Frank said to Smethers: ‘We’ll have to see about having another desk put in. We’re getting another helper. Promotion all round – you can take your tunic along to the tailor straight away.’

Smethers said, in his curiously thin voice: ‘All round? You’ve got your third, too? Congratulations. Oh, there was a call for you.’ He pushed a slip of paper over. ‘She left the number for you to ring.’

‘Oh, Pat? Thanks.’

Smethers bent again to his work as Frank put the call through. While he waited for the connection, Frank studied Smethers’s head: earnest, engrossed, treacherous and essentially ineffective. He was, he reflected, precisely the kind of companion he would have chosen in this particular environment.