A Small Town in Germany Read Online Free PDF Page B

the hard stuff. Doggo. See nothing and slip out the back way.
    'Here,' said Cork into his ear, 'listen. You remember that tip you gave me?'
    'Sorry, old boy?'
    'South African Diamonds. Consols. They're down six bob.'
    'Hang on to them,' Crabbe urged with total insincerity, and withdrew prudently to the edge of the marquee. He had barely found the kind of dark, protective crevice which naturally appealed to his submerged nature when a hand seized his shoulder and swung him roughly round on his heel. Recovering from his astonishment he found himself face to face with a plain clothes policeman. 'What the hell - ' he broke out furiously, for he was a small man and hated to be handled. 'What the hell - ' But the policeman was already shaking his head and mumbling an apology. He was sorry, he said, he had mistaken the gentleman for someone else.

    Urbane or not, de Lisle was meanwhile growing quite angry. The journey from the Embassy had irritated him considerably. He detested motor-bikes and he detested being escorted, and a noisy combination of the two was almost more than he could bear. And he detested deliberate rudeness, whether he or someone else was the object of it. And deliberate rudeness, he reckoned, was what they were getting. No sooner had they drawn up in the courtyard of the Ministry of the Interior than the doors of the car had been wrenched open by a team of young men in leather coats all shouting at once.
    'Herr Siebkron will see you immediately! Now, please! Yes! Immediately, please!'
    'I shall go at my own pace,' Bradfield had snapped as they were ushered into the unpainted steel lift. 'Don't you dare order me about.' And to de Lisle, 'I shall speak to Siebkron. It's like a trainload of monkeys.'
    The upper floors restored them. This was the Bonn they knew: the pale, functional interiors, the pale, functional reproductions on the wall, the pale unpolished teak; the white shirts, the grey ties and faces pale as the moon. They were seven. The two who sat to either side of Siebkron had no names at all, and de Lisle wondered maliciously whether they were clerks brought in to make up the numbers. Lieff, an empty-headed parade horse from Protocol Department, sat on his left; opposite him, on Bradfield's right, an old Polizeidirektor from Bonn, whom de Lisle instinctively liked: a battle-scarred monument of a man, with white patches like covered bulletholes in the leather of his skin. Cigarettes lay in packets on a plate. A stern girl offered decaffeinated coffee, and they waited until she had withdrawn.
    What does Siebkron want? he wondered for the hundredth time since the terse summons at nine o'clock that morning.
    The Conference began, like all conferences, with a resumé of what was said at a previous occasion. Lieff read the minutes in a tone of unctuous flattery, like a man awarding a medal. It was an occasion, he implied, of the greatest felicity. The Polizeidirektor unbuttoned his green jacket, and lit a length of Dutch cigar till it burned like a spill. Siebkron coughed angrily but the old policeman ignored him.
    'You have no objection to these minutes, Mr Bradfield?' Siebkron usually smiled when he asked this question, and although his smile was as cold as the north wind, de Lisle could have wished for it today.
    'Off the cuff, none,' Bradfield replied easily, 'But I must see them in writing before I can sign them.'
    'No one is asking you to sign.'
    De Lisle looked up sharply.
    'You will allow me,' Siebkron declared, 'to read the following statement. Copies will be distributed.'
    It was quite short.
    The doyen, he said, had already discussed with Herr Lieff of Protocol Department, and with the American Ambassador, the question of the physical security of diplomatic premises in the event of civil unrest arising out of minority demonstrations in the Federal Republic. Siebkron regretted that additional measures were proving necessary, but it was desirable to anticipate unhappy eventualities rather than attempt