Pont Street Diplomatic

'My wife's people have never quite forgiven you for the Battle of Maldon, Mr Ambassador.'

The diplomat smiled as diplomats are trained to do without effort, but no effort was needed here, for there was a definite twinkle in the speaker's voice.

'That would be ... in the year 991, I believe,' he answered the twinkle.

''Fraid so. Awfully long memories my wife's family have; makes my life a positive trial at times.'

'And do they blame me personally, or my country?'

'I suppose they blame the Vikings,' the speaker said after a thoughtful pause.

'They are probably wise to do so,' said his host, 'but please forward my regret that while I am proud to represent His Majesty King Frederick IX and his government, I have no remit to explain or defend the actions of Sven Forkbeard.'

'What a pity; I had my petition already written out.'

A female and very feminine voice interrupted these somewhat bizarre diplomatic negotiations: 'Mr Ambassador, allow me to apologise for my husband. I have no idea what he was pestering you about, but pestering is his forte and as he has been out of my supervisory sight for all of five minutes, I think I can safely say he has moved in to full pestering mode. I do hope it wasn't about the canapés. He's quite obsessed with geometric patterns on plates of canapés, poor lamb. Never eats them, just likes the shapes. He's probably quite mad and it's surprising we still get invited to embassy receptions.'

The ambassador turned to the elegant, red-haired woman, who had quietly positioned herself at her husband's side with the smoothness of a closing Rolls-Royce door without the accompanying thunderous click. He proffered a hand in greeting, enhanced with a low, dignified bow.

'The exquisite Lady Amanda to the rescue, I presume.'

'Rescues gallantly and freely performed,' said the woman, performing a half-bob, quarter-curtsey with a smile and a tilt of her heart-shaped face. 'I assume you do need rescuing from my husband? Most people do after two or three minutes and I've had years of experience at it. I could even provide references and probably testimonials.'

The ambassador allowed himself a deep-throated chuckle.

'I have not yet been formally introduced to this gentleman, although of course I know who he is, and I am confident I am in no need of rescue.'

'Well, if you are absolutely sure,' said the woman, 'allow me to introduce Mr Albert Campion, who looks more harmless than he is but is, I suppose, a gentleman if you are willing to stretch a point.'

The tall, thin man with the pale-straw hair beamed from behind large, horn-rimmed glasses and offered an outstretched hand.

'Mr Ambassador. Please forgive my wife. She is younger than I and, as you can see from her dress sense, she has embraced the rebellion of youth.'

'I am Aage Westergaard,' said their host, 'and I welcome you to our little piece of Denmark here in England. I can say without hesitation that His Majesty King Frederick would approve of Lady Amanda's dress sense, which is surely the height of fashion for Swinging London.'

'I thank the ambassador,' said Amanda, 'and his king.'

'Of course, I cannot speak for that old Viking Sven Forkbeard, who probably had a rather ... shall we say restricted ... view of women.'

'As did my mother,' said Mr Campion, 'who would have been horrified at the thought of women wearing trousers at all, let alone at a diplomatic reception.'

The ambassador stared at Lady Amanda, his gaze sweeping from head-to-foot as if only now aware of her presence, noting her black velvet figure-hugging tuxedo suit, the white blouse with Peter Pan collar and cuffs and the square-toed heeled boots peeping out from beneath fashionably wide flares. With her mellowing red hair cut short, the ambassador decided it would be unwise to guess her age, but was wise enough to know he would be at least ten years wrong, though Lady Amanda required neither flattery nor defending.

'For goodness' sake, nipped waists, fitted bodices and long gloves went out of style years ago. In any case, if one has an Yves Saint Laurent, one should jolly well show it off.'

'Well said, Lady Amanda.' The ambassador bowed his head in genuine admiration. 'And may I suggest that you do so admirably.'

A waiter shimmered across the reception room bearing a tray of champagne flutes and presented himself smartly to attention at the ambassador's right hand.

'Please,' he indicated. 'The hospitality may be Danish, but the champagne is French and of particular quality; or so my staff inform me, for I have little taste in such things.'

'I find that hard to believe, Greve Westergaard,' said Mr Campion, concentrating on his champagne flute as if it held the secret of eternal life.

The ambassador sipped from his glass then waved it gently in front of him as he would wag a finger.

'Please, Mr Campion, let us not bandy titles about, for I suspect you have more to be embarrassed about than I. On these premises, "Mr Ambassador" will suffice, and outside these walls I answer perfectly well to Aage.'

Amanda fixed a steely eye on her husband and regretted that this had not been a sit-down affair so she could have kicked him under the table.

'Forgive me,' she asked politely, 'Greve?'

'A Danish title, equivalent to your English count,' replied Ambassador Westergaard with a sigh. 'Like most titles, a hindrance more often than an advantage, especially in egalitarian Denmark, though often useful when booking a table in a restaurant in London or Paris. However, I am delighted to see that your husband has done his homework on me. I would have expected no less, just as I have done my homework on him, which is why you are both here tonight.'

'Drat! I thought I'd been booked as the cabaret,' said Campion with a straight face. 'I do a passable turn as a magician, am pretty nifty as a juggler and can play a mean boogie-woogie. Where do you keep the piano, by the way?'

Amanda pursed her lips, rolled her eyes upwards and shook her head slowly as if disapproving of the ornate chandelier hovering above them.

'Please, Lady Amanda, do not distress yourself. I was forewarned that I might encounter the Campion sense of humour.'

'Don't worry, it's not catching,' said Campion quickly, 'but I'd love to know who has been flashing the warning signs.'

'Actually, it was a duke,' the ambassador said smoothly. 'Quite a senior one – a royal one, in fact. Your royal, that is, not mine; and everything he said about you was substantiated by another equally impressive gentleman.'

Campion, by now intrigued, questioned his host further: 'I can hazard a guess at the identity of the duke despite being both flattered and terrified by the fact that he has an opinion of me, but I am curious as to who the other gentleman is who has been providing character references for me. Impressive, you said?'

'Oh very,' the ambassador replied. 'A marvellous fellow and quite a character – almost larger than life. He claimed to have "all the dirt worth digging" on you.'

'Lugg!' chorused both Campions.

Less than two miles away in a north-easterly direction, across Green Park, over Piccadilly and into Soho, a long-haired young man wearing a leather 'biker' jacket was returning on foot from a very different sort of diplomatic meeting at a very different embassy.

The man, known as Frank Tate, with the easy skill of an experienced harbour pilot, navigated the shallow back alleys both north and south of Oxford Street, before crossing the main current of that thoroughfare with the collar of his jacket turned up as if to shield him from inquisitive street lights and the probing fingers of car and bus headlights. Entering the calmer – some would say stagnant – waters of Soho proper he closed his ears to the hum of pubs settling down to an evening's regular trade and his nose to the scent of the growing number of trattoria gearing up to serve platefuls of spaghetti alle cozze or rigatoni all'amatriciana at four-and-sixpence a go. Once in Dean Street, he stopped and looked around him as if taking bearings for the first time and, judging the coast clear, he strode full speed ahead into the dark, narrow inlet known to few apart from taxi drivers and the London Electricity Board as St Anne's Court.

At the third Dickensian doorway on his right he paused, alert to any minute changes which might have taken place during his absence. Sensing no obvious disturbances, he stepped into the door-less doorway and began to climb the wooden stairs, passing the stack of business cards drawing-pinned to the door jamb announcing: Ground floor: Young Model; First Floor: French Model; Second Floor: Young French Model; Third floor: Francis Tate Photography; Top Floor: French Polishing.

At the top of each landing he stopped to listen before continuing his climb. A series of indistinct grunts told him that the French Model was professionally engaged, while the muffled twang of guitar music suggested that the Young French Model was having an evening in listening to the radio. Neither situation disturbed or threatened him as both indicated that it was business as usual in the tenement.

Training and ingrained habit guided his feet to the exact spot of each stair tread which would not creak and give away his progress to anyone waiting above. No one was lying in ambush for him and never had been, but his meeting that evening had reminded him of the need for constant vigilance.

As he poised his key level with the door bearing a square plastic sign proclaiming Francis Tate Photography, his left hand automatically swept along the line where the top of the door met the door frame until his fingers brushed comfortingly on the undisturbed stamp-sized piece of card torn from a cigarette packet which he had placed there as he had closed the door earlier that evening. Reassured that his personal fortress had not been breached, he inserted his key and entered, catching the stub of card as it fluttered down in front of his face and slipping it into a pocket for future use.

There was nothing to distinguish the dusty bedsit from a thousand others within the same square mile: a single bed with a faded and frayed coverall, a small square card table and a single wooden chair and in one corner a sink flanked by a 'baby' electric oven and a double burner gas ring. On the draining board of the sink were a knife, a fork and an upturned plate and pint china mug, utensils which, along with a scattering of photographic magazines, were the only signs of regular human habitation. The adjoining bathroom was, however, anything but undistinguished, having been refitted at considerable expense as a very professional photographic darkroom. Such things were not unknown in Soho, of course, but few bathrooms had a Yale lock on the outside, and an inquisitive tax inspector might have wondered how a photographer with Tate's declared income and sporadic commissions could afford such state-of-the-art equipment and so many cameras (though only a very diligent inspector or a detective would have found them all).

Only when Frank Tate had checked that the lock on his bathroom door had not been tampered with did he unzip his leather jacket, taking a packet of cigarettes and a battered Zippo lighter from the pocket. Sitting on the edge of his bed he lit a cigarette, reached down to scoop up a plastic ashtray advertising a famous vermouth from the floor, then sank down until supine, placing the ashtray on his chest. Lying on that lumpy bed, which also managed to be an irritating nine or ten centimetres short of the length his long, skinny legs required, smoking and counting the cracks in the ceiling plaster was Tate's way of combining relaxation with stressful thinking. He called it his 'meditation time' and was for him the equivalent of all those foolish and pampered pop-stars trying to find inner peace with their own personal gurus in India, but without the smells, bells and pretentions.

He had much to meditate on, for at his meeting that evening with the man who was not a diplomat but was tenuously attached to a foreign embassy situated a stone's throw from the BBC's Broadcasting House, he had received new orders with which he felt less than comfortable. His personal comfort did not, however, come into it, for when the man-who-was-not-a-diplomat gave orders, they had to be obeyed. Any dissent or deviation on Tate's part could, it had been made abundantly clear, threaten his present existence and while his current circumstances were far from luxurious, he enjoyed pleasures and freedoms he had never known as a youth and which he would forfeit should he be forced to return to his previous life.

In order to get to his new objective, he would have to get closer to the girl, which in itself was hardly an unpleasant duty, though he regretted that he would be using her and eventually betraying her. Still, he had known that from the start. A pity, as he was genuinely fond of her and she was very attractive, but because of that she would have no trouble finding a more suitable suitor when the time came, inevitably, to leave her in the lurch.

Ironically it was thanks to the girl that his new objective had been identified at all. It had been one of his own reports detailing the girl's activities a month before which had sparked the interest – the close and sudden interest – of the man-who-was-not-a-diplomat and had resulted in his new orders. He had no idea what had prompted such a change in direction but he knew it was not his place to question orders old or new.

His random thoughts were interrupted by a soft knocking at his door and his body started as if electrocuted. He calmed himself instantly, remembering his training and taking assurance from the logic that his enemies, if they came for him, were unlikely to announce themselves so politely. Yet he still opened the door cautiously, standing well to the side in case his visitor(s) decided to shoulder-charge it once they heard the lock tumblers turn.

'Oh, hello,' he said in surprise, 'I wasn't expecting company.'

For a split-second the unkind thought occurred that he should have said 'I hadn't ordered company,' for his visitor was the Young French Model from the floor below, though she was in truth not particularly young and highly unlikely to hold French nationality. His second thought was more professional: how had she managed to climb the stairs without him hearing her footsteps, for this was a female never seen in public unless wearing shoes or leather boots with dangerously high and loud heels. His thought directed his eyes downwards to answer his question and discover that his visitor was wearing bright blue, furry, woollen slippers.

'Sorry to disturb, Mr Tate, just wanted a word on a professional matter.'

Dolores Pink – not her real name – smiled sweetly and looked up at Frank Tate from under thick, long and overactive eyelashes as he in turn stared down, mapping the contour of her body with his eyes, taking in the tautly stretched, lime-green cardigan, the black leather miniskirt not much wider than a blacksmith's belt, the black-stockinged legs and those incongruous fluffy slippers.

'Your profession, not mine, of course,' Miss Pink assured him. 'I've got sort of a business proposition for you.'

'Then you'd better come in,' said Tate holding the door wide for her, 'but there's nowhere much to sit except the bed ...'

Miss Pink flashed him a smile, made a small fist of her left hand and gently punched Tate on the chest as she sashayed past him, leaving a spoor trail of cheap eau de toilette in her wake.

'Oh, I'm used to sitting on beds, Mr Tate. Well, perhaps not just sitting ... Ooh! There I go. I promised meself I wouldn't do the old come-on with you and here I go teasing you before I've 'ardly got over the threshold. That's no way to start off a business proposition now, is it?'

Tate allowed Miss Pink to settle herself – with much wriggling of the derrière – until she was comfortably seated on the edge of the bed, her hands on her knees, her fluffy slippers making shunting movements as if they were two furry dodgem cars jockeying for position.

'Exactly what sort of business, Miss Pink?'

'Professional photography of course; that's your game, i'nnit? That's what it sez on yer door. Well, I wants to 'ire you. An' you can call me Dol, by the way.'

'OK ... Dol ... I'm a photographer all right, but I don't think I take the sort of pictures you're after.'

Miss Pink's expression soured and her lips pursed as if she had unwittingly bitten into a lemon wedge in polite company.