Spy Story Read Online Free PDF Page B

me, you little creep,’ I said.
    â€˜Yes, that’s him,’ said Mason. He switched off the light.
    â€˜Well, we knew it was,’ said the first cop.
    â€˜Oh, sure,’ I said. ‘Or else I would have got you with only twenty-five pence on the clock.’ How could I have been so stupid. On that phone if you dialled TIM you’d hear the tick of the Chief Commissioner’s watch.
    â€˜We’d better get you home,’ said the cop. ‘And thank you, Mr Mason.’
    Mason let the driver open the door of the Executive for him as if to the manner born. That little bastard would wind up running the Centre, that much was clear.
    They took me all the way home. ‘Next time,’ said the cop, ‘get car-pool transport. You’re entitled to it after a trip, you know that.’
    â€˜You couldn’t get one of your people to collect my Mini Clubman – between games of bridge, I mean.’
    â€˜I’ll report it stolen. The local bobbies will pick it up.’
    â€˜I bet sometimes you wish you weren’t so honest,’ I said.
    â€˜Goodnight, sir.’ It was still pouring with rain. I got out of the cab. They’d left me on the wrong side of the street. U-turns were forbidden.

3
    All time is game time …
    RULES . ALL GAMES . STUDIES CENTRE . LONDON
    I let myself into the flat as quietly as possible. Marjorie turned up the heating whenever I was away, and now the stale air, heavy with fresh paint and unseasoned timber smells, hit me like a secondhand hangover. It would be a long time before I’d get used to living here.
    â€˜Is that you, darling?’
    â€˜Yes, love.’ I prodded at the pile of mail, pushing the unsealed buff envelopes aside until there remained only a postcard from a ski resort,
Cross and Cockade
magazine and a secondhand book about the Battle of Moscow. On the silver-plated toast rack – a place kept for urgent messages – there was a torn piece of hospital notepaper with ‘Please go to Colonel Schlegel’s home on Sunday. He’ll meet the ten o’clock train’ written on it in Marjorie’s neat handwriting. I’d have gone Monday except that Sunday was underlined three times, in the red pencil she used for diagrams.
    â€˜Darling!’
    â€˜I’m coming.’ I went into the sitting-room. When I was away she seldom went in there: a quick bout with the frying pan and a briefcase full of post-graduate medical studies on the bedside table was her routine. But now she’d got it all tidied and ready for my return: matches near the ashtray and slippers by the fireplace. There was even a big bunch of mixed flowers, arranged with fern and placed in a jug amid her copies of
House and Garden
on the side table.
    â€˜I missed you, Marj.’
    â€˜Hello, sailor.’
    We embraced. The lingering smell of bacon I’d encountered in the hall was now a taste on her lips. She ran a hand through my hair to ruffle it. ‘It won’t come loose,’ I said. ‘They knit them into the scalp.’
    â€˜Silly.’
    â€˜Sorry I’m late.’
    She turned her head and smiled shyly. She was like a little girl: her large green eyes and small white face, lost somewhere under that dishevelled black hair.
    â€˜I made a stew but it’s a bit dried up.’
    â€˜I’m not hungry.’
    â€˜You haven’t noticed the flowers.’
    â€˜Are you working in the mortuary again?’
    â€˜Bastard,’ she said, but she kissed me softly.
    In the corner, the box was keeping up its bombardment of superficial hysteria: British Equity outwits fat German extras shouting
Schweinhund
.
    â€˜The flowers were from my mother. To wish me many happy returns.’
    â€˜You’re not rerunning that twenty-ninth birthday again this year?’
    She hit me in the ribs with the side of the hand and knew enough anatomy to make it hurt.
    â€˜Take it easy,’ I gasped.