Spy Hook Read Online Free PDF Page B

that she'd set her heart on. She'd told me so many times that I'd long since ceased to give it any credence. When she told me that she'd actually resigned I was astounded.
    'I thought it would be next year,' I said lamely.
    'You thought it would be never,' she said curtly. Then she looked up and gave me a wonderful smile. One thing about this damned business of going to Cambridge. It had put her into an incomparably sunny mood. Or was that simply the result of seeing me discomfited?

3
    It was Gloria's evening for visiting parents. Tuesday she had an evening class in mathematics, Wednesday economics and Thursday evening she visited her parents. She apportioned time for such things, so that I sometimes wondered if I was one of her duties, or time off.
    I stayed working for an extra hour or so until there was a phone call from Mr Gaskell, a recently retired artillery sergeant-major who'd taken over security duties at reception. 'There is a lady here. Asking for you by name. Mr Samson.' The security man's hoarse whisper was confidential to the point of being conspiratorial. I wondered if this was in deference to my professional or social obligations.
    'Does she have a name, Mr Gaskell?'
    'Lucinda Matthews.' I had the feeling that he was reading from the slip that visitors have to fill out.
    The name meant nothing to me but I thought it better not to say so. 'I'll be down,' I said.
    'That would be best,' said the security man. 'I can't let her upstairs into the building. You understand, Mr Samson?'
    'I understand.' I looked out of the window. The low grey cloud that had darkened the sky all day seemed to have come even lower, and in the air there were tiny flickers of light; harbingers of the snow that had been forecast. Just the sight of it was enough to make me shiver.
    By the time I'd locked away my work, checked the filing cabinets and got down to the lobby the mysterious Lucinda had gone.
    'A nice little person, sir,' Gaskell confided when I asked what the woman was like. He was standing by the reception desk in his dark blue commissionaire's uniform, tapping his fingers nervously upon the pile of dog-eared magazines that were loaned to visitors who spent a long time waiting here in the draughty lobby. 'Well turned-out; a lady, if you know my meaning.'
    I had no notion of his meaning. Gaskell spoke a language that seemed to be entirely his own. He was especially cryptic about dress, rank and class, perhaps because of the social no-man's-land that all senior NCOs inhabit. I'd had these elliptical utterances from Gaskell before, about all kinds of things. I never knew what he was talking about. 'Where did she say she'd meet me?'
    'She'd put the car on the pavement, sir. I had to ask her to move it. You know the regulations.'
    'Yes, I know.'
    'Car bombs and that son of thing.' No matter how much he rambled, his voice always had the confident tone of an orderly room: an orderly room under his command.
    'Where did she say she'd meet me?' I asked yet again. I looked out through the glass doors. The snow had started and was falling fast and in big flakes. The ground was cold, so that it was not melting: it was going to lie. It didn't need more than a couple of cupfuls of that sprinkled over the Metropolis before the public transportation systems all came to a complete halt. Gloria would be at her parents' house by now. She'd gone by train. I wondered if she'd now decide to stay overnight at her parents', or if she'd expect me to go and collect her in the car. Her parents lived at Epsom; too damned near our little nest at Raynes Park for my liking. Gloria said I was frightened of her father. I wasn't frightened of him, but I didn't relish facing intensive questioning from a Hungarian dentist about my relationship with his young daughter.
    Gaskell was talking again. 'Lovely vehicle. A dark green Mercedes. Gleaming! Waxed! Someone is looking after it, you could see that. You'd never get a lady polishing a car. It's not in their