Uncommon Enemy by Alan Judd

bridges between peoples.” Just the same sort of thing. It made me laugh. I said he wasn’t the only one, which didn’t please him very much. Thought I wasn’t taking him
seriously.’
    ‘I thought he was doing well in the Foreign Office. He’s well suited, isn’t he? Good at it.’
    ‘He is, he’s doing very well. But he thinks it’s insufficiently internationalist.’ She shrugged. ‘That’s how he sees it, anyway.’
    ‘Its detractors are always saying the opposite.’
    ‘Nigel’s a citizen of the world now. He’s broadened his horizons. Unthinking loyalty to a narrow interpretation of the national interest doesn’t do any good for this
country, nor for anyone else. He says.’ She picked up her glass. ‘Anyway, Charles, how are you? How is life? Do you like what you do? Why aren’t you married?’
    ‘How d’you know I’m not?’
    ‘You can tell with some men. Everything about you is obvious. You must be a useless spy.’
    He talked about his job for a while, without saying much. When she asked why he had joined the army after Oxford he said, ‘Various reasons. No doubt something to do with my father having
been in the war. Also, I wanted a new start, I guess.’
    Their eyes met for a moment.
    It was not until she had got up to go and he was helping her on with her coat that he asked what he had wanted to ask all evening. ‘Have you ever heard anything from or of James –
Baby Bourne? He’d be old enough to get in touch now, if he wants.’
    She picked up her handbag. ‘No. Nor do I expect to. Where are you staying?’
    Afterwards, he pondered the crow’s feet around her eyes and the faint vertical lines either side of her mouth. They had been etched into her since that dinner in Clapham. Her hands were
changed, too. The girl’s hands he had known, soft, expressive, darting like swift birds, had become a woman’s, still quick and deft but more used and worn now, more noticeably veined.
He thought of such changes with a tenderness that surprised him.

7
    C orduroy was not interested in the origins of the case. ‘So the early volumes cover the years when Gladiator was working against the
Provisional IRA. And the latest volume, or electronic record, covers the most recent period, including his trips to Pakistan.’
    ‘Yes. All recent case records are electronic, but older cases with paper origins are supposed to be maintained in that state with print-outs.’
    ‘Is this one?’
    ‘No. At least, it wasn’t. I doubt many of them are. If the case officer doesn’t bother, there’s no longer anyone to remind him, or her. But I’ve now printed out all
the emails I could find and put them on it.’
    ‘Are you normally such a stickler for procedure?’
    ‘No, rather the opposite. But it’s quicker and easier to read a paper file, and I find I remember it better.’
    Corduroy leaned forward, his elbows on the desk. ‘Would you say, then, that otherwise you’re a bit cavalier with procedures?’
    Charles smiled. ‘Well, perhaps with administrative procedures I don’t see the point of. I imagine there might be comments to that effect on my own file.’
    ‘And with security procedures?’
    ‘I hope not. But, again, my file is probably a better record than my memory.’ He knew he had no major security breaches, though he also knew that, like almost anyone with an
operational career, he had cut corners.
    ‘Does the file say why Gladiator went back to Pakistan this last time, the trip from which he never returned?’
    ‘No. It refers briefly to the debate as to whether he should go and the conclusion that he should not. It also records the excuse he gave for not going. But it says nothing about his
change of mind, only that he had gone. It gives his flight number and shows that they checked he boarded it.’ He didn’t see where this tack would lead them. Whatever had happened to
Gladiator had nothing to do with his own alleged leaks to the press, unless, like him, they suspected