in imminent danger of death by malnutrition if I didn't eat in the next fifteen minutes and I tried to recall the location of any restaurants or take-away places the car had passed on the drive from Paddington, but there had been nothing close enough to be convenient. Perhaps I could find a place in the Yellow Pages that delivered?
Heading into the other area of the flat, I took note this time of both layout and furnishings, including the kitchen with its numerous cupboards. Might there perhaps be tea in one of these promising cabinets? The large modern refrigerator looked auspicious from the outside. Might there even be milk? Opening the fridge, I saw my beneficent host had ensured I would not lack for milk on my morning cornflakes. Nor would I lack for much else, though judging by the several bottles of Veuve Clicquot on the bottom shelf, I might end up with an expensive drinking habit. The whole thing was packed with every manner of comestible and all thoughts of going out to eat vanished.
I discovered a large sealed box bearing the name of an excellent West-end restaurant with my name scrawled across the top. Inside was a complete meal needing only the tender attentions of a microwave. An enormous carton of fragrant spiced soup, a large pastry pie with indeterminant contents but which smelled incredible, a sealed container of par-cooked broccoli and a tiny pot of what appeared to be gravy. Thoughtfully, there was also a written list of heating instructions. Having had to cater for myself for the last several years I felt equal to the task; I set the oven in motion
While the food was warming, I inspected the cupboards for tea. As with the refrigerator, the place was well-stocked; there was even a jar of my favourite marmalade. As soon as my brain realised I wasn't going to starve, it also realised I was in dire need of a shower. Then I needed to see what other surprises Bonneville had arranged for me; I little doubted there'd be something for me to look at before our morning meeting.
My bedroom's ensuite was one of the most hedonistic rooms I've ever been in. The shower alone would have done simultaneous service for several good friends and perhaps that was its intention. The hot water and decent sleep had returned me to a semblance of civility and now all I wanted to do was eat and redirect my brain away from the ordeal of the last two weeks.
Back in the kitchen, as I hunted for the familiar box of my usual tea of which I now fully expected to find, I decided the evening merited a celebration. I had completed my Master's degree in nine months, had apparently landed the job of my wildest fantasies, been billeted in a superb apartment and was about to dine on a gourmet meal prepared just for me. Tea, no matter how invigorating, was hardly up to the job. Revisiting the fridge, I liberated one of the bottles of fizzy and hunted for suitable glassware. My first evening in London was shaping up very nicely.
Sipping a most satisfactory bubbly, I wandered the apartment from room to room, of which there were seven plus the wide hallway which had craftily invisible cupboards along one wall. To the left of the hall as one entered the flat was an arched entrance to a large sitting room complete with a modern television and sound system. Beyond that was a small, though elegant dining area, the setting of which was definitely Regency. The kitchen could be entered both via the lounge and through its own arched entrance further up the hallway. Directly across the hall from the kitchen archway was a small WC and laundry, followed by the two bedrooms and ensuites. At the far end of the hall, directly opposite the front door, was a closed and locked door which led me, once I had located the correct key on my new keyring, into a neatly appointed office. Not huge, but bigger than my room at Merton. The desk seemed rather distinguished and I sat in the chair assessing the fit. I had no idea whose flat this was or whose champagne I was making so free with, but sitting here seemed a perfectly acceptable thing to do. After all, I'd been handed the keys without caveat. I realised there were no windows in the office and wondered if that was by accident or by design. I scoffed at my naivety. Accident? What was I thinking?
As I looked around, partially lost in thought, it became obvious that anyone sitting at the desk in the office would be able to see right down the hallway to the front door. If one was expecting undesirable visitors say, in the middle of the night, the very best way to greet them would be sitting at this desk, door open, all the lights out, with a pistol in one's hand. Anyone crossing the threshold uninvited would never know what hit them until they were too dead to worry about it. For some reason, the thought comforted me.
There was a long shallow drawer in the centre of the desk which I slid open. It contained nothing apart from a thin grey plastic case, the size of a small attaché case. Laying it out on the desk's top, I could see a fastening at the front. Putting my empty champagne glass to one side, my curiosity overcame me and I fiddled with the catch until the thing opened. I was rather pleased when it turned out to be one of the new notebook computers or 'laptops' as I had heard them called. Very tempted to see how it worked and what it would let me do, the oven pinged, alerting my stomach that eating was still on the agenda.
Deciding in this instance that an avoidance of death by starvation was of a higher priority than my brain's petition of curiosity, I headed into the kitchen where a most delectable aroma told me decent food awaited. Pouring more champagne, I loaded everything else into dishes and onto a tray, heading into the dining table to offer at least a token of respect to such a wondrous repast. The Laksa was divine. The pie turned out to be beef and Guinness and equally heavenly. Though hunger made the best sauce, I spent the next fifteen minutes glorying shamelessly in the joys of the table, refilling my glass as I went. I was feeling much more the thing by the time I'd finished dinner and decided to revisit the mysterious computer.
I had heard of these new laptops but I had never used one before. Finding a cable which connected one side of the computer to a power socket in the side of the desk, it took a very little time before I had the thing turned on and, ostensibly, working. No operating guide had been provided which made me smile. With everything else this flat contained, the omission of a user manual was not accidental. There also appeared to be multilevular passwords and encryption of the strangest details.
It was as well I'd had a proper sleep earlier as it was almost midnight and the champagne long drunk before I persuaded the little beast to divulge its secrets. And what secrets they were. File names of astonishing sensitivity. Letters signed by the highest in the land. Copies of receipts for all manner of classified materials and weaponry. Names, places and events. Bonneville must have felt very sure of me to provide access to such information so early in the game. Half of me understood what he was doing. The other half was appalled at his recklessness.
The rest of the flat could wait. I needed more sleep and I certainly wasn't about to leave the laptop computer in the office. I brought it to bed with me and laid it beneath my lowest pillow. Far enough away to be unnoticeable in my sleep; close enough to be missed if anyone came for it during the night. I double-checked the front door was locked and deadlocked and that everything else was switched off or closed down. Once I was satisfied of the flat's essential impregnability, I crawled back into bed with a mental note to awaken at seven o'clock. The very large bed was equally comfortable the second time of trying, and I drifted off in very short order.
###
The same two men I'd met at Paddington arrived on the dot of eight-thirty the next morning. I had been waiting for three minutes with my briefcase containing a few things I'd used at Merton in one half and the laptop computer in the other. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, was likely to be doing or what was going to be expected of me during the day ahead. I was as excited as I remembered being on the eve of my sixth birthday before my parents took me on a tour of the Palace of Westminster for the first time.
The car deposited me at Whitehall in Spring Gardens, a journey of not more than seven minutes. The driver pointed me towards a nearby entrance, saying that someone would meet me there and convey me to my destination.
A woman in her mid-thirties waited for me at the security check inside the entrance.
"Here," she said without introduction. "You'd better put this on," handing me a security badge for the breast pocket of my most decent suit. Clipping on the plastic card made the morning seem less surreal. I was actually here. Wherever here was, of course.
Following my silent guide, we walked though endless great halls and corridors until we reached a smaller and much more lacklustre part of whatever building we were now in. There was less marble here and a lot less glitz. The place had a look of casual dreariness, as if no care at all had been taken to render this specific area as uninteresting as possible.
Which of course, made it immediately fascinating. Halting in the middle of a wide, marble-tiled passageway, I observed everything, absorbed as much as I could and remained completely silent. The woman pointed me to a very ordinary-looking door. "In there," she waved me on. "You're expected."
Not bothering to knock, I opened the door to find myself in an incredibly dull little waiting room with ancient, post-war wooden chairs placed around the walls, a weary piece of carpet on the floor and a range of elderly posters on the walls advising the reader to 'protect and survive'; archaic gems of 1970s British civil defence. The prints were stained with age and disintegrating at the corners. There was a second closed door directly opposite the one I'd just entered, its half-glass panels grey and in need of a good polish. On the surface, this did not seem to be the kind of place a man like Sir David might call home.
However, I also noticed the heavy-gauge steel locks masquerading as Yale, the very careful mounting of the extra-thick glass in the far door and the small scratch revealing the shine of steel beneath the veneer of wood itself. There was also an odd device, perhaps for surveillance, mounted flush against the upper edge of the central light fitting. This room was not at all what it pretended to be. I waited, hopefully looking intelligent. The far door opened and a man only a few years older than myself beckoned me through.
"The Director will see you in his office," he said, walking me through a second set of glassed doors into a significantly wider corridor that was suddenly much more upmarket than the waiting room I'd just left. The marble was back, though there was also a very rich and heavy carpeting everywhere I looked. While people clattered and stamped outside, in here was an oasis of muted undertones and silent footsteps.
My escort noticed my noticing and gestured around with his hand. "You'll get used to it," he smiled. "We try and keep things peaceful in here; it helps with the work."
I wondered whose work he had in mind when we turned a corner onto another wide corridor with several closed doors on either side and a very impressive-looking portal right at the far end.
"Sir David is waiting for you," the man pointed to the big door, smiled briefly again and vanished back around the corner. Taking a deep breath I decided that knocking was the right step this time, but was called in before I could raise my hand to the door.
This new room was definitely more stylish. Large, wood-panelled and with a brilliantly intricate hand-knotted Axminster covering the bulk of the floor. The majestic central desk was the grandfather of the one I'd used in the flat the previous evening; same shape and drawers, though this one was larger and on a much grander scale. The entire room shone in dark tones of antique woods, polished brass and green glass lampshades. It felt as if I'd stepped back a hundred years into some high Victorian gentleman's club.
"Welcome, Mycroft," Bonneville was in the corner, busying himself with a modern coffee set, returning to his desk with two cups, pushing one across to me. "Is the flat suitable?"
"The flat is exceptional, Sir David," I took up the coffee and inhaled the wonderful aroma. "I don't know whose it is, but the owner very kindly left me dinner last night. I'm afraid I also celebrated with a bottle of their champagne, but of course I'm happy to replace everything I used."
"The flat is yours, Mycroft," Bonneville leaned back, lighting up a cigarette. "At least, yours to use until you're are able to find your own domicile somewhere in London, though close to Whitehall is generally the wisest in the long run."
Mine? The apartment was mine to use?
"Even without knowing how much money I can count on, I'm reasonably certain I won't be able to afford the rent on a place like that in Carlton Gardens," I said, sipping the coffee.
"I'm sure you'll find the financial aspects of your arrangement most equitable," my new mentor nodded. "And the flat is part of the deal," Sir David was unhesitating. "It's a government-owned building and thus there is no rent to pay. I'm going to need you close to this department in every sense of the word for the foreseeable future, Mycroft," he said. "When problems develop, they have a habit of doing so extremely rapidly and, given the various time zones with which we deal, often in the middle of the London night. I will need you here urgently and without waiting an hour for you to arrive. This is why you'll be living less than ten minutes away and will have your own driver on call twenty-four hours a day, as do I."
"And what form do these problems take, sir?" my curiosity was acute.
"All in good time, my boy," Bonneville nodded at my briefcase. "Anything of interest in there?"
"Only this," I said, drawing out the grey-cased computer. "I have no idea how this was left in the flat, but I believe you should have it back; there's all manner of sensitive things in here."
"So you managed to crack the passwords, did you?" There was a hint of a smile.
"Not that hard to do, sir," I pushed the computer across the desk. "The security on this thing is rather feeble if you don't mind me saying."
"What did you think of the information you read?" Bonneville didn't seem at all surprised that I'd accessed the computer's memory.
"Frankly, I was disturbed any of it was put onto a mobile device in the first place," I said truthfully, gesturing to the laptop. "In something as transportable as this, such information is dreadfully insecure and begging to be stolen."
"Did you consider the information to be genuine?"
The question made me pause. I had assumed the information was authentic from the moment I read it; there was no reason for it not to be and no indication I could see that it had been faked. Of course, as soon as I asked myself why such forged materials might exist, I understood that sometimes people needed to see things, or even steal things, that were not real.
"Is it genuine?" I asked, thinking of anything I could that might suggest it wasn't.
"Not a word," Sir David puffed smoke into the air and stubbed his cigarette out. "The first thing you are going to learn is the difference between genuine information and details that merely seem genuine," he said, unlocking the computer and switching it on. "Take, for example, this letter purportedly from the previous Home Secretary ..."
I spent the rest of the morning in a small side office next to Bonneville's, wading through reams of letters, some real, some not, being schooled in how to read between the lines in more ways than one. I had no conscious awareness of the passage of time until he tapped me on the shoulder just after one o'clock.
"I think a spot of lunch might do," Sir David handed me a long black umbrella. "The weather is foul," he observed, wrapping a fine silk scarf around his neck. "We shall enjoy a pleasant lunch and then you will accompany me to one of the most productive hotspots of international and political gossip in town."
Having studied a great deal about contemporary British politics at Merton, I assumed the best place for political gossip would be somewhere around the House of Commons, or perhaps in some political Whip's office. My expression clearly gave my ignorance away.
"My tailors, dear boy," Bonneville smiled, escorting me down yet another lengthy passageway, out through a heavy wooden door into what appeared to be an old map-room, thence through another side door into a quiet cloister leading out to the side of the building. I would no doubt generate a full map of the environs in my mind in a short space of time but for the moment, I was comprehensively lost. Sir David's car however, was not lost and waited quietly for us as we walked the remaining few feet in the damp grey winter's afternoon.
Lunch, a perfectly civil affair at Murano's in Mayfair was followed by a swift drive to Old Burlington Street and the one-hundred year abode of Anderson and Sheppard, tailors to royalty since 1906. Clearly Sir David was a known figure, as he was immediately escorted to the side of a roaring open fire where he was seated and offered tea.
"I'm looking for a spring suit for my nephew here," he announced to all and sundry leaving nobody in any doubt of my lineage. "Is Sidney cutting today or is he still at the show in Munich?"
Within moments, I was draped with several different bolts of fine cloth, while different types of buttons and even thread were compared and discussed around me. I realised this was all for show; me being the perfect foil for Bonneville. I drew all the overt attention while he stood in the wings, ostensibly approving of my choice of a delightful light grey Prince of Wales check and matching grey buttons. Did sir desire a waistcoat? Had sir any thoughts about ties? On which side did sir dress? Would sir care for a warming brandy?
Never having been sized up for a custom-made suit before, I was fascinatedly paying attention to at least eight simultaneous things, as well as watching Sir David chatting away to a variety of onlookers as I was virtually disassembled in public. I had a vague awareness that bespoke suits cost a great deal, but I said nothing, confident that Bonneville would call the entire thing off before a single thread was cut. I looked for my mentor, only to find him in deep discussion with a tall thin man in the farthest corner from the window. Both men turned their faces to the side when they spoke, lifting their hands to partially cover the movement of their lips. Even if the conversation was being watched, the watchers would extract little of value.
The conversation around me turned to the pressing matter of shoes, raincoats and shirts. I'd heard the name of Turnbull and Asser before, but Huntsman, Poole and Co and Gieves and Hawkes meant little to me. How quickly that was to change.
The various bolts of fabric made way for several already-made jackets and trousers into which I was thrust into and out of via three different changing rooms both alone and, on one occasion, with the door open and several pairs of eyes upon me as I tried on a rather fetching sports jacket.
The camel cashmere overcoat was the final straw and tiring of being Bonneville's distraction, I turned my head, hoping to locate him and ask for mercy. He was sitting at the fireside sipping tea like a spinster aunt.
"When you're quite finished dallying, Michael, we need to be off," he admonished in an exasperated tone, as if I had been the one who'd kept us both here. "You'll need to return for the rest of your fittings in a few weeks, but the other things can be delivered to your apartment building this afternoon. It's quite late now and we really must be going." Accepting the apparent chastisement with good grace, I had no idea what he was talking about, nor why my name had suddenly changed. Realising my place was not to question, I stayed silent. Back in the car however, I felt free to ask.
"What was that for?" I met Bonneville's gaze. "I know a play when I'm in one. But what else was going on in that place? Who was the tall man you were talking with in the shadows?"
"All excellent questions, Mycroft," Sir David's eyes scanned people on the street as if waiting for something to happen. "Wait until my office, if you don't mind."
Minutes later, after we had returned to his office via the entrance in the cloister, I was treated to another coffee while my mentor sat back in his chair and stared at me, raising his eyebrows. There were so many questions that I had to put them in some order of priority.
"Did we go through all that so you could talk to that man?" I asked. "Who is he and why did you want to speak to him in a public place?" I hesitated. "And what were you waiting for in the car on the way back to the office?" It was the last question, I think, which drew his sharp glance.
"You noticed that, did you?" he pursed his mouth and looked as if her were considering how much to share with me. Finally deciding, Bonneville reached into one of the desks capacious drawers, pulling out a thick manila folder with the words MOST SECRET stamped in red across the front. He pushed it across the table to me. "Read it and then tell me the two points you think are most key," he checked his watch. "You have twenty minutes," he waved me away into the small side office.
The file contained the life and times of the man Bonneville had spoken to at the tailors.
Avel Melnyk. Ukrainian, forty-three. Ex-KGB, ex-SBU. Agent, double-agent and spy-about-town. Played the mercenary during the Russia-Georgia war in 1980, resident in London the last three years, ostensibly as the manager of a Kiev-based import-export company located on the river in North Woolwich. There were several photographs of the man in various uniforms and locations, most of them showing him with an automatic weapon in his hands. Mr Melnyk certainly seemed to like his small armaments, especially since his company appeared to ship little else. There was also a closely-typed record of the contracts and deals the man had been involved with, but it was the attached pages that had my eyebrows rising.
Avel Melnyk had been arrested on several occasions by agencies unfriendly to his way of living. On at least two of those occasions, he'd been quite brutally tortured, barely escaping with his life the last time. His most recent arrest had been on the basis of information supplied, a copy of the letter condemning Melnyk to imprisonment and persecution attached to the file.
A letter signed by David Bonneville.
For whatever reason, Sir David had informed on Melnyk some five years earlier, the result of which was a most unpleasant experience for the man. According to the remaining notes in the file, Melnyk had been seeking his betrayer quite assiduously since that time. The notes on his activities stopped short at a date some four months prior. For some reason, Melnyk had stopped looking. Just like that. Something felt very wrong.
The two key points were obvious and alarming. Taking a slow deep breath, I returned to Sir David's office and retook my seat.
"Well?" Bonneville lit a cigarette. "Tell me."
"Point one. Melnyk has probably discovered you are the one who betrayed him five years ago," I said slowly. "You know this but need to keep him onside for as long as possible to maintain knowledge of the armaments pipeline through him to indeterminate Ukrainian interests operating under the cover of the import-export company from Kiev," I almost felt like asking for a cigarette myself. "Point two. Melnyk is going to try and kill you."
Bonneville nodded, matter-of-factly. "Yes," he said. "I've been expecting it since October."
"But you were talking to each other like old friends in the tailors," I lifted my hands, not really understanding.
"For a very long time, we were," Sir David sighed. "Until Melnyk decided to sell out several of our other mutual old friends to an unfriendly government, resulting in loss of life, not only of the people we knew but in one case, an entire family. I would have been next and merely acted pre-emptively."
"So his plan to assassinate you is essentially revenge?"
Bonneville smiled. "Call it good business," he smiled bleakly. "With me around, Avel Melnyk is restricted in what he does as he knows I have eyes everywhere. I could simply have him removed, but his role as a conduit of information between London and Kiev is too productive, and I am loath to willingly lose that data stream," his lips thinned. "It is one of the reasons I sought you out." I nodded, understanding. It was a case of wanting something very dangerous. In the car, Sir David had been watching for an assassin. And if, for whatever reason, he was to die ...
"Can you find leverage?" I asked. "Some vulnerability of Melnyk's you could exploit in your favour? Some family member, someone or something he values too much to lose?"
"An excellent idea, Mycroft," Sir David lit another cigarette. "But there is nothing. I have most certainly looked, believe me."
"But a Damoclean sword hangs over you," I frowned. From everything in the folder, Melnyk was an unpleasant individual in every sense of the word. His removal, no matter how it might damage the London-Kiev arms route was surely nothing compared to Bonneville's continued existence.
"Ah, the absolute nature of the young," Sir David smiled. "Unfortunately, not even Machiavelli's truisms were perfect," he said. "I will protect myself and continue to use Avel Melnyk for as long as I am able."
"And where do I fit into this as your nephew?" I asked. "Melnyk now knows I have a connection to you. He may try to manipulate it."
"Indeed, he might," Bonneville nodded. "But not yet, not for a while."
"And if he succeeds?" I must have looked as grave as I felt. "If you die?"
"I am not dead yet, Mycroft," Sir David smiled cannily. "There are a great many things you have to learn."
I returned to the side office and continued reviewing the false papers on the laptop, though the idea of Bonneville being removed on the whim of someone as reprehensible as Melnyk burned in my stomach.
It was after six-thirty that evening when I was dismissed for the day, Sir David accompanying me out of the building the way I had entered that morning. There was a pattern to the passageways and doors that I imprinted in my memory; I would need no further guidance after today. The same two men in the same car were waiting for me at the same place. They dropped me off on the pavement in front of my building in Carlton Gardens. There were two things I knew I had to do this evening
Once more in the flat ... my flat ... I took stock a little more closely than I had the previous day. So much had changed in twenty-four hours. I also needed to tell my parents I'd left Oxford and was now working in London. I doubted mother would be terribly happy but as I'd left home almost four years before, her vote was scarcely critical. And then there was the one other task I had set myself for this evening.
The first thing I noticed upon entering the flat was that a large number of packages had been deposited immediately inside my front door. Each one bearing the name of Anderson & Sheppard, I realised that this afternoon's sham fitting at Bonneville's tailor might not have been as entirely false as I'd imagined. Sir David must have had one of his people collect the items of clothing and drop them off here for me. It was a thoughtful gesture. The clothes themselves could be paid for at some point, but the fact that he had included me in his operations from the first day was important and meant a great deal to me.
There had been no additional visits by the kitchen fairy, though the packed refrigerator would no doubt keep me fed for some time to come. There was, however, a fat white envelope waiting for me on the desk in the office. The door had been locked when I left that morning and it was still locked when I arrived home, but someone had been in here during the day and left this envelope.
Automatically checking the thing for wires, handwriting and anything untoward, I eventually sat at the desk, opening the package and spreading out the contents.
Item: Two chequebooks from Coutts Bank inside a red leather folder emblazoned with the bank's name on the outside and mine on the inside. I knew little of the institution except that they handled the Queen's banking. If it was good enough for Her Majesty then I could hardly fault it.
Item: A brand new VISA credit card, also from Coutts. The accompanying letter specified I had a charge limit of twenty-thousand pounds, an astronomical amount when one considered the average London salary at the time was in the region of fifteen thousand per annum. I signed the card and tucked it respectfully into my wallet.
Item: A one-page copy of the Official Secrets Act (1980). I read and signed this without a qualm.
Item: Duplicate copies of a Civil Service contract of employment, specifying tasks unspecified, unspecified working hours, unspecified work locations and unspecified responsibilities. I almost laughed. If a more ludicrous contract existed elsewhere, I'd love to see it. Taking up my pen, I signed both copies with a flourish.
There was an addendum, paper-clipped together behind the contract. It laid out the pay scales of Her Majesty's Civil Service, reminding me that I was to be a servant of the crown rather than of the nation's politicians and thus subject to standard remunerations. The pay scales for London for a junior were reasonable, though hardly superlative. It was only when I checked and then very carefully re-checked my actual pay grade that I saw I was not on any junior scale. I was, in fact, being paid at a Deputy Director's grade. Including the London weighting for the position, my annual starting income was seventy-five thousand pounds. Even after tax, I would be bringing home an astonishing amount of money.
I sat at my new desk, contemplating the vagaries of life. Only two weeks before, I had been slaving away in a freezing garret of a study at Oxford. Now, I was being treated, quite literally, like royalty, though I had every confidence Bonneville would get his money's worth.
Taking out my new phone, I rang my parents' farmhouse. Dad answered, which was something of a relief as he tended to be the sane one. I explained I had finished my dissertation earlier than anticipated and been offered a job with the Home Office, as a ... I had to think quickly, settling on the role of political analyst. It sounded sufficiently vague and yet adequately connected to my studies to make sense. I told him I had access to a government flat and had already started work. Mummy had no need to be worried about anything.
Of course, I was dreaming if I thought she'd let it go at that. Taking the phone from my father, I was grilled for the next five minutes on the minutia of the new job, on the place I would be living and the quite critical question of whether I had sufficient pairs of socks. After several minutes of reassurance that felt like hours, I completed my filial duty and heaved a huge sigh of relief as the call ended.
I checked my watch. It was just on seven-thirty. I decided to change into clothes more suitable for my next set of activities. I selected a pair of dark trousers, a heavy navy blue polo-necked jumper and, after digging around in the parcels left for me from Bonneville's tailors, a long dark trench coat. Leaving the flat's lights on, I picked up the umbrella I'd been given earlier and made my way downstairs to the front of the building. I would find somewhere close by to have dinner.
After that, I was going to hunt down Avel Melnyk.