A Spy by Nature - Charles Cumming [35]
‘Is that something that has been worrying you? Losing touch with your friends?’
I reply quickly:
‘Not at all. No.’
‘Good. It shouldn’t necessarily. During my initial two-year training period in London I worked alongside an officer who had a very busy social life. Seemed to enjoy himself a great deal. There’s no absolute standard.’
‘But you have friends in Washington? Professional associates? People that you are able to see on a private basis away from work?’
Rouse emits a stout snort. And what he says now crystallizes everything.
‘Let me tell you this,’ he says, his eyes fixed on mine. ‘An SIS officer is asked to blend his private and professional selves into a seamless whole. We make no distinction between the two. An officer has, in a sense, no private life, because it is through his private life that much of his professional work is done. He uses his friendships, brokers trusts outside of the professional world, in order to gather information. That is how the system operates.’
‘I see.’
He glances at his watch, a digital.
‘It appears that our time is up.’ It isn’t, but he knows where this conversation is going. They cannot risk telling me too much. ‘Why don’t I leave you with that thought?’
He stands up out of his chair with heaviness, the white shirt more dishevelled now. A man with no friends.
‘Thank you for coming in,’ he says, as if it were a matter of choice.
‘It’s been interesting talking to you.’
‘Good,’ he replies, without emphasis. I start backing away towards the door. ‘I’m glad I could be of some assistance. We will see you in the morning, I trust.’
‘Yes.’
And with that I close the door. No handshake again, no contact. I walk briskly in the direction of the common room with a light, flushed sense of success. The building is strangely quiet. The doors to the various classrooms and offices leading off the corridor have been closed and in the distance I can hear a Hoover being dragged up and down on a worn floor.
The common room, too, is empty. Everyone has gone home. There are plastic cups strewn across the low table in the centre of the room, one of which has tipped over and soaked a portion of the pink business insert of the Evening Standard. Chewed broadsheet pages lie stiffly against the back of the sofa, fanned out like a tramp’s bed. I just look in and turn away.
Elaine is in the downstairs foyer, slouched against the wall. She is inspecting her nails. They are clear-varnished, neatly manicured.
‘Fancy a post-mortem drink?’ she asks.
‘Oh, no. No thanks. I’m just going to go home. Watch some TV.’
‘Just like the others.’
‘Just like the others. They’ve all gone home, have they?’
‘MMmmm.’
‘How come you’re still here?’ I ask. ‘I thought you finished an hour ago.’
‘Met an old friend. Went for a coffee and forgot my bag.’
A lie.
‘Tomorrow, then,’ I tell her unconvincingly. ‘Tomorrow we’ll all go out.’
‘Yeah,’ she says. ‘Tomorrow.’
7
Day Two
The morning of the second day is taken up with more written papers, beginning at nine a.m.
The In-Tray Exercise is a short, sharp, sixty-minute test of nerve, a lengthy document assessing both the candidate’s ability to identify practical problems arising within the Civil Service and his capacity for taking rapid and decisive action to resolve them. The focus is on leadership, management skills, the means to devolve responsibility and ‘prioritize’ decisions. SIS are big on teamwork.
Most of us seem to cope OK: Ogilvy, Elaine and Ann all finish the test within the allocated time. But the Hobbit looks to have messed up. At his desk his shoulders heave and slump with sighing frustration, and he writes only occasionally, little half-hearted scribbles. He has not responded well to having his mind channelled like this: concision and structure are contrary to his nature. When Keith collects his answer sheet at the end of the exercise, it looks sparse and blotched with ink, the script of a cross-wired mind.
The Letter-Writing Exercise, which takes us up to lunch, is more straightforward. A member of the public has sent a four-page