Chapter 5

Without saying anything Wakefield closed the door behind him leaving just the two of them in the room. The man from the BSSO stood and extended his hand.

“Richard Onchett, we were not introduced in the summer.”

Andrew shook his hand but didn’t say anything.

“Please sit down.”

Andrew settled tentatively into the chair opposite him.

“I was guilty of not reading your vetting report for our meeting in June. Subsequent events have proven that to be a mistake. You are a remarkable young man, and have achieved much to be proud of already in your life.”

Andrew sat there listening to him but also thinking about him, analysing him. Two ears, one mouth. He needed to remember that all day.

“I am one of the Assistant Director Generals, there are several of us. As you are aware I have been on secondment to the BSSO for the last several years. So tell me why you allowed yourself to end up in the middle of Departmental politics.”

“You are aware of my friendship with Mrs. Moray, Lady Barnes?”

“Yes, I am.”

“She challenged me in January.”

“Explain please.”

Andrew spent the next 20 minutes rehashing the making a difference goal of his life, and how Freya had used the phrase to persuade him to be Positively Vetted.

“I see. So having made a difference in the most profound way already she used the phrase to goad you into this?”

Andrew looked at him.

“I would not use those words but it is how I interpreted it.”

“Is making a difference important to you? Clearly it was, is it still important to you?”

Gathering his thoughts Andrew explained the danger of trying to surpass what he had already achieved.

“It feels like a chicken and an egg. I have made a difference, I know that. I also have to realise that I cannot use that as the benchmark for future goals because I will spend the rest of my life being disappointed. Yet at the same time, because I chose to try and make a difference eight years ago and I succeeded I feel that I should try and make a difference again, even if that difference is different.”

Andrew grimaced at his clunky word choice.

“Chicken and egg is perhaps not the correct analogy. As long as I have appropriate expectations then I think that making a difference is important to me.”

“Interesting. What about renown?”

Andrew thought how he interpreted the question was as important to Onchett as how he answered it.

“Not important to me and given my somewhat shy nature something that I avoid where possible.”

“Yet you court attention.”

Again Andrew didn’t immediately contradict him.

“I do not think that I do.”

The pitying smile was not promising.

“From my discussions with the officers that you worked with at the MoD Police you brought things to their attention that helped solve, or started, investigations. You also flouted I don’t know how many regulations as well as contravened the Official Secrets Act with your actions in Berlin. And that is before we consider your fashion career.”

“My role over all three summers was as part of a larger team. Others deserved and were officially recognised with more of the credit.”

“An interesting non-answer. Explain Hermès.”

Another 20 minute rehash of parts of his life.

“You have a modelling pseudonym?”

“Yes.”

Onchett looked at him for a disquietingly long time.

“You have sat here and answered a variety of questions, we have covered nothing that is not in your vetting file but still. You can stand up, tell me you are not interested and walk away. Why are you still here?”

Andrew thought his pause might have been as long as Onchett’s.

“The trite and easy answer is I want to make a difference. The honest answer is I don’t know. Forgive me sounding full of myself but I have been told I would make a good policeman both summers I worked there and I was commended for my work last summer. So the last three summers have shown that I have at least some aptitude for work in this sphere. When I stop and think about it, I probably have more experience than any other potential applicant. I have a history that you can check and evaluate.”

He shrugged for the first time in the meeting.

“I challenged you on renown but you are also remarkably secretive. It was this secretiveness that alerted Dr. Wakefield that you may be a candidate that we would be interested in.”

Andrew looked at him in surprise.

“Yes, it is true, we are kept informed.”

Bloody hell, Wakefield?

“That you have created this Trust, earned and then given away so much money as a teenager, is remarkable. What is also remarkable is that no one yet knows. You would be on the front page of every paper, not just the tabloids, in the country if it was common knowledge. Your first degree is not common knowledge and you do not lead an ostentatious lifestyle considering your wealth. You even model under a fake name.”

His tone changed, he sat up straighter, and Andrew subconsciously did so too.

“There is nothing glamourous about counter-intelligence. As the IRA bragged three years ago, they only have to be lucky once, we have to be lucky always. Most of what we do is in the shadows. Nearly all of what we do is in the shadows. There is no glory for foiling a plot, defeating a potential attack. But should something happen, as in Brighton, then everyone is all over us. And rightly so. It is unpleasant, often distasteful, but in the end you are defending the country, just as much, perhaps even more so, than the soldiers in West Germany and around the country. And it is a job that is not right for everyone. So as you can tell this is an approach. There is a formal recruitment process a huge amount of which you will short circuit because you have clearance already. You will be invited down to London.”

Onchett stopped and considered.

“There is an application deadline by mid-February, but we do not conduct interviews, allow potential hires to meet existing staff until they pass vetting to get at least Secret clearance. Like I said I am not aware that we have ever had a graduate applicant with Top Secret clearance already. All of our interviews are held in May, for most applicants when final exams are over.”

Andrew could see him thinking.

“I think it is best if you follow the normal timeline. Do you have any questions?”

“Could I have a moment while I just process this, because I do think there are lots of questions.”

Andrew stood and walked back and forth thinking everything through.

“Okay. I think there are three main ones. You are here representing the Security Service, yes?”

He nodded.

“Does this approach preclude me from applying for a similar role within the Ministry of Defence, the Defence Intelligence Staff for instance?”

“No, you can apply to whoever you want.”

“Does the Ministry know that you are here, that you are doing this? That you are approaching a student who was a summer student there for three years and who you found out about through your secondment to the BSSO?”

“Yes they do.”

“Who can I talk about this to? And obviously I am not going to blab to my classmates but I am meaning specifically Mrs. Moray.”

“It is difficult for candidates normally but yes given her clearance you can talk to her.”

“Do you know the outcome of my summer job?”

“How do you mean?”

“What happened at the end of the summer.”

“No.”

“Then you need to talk to, well I don’t know who. But there is another layer to this.”

For the first time Onchett’s aura of composure cracked.

“There is a complication?”

“Potentially.”

“Okay. Do you have any other questions?”

“I am sure I will have a lot but they can wait for the interview process. Where do I get an application form?”

“One will be made available to you through Dr. Wakefield.”

It was approaching noon when Andrew left the office and stood back in Great Court. He leaned against the wall beside the stair for a moment letting all that sink in. But then he shook off the sense of shock and went and grabbed lunch. Andrew had never considered the logistics of applying for a job like that and it had fallen in his lap. He would get an application in January from Wakefield but after completing it he could forget about it until May.

After a not very productive afternoon in the library Andrew had the winter bash for the OTC on the Saturday night. Events like those put Jack on edge, and it impacted Andrew as well. He was aware of the threat of violence that seems to lurk under the surface on night’s out. There was none of that but at the same time there was an undercurrent of something. The 1^st year cadets had something to do with that, they were not short of attitude. It was formal event and the two of them called it quits early on after the dinner was over. They ended up at the King’s College Bar, more than a little overdressed but also not unique on this last weekend of the term.

“These events set my teeth on edge.”

“Most of the women and men are decent but there are some that are so full of themselves. Heaven help them if the annual camp is in Bassingbourn again. The Queen’s Division recruits won’t stand for any of that shit.”

“I think that is what a lot of them need, a good shoeing just to tone down some of that entitled idiocy.”

“The world is full of people that need a good shoeing. When is Briefing?”

“A week on Monday, for a day and a half. I will let you know if I have passed and can go to Main Board at the start of next term.”

“After more than three years of this, plus everything Rollie told us, you should walk it.”

“Yeah, you are right. Stay focused and make sure I don’t trip myself up. You still thinking about it in the summer?”

“I am still definitely considering the TA but a lot will depend on the start date of the job. I may see if there is a Briefing near the end of Easter term. Once my project is submitted I am free so I should have the time. Now that you have raised it I will ask the Staff on Tuesday and see if there is a Briefing and Main Board before the end of June. Then I can try and do the four weeks of the TACC before I start my permanent job. I don’t want to ask for a month off as soon as I start, and I don’t want to use up all my holiday.”

It wasn’t just the beer talking. As Andrew walked back up to Trinity he thought about the timing. The month of June was free and clear. His final report had to be submitted before the end of May and the final presentation would be over by the start of the first week of June. Graduation was at the end of the last week of June, so other than the May Ball, on the Monday after the middle weekend, the whole month was free. Something to ask the staff about on the following Tuesday.

He didn’t even bother running down to the pool on Sunday morning, just walked in the cold autumnal sunshine. There was no speed to his swimming that morning, he needed a long time to think and so he trawled back and forth lost in his own mind. Having the meeting with Onchett did solve some issues and bought him more time. He didn’t know that postponing making a decision was necessarily ideal for him but other than completing an application, which he knew he would have no issue with, Andrew had five months to think about this. There was a lot to unpack. Wakefield giving them a heads up was a surprise. Andrew tended not to think about the man other than an occasional nod or greeting at Hall. He had not gone to see him at any point during his time at College and other than the hockey game in 1^st year had not been a student who Wakefield had to deal with. That Andrew was discreet to the point of being secretive about his volunteering on the cancer ward had highlighted this facet of his personality. But thoughts about that were delaying the main issue, and the one to which there was not an easy answer. Did he want to apply to join the Security Service? More pertinently, did he want to work for the Security Service?

Andrew could have the swum the Channel and back and was sure he would not have a clear answer. There was an element of Groucho in his thoughts. He was not sure that he would fit in, and the thought of corporate palace intrigues in such a place did not inspire him. Measured against that was the sense of making a sacrifice, a sense of duty. Even then it was an old-fashioned ideal but it probably encapsulated how Andrew was approaching this. When he finally stopped swimming he was off to the library to work on the first technical report for his project. Two degrees, immense sacrifice in terms of living his life and he was going to put the outcome of all that effort to one side? Andrew knew he was going to work pretty well every day between then and the date of project submission and after all that work it seemed such a waste.

What also struck him that day, and what had not struck him the day before, was the unethical way that Onchett had used his position on secondment at the Ministry of Defence to approach Andrew for his parent organisation. He told Andrew that they knew and that he could apply to them but there was something about the sense of superiority that got to Andrew. There was an air of ‘we don’t need to worry any of our applicants applying to the Ministry of Defence’. All in all there was plenty to talk to Freya about the following weekend.

Despite it being the week after classes the library was busy. Everybody had work to do, reports to write, it never seemed to end. Monday night saw Andrew at Addenbrooke’s for the final time that year. The whole term had been a struggle and looking back there was definitely a sense that he was doggedly completing his four years there. He tried to be upbeat and to do as much as possible for the patients but was ever more conscious of his age and his struggles to connect with anyone. In contrast his time at the OTC had been excellent all term. The numbers of cadets that had stayed in from their 1^st year intake was now only 15. 11 of them were there for the cheap booze and Adventure Training while the other four, including Andrew, were ‘keeners’. There were two, Jack and one other bloke, who were preparing for full commission while Andrew and the fourth guy were still planning for the Territorial Army. At the final parade of the term he went and spoke to one of the Captains and asked about the timeline for applying for the Territorial Army Commissioning Course, and the likelihood of a Main Board slot near the end of Easter Term. Rather than give Andrew any answers he asked him to wait and went to the Lt. Colonel in charge of the whole Company. Do you know how Andrew got an interview with the Colonel with no notice? Quotas. The Army had recruiting quotas and Andrew helped meet a quota for the Cambridge OTC and helped overall with reporting figures at the end of the year. Thus he was sitting opposite a man he had had limited dealings with less than 10 minutes after he asked the Captain the question.

But again Andrew was a known commodity. He had come back in 4^th year, didn’t fuck around, and had attended innumerable camps over the years, had done no Adventure Training and had a good range of experience. And that was without any of the summer job stuff that he wasn’t going to talk to the Colonel about. The Colonel told Andrew more about the process, and the timing of the different stages, than any sense of being interviewed. Andrew had joined the CCF at 13 years of age and so they had a pretty clear picture of his life over the last seven and a half years. The longest part reminded Andrew of Professor Cannon pushing post grad work. The Colonel pushed the Regulars with the same determination. But getting a TA officer application was acceptable and so December 2^nd 1986 Andrew started the process to become a Territorial Army Officer in the Royal Engineers. His only remaining task that week was to complete an application form to which the Colonel would append his approval. Nothing like doing it arse backwards. Jack walked back into town with him when he was finally free.