Shuttlecock Read Free Page A

room half below and half above pavement level. Every morning we descend into this crypt. Around us rise shelves and cabinets stretching up to the ceiling, containing, for the most part, general indexes, inventories and cross-reference catalogues. The case files are kept in a series of rooms adjoining the inner wall of our offices, and then, going back chronologically as you descend, there are two more floors of archives below ours.
    Quinn’s own office occupies a privileged position on a superior level, like that of a bridge on a ship. The entranceto it is off a corridor on the ground floor of the building, but its rear wall forms the upper half of an end wall of our large room. He had some bizarre ideas, the architect responsible for converting our building. A back door and a small flight of stairs enable Quinn to communicate directly with our office; and a glass panel has been set in his rear wall, so if he wishes – and Quinn often does – he can look down at us as we work. Quinn has a large leather chair, a heavy, old-fashioned desk set on a maroon carpet, and an external window which looks out of one wing of our building (a solid, stony structure, by the way, of several decades’ standing) where there is actually a strip of grass and three or four flowering cherry trees, one of them directly outside Quinn’s window. The leather chair apart, Quinn’s office is not luxurious – comfortable, imposing, but not luxurious. Doubtless, there are better appointed offices elsewhere in our building. But then I am not concerned, as it happens, with anyone beyond Quinn. And I envy Quinn his cherry tree and his daylight.
    Although half our room is above ground level, there are no windows. The only natural light that filters in comes through one of those grilles of thick, opaque glass set into the pavement – which people walk over without noticing and which often denote underground public lavatories. In our case it is set into the ceiling at the far end from Quinn’s office, where our room actually extends a little way, at basement level, under the pavement. You can stand beneath it and hear, surprisingly remote and faint, the clip-clop of people walking above. There is a general complaint that if only the glass were clear you could look up skirts. I ought to point out, incidentally, that in our immediate office there are no female staff.
    And what do we do in this dungeon? Very few inquiriesfrom outside are passed directly to the assistant staff. Our task, when this does happen, is routine: to consult the appropriate files, extract and collate the relevant information and draft a report to be sent, after vetting by Quinn, to the source of the inquiry. But only with the simplest and most straightforward queries are we allowed complete initiative. Most inquiries come via Quinn, so that, while we receive from him specific and express instructions, the reasons for them often remain obscure to us. And then a good many cases are handled solely by Quinn himself. Of these we know nothing.
    What takes place with those cases that reach us is a sort of elaborate game of consequences – or, more accurately, hunt-the-thimble. Quinn has his own file index in his office. He gives one of us the code numbers of the files concerned and specifies the information to be extracted. Now, we are not necessarily told the purpose for which this information is to be obtained. In the case of complex inquiries where more than one file may be involved and several items of information have to be connected, we may work quite methodically and logically, but on quite false initial assumptions. Then Quinn shows us no mercy. He opens the back door of his office, waving the draft report of our findings. He stands at the top of his flight of stairs (Quinn scarcely ever comes down them; he has a slight limp in one leg, but I’m sure that’s not what prevents him) and yells out the name of the culprit. ‘Up here with you!’ And you go. Since I am the senior