Gulliver had taken part in the Falklands Thing and won a gong for it. Since when, so far as Stormont knew, he had never left this side of the Atlantic. Occasionally when he was drunk he would raise a glass to ‘a certain patient little lady across the pond’ and heave a sigh. But it was a sigh of gratitude rather than deprival.
‘Political Officer?’ Stormont echoed.
He must have spoken louder than he realised. Perhaps he had nodded off. After sitting up with Paddy all night, he wouldn’t be surprised.
‘I’m the Political Officer, Ambassador. Chancery’s the political section. Why isn’t he being posted to Chancery where he belongs? Tell ’em no. Dig your toes in.’
‘I’m afraid one couldn’t possibly tell them anything of the sort, Nigel. It’s a done thing,’ Maltby replied. His donnish neigh set Stormont’s teeth on edge every time. ‘Within parameters, of course. One did fax a guarded objection to Personnel. Open-line stuff, one can’t say much. The cost of coded signals these days is astronomic. All those machines and clever women, I suppose.’ His smirk gave way to another downtrodden smile for Francesca. ‘But one fights one’s corner, naturally. Their response very much as you’d expect. Sympathetic to one’s point of view but unyielding. Which in a way one can understand. After all, if one were in Personnel Department oneself, that’s how one would respond. I mean they’ve no more choice than we have, have they? Given the circumstances.’
It was the word ‘circumstances’ attached as a postscript that provided Stormont with his first hint of the truth, but young Simon Pitt got in ahead of him. Simon was tall and flaxen and impish and wore a pony tail which Maltby’s imperious wife had vainly ordered him to cut off. He was a new entrant, currently responsible for everything nobody else wanted: Visas, Information, Embassy computers on the blink, local British nationals and points below.
‘Perhaps he could take over some of my stuff, sir,’ he volunteered cheekily, one hand draped aloft to make the bid. ‘How about “Dreams of Albion” for openers?’ he added, referring to a touring collection of early English watercolours presently rotting in a Panamanian Customs shed to the shrill despair of the British Council in London.
Maltby picked his words with even more than his customary fastidiousness. ‘No, Simon, I’m afraid I don’t think he’ll be able to take over “Dreams of Albion”, thank you,’ he replied, selecting a paper clip with his spidery fingers and unfolding it while he deliberated. ‘Osnard’s not strictly speaking one of us, you see. Rather more one of them, if you follow me,’
Even then, amazingly, Stormont failed to take the obvious inference. ‘I’m sorry, Ambassador, I don’t read you. One of whom! Is he a contract man or something?’ A frightful thought struck him. ‘He’s not drafted from industry, is he?’
Maltby bestowed a forbearing sigh on his paper clip. ‘No, Nigel, he is not, so far as I know, drafted from industry. He may be drafted from industry. I don’t know that he is not. I know nothing about his past and very little about his present. His future is also a closed book to me. He’s a Friend. Not, I hasten to say, a real friend, although we shall all naturally live in hopes that he may in due course become one. One of those friends. Now do you follow me?’
He paused, allowing time for simpler minds to catch him up.
‘He’s from across the park, Nigel. Well, river now. They’ve moved, one hears. What was a park is now a river.’
Stormont had found his tongue. ‘You mean the Friends are opening up a Station? Here in Panama? They can’t be.’
‘How interesting. Why not?’
‘They left. They pulled out. When the Cold War ended they shut up shop and left the field to the Yankees. There’s a product-sharing deal, conditional on them keeping their distance. I sit on the joint committee that supervises the traffic.’
‘And so you do, Nigel. With distinction, if I may say so.’
‘So what’s changed?’
‘Circumstance, one assumes. The Cold War ended so the Friends went away. Now the Cold War is coming back and the Yanks are going away. I’m only guessing, Nigel. I don’t know. Any more than you do. They asked for their old slot. Our Masters decided to give it them.’