The voice of Doctor Leo Grayson, the doctor of preference for the Service came over the speaker of Burfield’s phone. The good doctor was reporting on his findings regarding the health of Arthur Worley. Normally a patient’s communications with his doctor were private but that rule was waived in the case of employees of Her Majesty’s Secret Service. ‘No doctor, you were right to inform me,’ Burfield’s mouth was on autopilot. As Head of the Middle East Section, by far his most onerous task was keeping tabs on every aspect of the lives of the members of the Service dependent on his Section. The meeting with Arthur Worley had greatly bothered him and now the doctor was confirming what he himself had concluded. Arthur was burning out. He supposed it was to be expected. The life expectancy of the average official in the Service was somewhere between twenty and twenty-five years. Arthur was already beyond that. Add the difficulties of his obsession with his brother’s death and you had a perfect excuse to suggest that Arthur take up tending roses in Kent or trying to write the great British novel in his house in Kew.
