Free A Delicate Truth by John le Carré Page A

all augurs
     well.
    True, Fergus Quinn is no easy ride, but Toby
     never expected different. He can be clever, obtuse, petulant, foul-mouthed and
     dazzlingly considerate in the space of half a day, one minute all over you, the next a
     brooder who locks himself up with his despatch boxes behind his heavy mahogany door. He
     is a natural bully and, as advertised, makes no secret of his contempt for civil
     servants; even those closest to him are not spared his tongue-lashings. But his greatest
     scorn is reserved for Whitehall’s sprawling intelligence octopus, which he holds
     to be bloated, elitist, self-regarding and in thrall to its own mystique. And this is
     all the more unfortunate since part of Team Quinn’s remit requires it to
     ‘evaluate incoming intelligence materials from all sources and submit
     recommendations for exploitation by the appropriate services’.
    As to the scandal-at-Defence-that-never-was,
     whenever Toby is tempted to edge alongside it, he bumps up against what feels
     increasingly like a wall of silence deliberately constructed for his personal benefit:
case closed, mate
 … 
sorry, old boy, lips
     sealed
 … And once, if only from a boastful clerk in Finance Section over
     a Friday-evening pint in the Sherlock Holmes –
got away with daylight robbery,
     didn’t he?
It takes the unlovable Gregory, seated by chance next to Toby
     at a tedious Monday focus session of the Staffing and Management Committee, to set his
     alarm bells ringing at full blast.
    Gregory, a large and ponderous man older
     than his years, is Toby’s exact contemporary and supposed rival. But it is a fact
     known to all that, whenever the two of them are in line for an appointment, it’s
     always Toby who pips Gregory at the post. And so it might have been in the recent race
     for Private Secretary to the new Junior Minister, except that this time round the rumour
     mill decreed that there was no proper contest. Gregory had served a two-year secondment
     to Defence, bringing himinto almost daily contact with Quinn, whereas
     Toby was virgin – which is to say, he brought no such murky baggage from the past.
    The focus session drags to its inconclusive
     end. The room empties. Toby and Gregory remain by tacit agreement at the table. For Toby
     the moment provides a welcome opportunity to mend fences; Gregory is less sweetly
     disposed.
    ‘Getting along all right with King
     Fergie, are we?’ he enquires.
    ‘Fine, thanks, Gregory, just fine. A
     few wrinkles here and there, only to be expected. How’s life as Resident Clerk
     these days? Must be pretty eventful.’
    But Gregory is not keen to discuss life as a
     Resident Clerk, which he regards as a poor second to Private Secretary to the new
     Minister.
    ‘Well, watch out he doesn’t flog
     the office furniture out the back door is all I can say,’ he advises with a
     humourless smirk.
    ‘Why? Is that his thing? Flogging
     furniture? He’d have a bit of a problem, humping his new desk down three floors,
     even him!’ Toby replies, determined not to rise.
    ‘And he hasn’t signed you up to
     one of his highly profitable business companies yet?’
    ‘Is that what he did to
     you?’
    ‘No way,
old sport
’ –
     with improbable geniality – ‘not me. I stayed clear. Good men are scarce, I say.
     Others weren’t so fly.’
    And here without warning Toby’s
     patience snaps, which in Gregory’s company is what it tends to do.
    ‘Actually, what the hell are you
     trying to tell me, Gregory?’ he demands. And when all he gets is Gregory’s
     big, slow grin again: ‘If you’re warning me – if this is something I should
     know – then come out with it or go to Human bloody Resources.’
    Gregory affects to weigh this
     suggestion.
    ‘Well, I suppose if it was anything
     you needed to
know
, oldsport, you could always have a quiet
     word with your guardian angel Giles, couldn’t you?’
     
    *
     
    A self-righteous sense of purpose now