The Night Manager

Burr smiled. "That's what they always say, Sir Anthony. You don't think they're going to tell you to pack up and bolt, do you?"

Bradshaw stared at him. "Bollocks," he muttered, returning it to the lamp and his phone book. "Bullshit, whole thing. Some stupid game."

This time he dialled Darker's office, and yet again Burr saw the scene in his mind: Palfrey picking up the telephone for his * finest hour as Rooke's loyal agent; Rooke standing over him while he listened on the extension, Rooke's big hand helpfully * on Palfrey's arm and his clear, uncomplicated gaze encouraging Palfrey in his lines.

"I want Darker, Harry," Bradshaw was saying. "I need to I talk to him right away. Absolutely vital. Where is he?... Well, what do you mean, you don't know?... Fuck's sake, Harry, What's the matter with you? There's been a burglary at his house, the police are there, they've been on to him, spoken to him, where is he?... Don't give me that operational shit. I'm Operational. This

is operational. Find him!"

For Burr a long silence. Bradshaw has the earpiece flat against his ear. He has turned pale and frightened. Palfrey is saying his great lines. Whispering them, the way Burr and Rooke rehearsed him. From the heart, because for Palfrey they are true:

"Tony, get off the line, for Christ's sake!" Palfrey urges, doing his furtive voice and scrubbing his nose with the knuckles of his spare hand. "The balloon's gone up. Geoffrey and Neal are for the high jump. Burr and company are throwing the book at us. Chaps running in the corridors. Don't call again. Don't call anyone. Police in the lobby."

Then, best of all, Palfrey rings off ― or Rooke does it for him ― leaving Bradshaw frozen at his post, and the dead phone at his ear, and his mouth open in the interests of better hearing.

"I brought the papers, if you want to see them," Burr said comfortably as Bradshaw turned to stare at him. "I'm not supposed to, but they do give me a certain pleasure, I'll admit. When I said seven years, I was being pessimistic. It's my Yorkshire blood not wanting to exaggerate, I suppose. I think you'll get more like ten."

His voice had gathered volume but not pace. He was unpacking the briefcase while he spoke, ponderously, like an insinuating magician, one rumpled file at a time. Sometimes he opened a file and paused to study a particular letter before he put it down. Sometimes he smiled and shook his head as if to say, Would you believe it?

"Funny how a case like this can turn itself round on a sixpence, just in an afternoon," he mused while he toiled. "We flog away, me and my lads and lasses, and nobody wants to know. Up against a brick wall, every time. We've had a cast-iron case against Darker for, oh" ― he allowed himself another pause for smiling ― "as long as I can remember, anyway. As for Sir Anthony, well, you were in our sights while I was a beardless lad at grammar school, I should think. You see, I really hate you. There's lots of people I want to put behind bars and never shall, it's true. But you're in a category of your own, you are; always have been. Well, you know that, really, don't you?" Another file caught his eye, and he allowed himself a moment to flip through it. "Then all of a sudden the phone goes ― lunchtime as usual, but by a mercy I'm on a diet ― and it's somebody I've hardly heard of from the Director of Public Prosecutions' office. 'Hey, Leonard, why don't you slip down to Scotland Yard, get yourself a couple of hungry police officers and go and pull that fellow Geoffrey Darker in? It's about time we cleaned up Whitehall, Leonard, got rid of all these bent officials and their shady contacts on the outside ― men like Joyston Bradshaw, for instance ― and made an example to the outside world. The Americans are doing it, so why can't we? Time we proved we're serious about not arming future enemies ― all that junk.' " He pulled out another file, marked TOP SECRET, GUARD, EYES ONLY, and gave it an affectionate pat on the flank. "Darker's under what we're calling voluntary house arrest at the moment. Confession time, really, except we don't call it that. We always like to stretch habeas corpus when we're dealing with members of the trade. You have to bend the law from time to time, otherwise you don't get anywhere."

* * *