A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [16]
This time around I am treated with deference and respect by the cop on the door, and Ruth greets me at the bottom of the staircase with the cheery familiarity of an old friend.
‘Good to see you again, Mr Milius. You can go straight up.’
Throughout the morning there is a pervading sense of acceptance, a feeling of gradual admission to an exclusive club. My first encounter with Lucas was clearly a success: everything about my performance that day has impressed them.
In the secretarial enclave Ruth introduces me to Patrick Liddiard, who exudes the clean charm and military dignity of the typical Foreign Office man. This is the face that built the Empire: slim, alert, colonizing. He is impeccably turned out: gleaming brogues and a wife-ironed shirt that is tailored and crisp. His suit, too, is evidently custom-made, a rich grey flannel cut lean against his slender frame. He looks tremendously pleased to see me, pumping my hand with vigour, cementing an immediate connection between us.
‘Very nice to meet you,’ he says. ‘Very nice indeed.’
His voice is gentle, refined, faintly plummy, exactly as his appearance suggested it would be. Not a wrong note. There is a warmth suddenly about all of this, a clubbable ease entirely absent on my previous visit.
The interview itself does nothing to dispel this impression. Liddiard appears to treat it as a mere formality, something to be gone through before the rigours of Sisby. That, he tells me, will be a test of mettle, a tough two-day candidate analysis comprising IQ tests, essays, interviews and group discussions. But he makes it clear to me that he has every confidence in my ability both to succeed at Sisby and to go on to become a successful SIS officer.
There is only one conversational exchange between us which I think of as especially significant. It comes just as the first hour of the interview is drawing to a close.
We have finished discussing monetary union - issues of sovereignty and so on - when Liddiard makes a minute adjustment to his tie, glances down at the clipboard in his lap, and asks me very straightforwardly how I would feel about manipulating people for a living.
Initially I am surprised that such a question could emerge from the apparently decent, old-fashioned gent sitting opposite me. Liddiard has been so courteous, so civilized up to this point, that to hear talk of deception from him is jarring. As a result, our conversation turns suddenly watchful with implication, and I have to check myself out of complacency. We have arrived at what feels like the nub of the thing, the rich centre of the clandestine life.
I repeat the question, buying myself some time.
‘How would I feel about manipulating people?’
‘Yes,’ he says, with more care in his voice than he has allowed so far.
I must, in my answer, strike a delicate balance between the appearance of moral rectitude and the implied suggestion that I am capable of pernicious deceits. It is no good telling him outright of my preparedness to lie, although that at root is the business he is in. On the contrary, Liddiard will want to know that my will to do so is born of a deeper dedication, a profound belief in the ethical legitimacy of SIS. He is clearly a man possessed of values and moral probity: like Lucas, he sees the work of the Secret Intelligence Service as a force for good. Any suggestion that the intelligence services are involved in something fundamentally corrupt would appal him.
So I pick my words with care.
‘If you are searching for someone who is genetically manipulative, then you’ve got the wrong man. Deceit does not come easily to me. But if you are looking for somebody who would be prepared to lie when and if the circumstances demanded it, then that would be something I would be capable of doing.’
Liddiard allows an unquiet silence to linger in the room. And then he suddenly smiles, warmly, so that his teeth catch a splash of light. I have said the right thing.
‘Good,’ he says, nodding. ‘Good. And what about being unable to tell your friends about what you