‘Telephone, sir,’ he murmured.
‘Oh to hell,’ said Guillam deep in the directory. ‘Who is it?’
‘Outside line, sir. Someone rough. The garage, I think, regarding your car. Said he’d got some bad news for you,’ said Alwyn, very pleased.
Guillam was holding the Testify file in both hands, apparently cross-referring with the directory. He had his back to Sal and he could feel his knees shaking against his trouser legs. The pencil was still jammed in his mouth. Alwyn went ahead and held the swing door for him and he passed through it reading the file: like a damned choirboy, he thought. He waited for lightning to strike him, Sal to call murder, old Ben the superspy to leap suddenly to life, but it didn’t happen. He felt much better: Alwyn is my ally, I trust him, we are united against the Dolphin, I can move. The swing doors closed, he went down the four steps and there was Alwyn again, holding open the door to the telephone cubicle. The lower part was panelled, the upper part glass. Lifting the receiver he laid the file at his feet and heard Mendel tell him he needed a new gear box, the job could cost anything up to a hundred quid. They’d worked this up for the benefit of the housekeepers or whoever read the transcripts, and Guillam kept it going nicely to and fro till Alwyn was safely behind his counter, listening like an eagle. It’s working, he thought, I’m flying, it’s working after all. He heard himself say: ‘Well, at least get on to the main agents first and find out how long they’ll take to supply the damn thing. Have you got their number?’ And irritably: ‘Hang on.’
He half opened the door and kept the mouthpiece jammed against his backside because he was very concerned that this part should not go on tape. ‘Alwyn, chuck me that bag a minute will you?’
Alwyn brought it over keenly, like the first-aid man at a football match. ‘All right, Mr Guillam, sir? Open it for you, sir?’
‘Just dump it there, thanks.’
The bag was on the floor outside the cubicle. Now he stooped, dragged it inside and unzipped it. At the middle, among his shirts and a lot of newspaper, were three dummy files, one buff, one green, one pink. He took out the pink file and his address book and replaced them with the Testify file. He closed the zip, stood up and read Mendel a telephone number, actually the right one. He rang off, handed Alwyn the bag and returned to the reading room with the dummy file. He dawdled at the chart chest, fiddled with a couple more directories, then sauntered to the archive carrying the dummy file. Allitson was going through a comedy routine, first pulling then pushing the laundry basket.
‘Peter, give us a hand will you, I’m stuck.’
‘Half a sec.’
Recovering the four-three file from the Testify pigeonhole, he replaced it with the dummy, restored it to its rightful place in the four-three alcove and removed the green slip from the bracket. God is in his Heaven and the first night was a wow. He could have sung out loud: God is in his Heaven and I can still fly.
He took the slip to Sal, who signed it and put it on a spike as she always did. Later today she would check. If the file was in its place she would destroy both the green slip and the flimsy from the box, and not even clever Sal would remember that he had been alongside the four-four alcove. He was about to return to the archive to give old Allitson a hand when he found himself looking straight into the brown, unfriendly eyes of Toby Esterhase.
‘Peter,’ said Toby in his not quite perfect English. ‘I am so sorry to disturb you but we have a tiny crisis and Percy Alleline would like quite an urgent word with you. Can you come now? That would be very kind.’ And at the door, as Alwyn let them out: ‘Your opinion he wants actually,’ he remarked with the officiousness of a small but rising man. ‘He wishes to consult you for an opinion.’