The God Hunter Read Online Free PDF Page B

my expenses claim.”
    â€œAnd what would it be this time, then? Hm? Plane fare to Bangkok? Romantic night for two? More if you could manage it? Uh-­hm?”
    â€œConference in Oxford.”
    â€œOh. Right.” He was silent for a moment. “Quickie with the missus, then. I see.”
    â€œAnything but, if you must know. And I haven’t had a quickie with the missus, as you so delicately put it, since we split up, ten years back.”
    â€œOh. Oh dear. Tetchy, eh? Well, that explains it.” He gestured with his ballpoint. “They’re online, by the way. Expenses forms. You need to download the page for the day you’re claiming, right? Click Search and type expenses, hm?”
    I did.
    Derek said, “The clever plan is, you can send them off, it’s instantaneous, no waiting for the post, and everything gets sorted out immediately. Good, eh?”
    I grunted that it was.
    â€œBut you don’t want to do that. That’s my advice. You send it off online, you get a message asking for receipts, which have to be stapled to the claim form. So essentially you have to print the page, then clip it to your paperwork and put it in the post, same as before. You’re really telling me you’ve not done this, in three whole weeks?”
    â€œI don’t get out much.”
    â€œStill. You want to put expenses in. They’ll take it off you fast enough in other ways.” He nodded, word to the wise. “Claim while you can. That’s my motto.”
    â€œWhich date is it?”
    â€œWhich date is what?”
    â€œI’m meant to claim on? Today’s date, or the date it happened?”
    â€œOh, well.” He sat back, drummed his pen against the tape dispenser. “Can’t help you there. Sorry. Wouldn’t want to make it too easy. You’ve had your clues. Now: what do you think? That’s the big test, isn’t it? Your starter for ten.” He rolled up his sleeve, looked at his watch. “Go on. I’m timing you . . .”
    The Registry’s UK HQ is unmarked and unlisted. It occupies an office block in Greenwich, south of the river, masquerading as the Pollins-­Read Association, plc, which of course does not exist, except on paper, and in the lists of Companies House. So far, so cloak-­and-­dagger. What went on inside was pretty much as James Bond as an insurance office.
    Seddon called me in at 12:15, just as I was gearing up for lunch.
    He’s old school, terribly polite; stood up and came out from behind his desk to shake my hand. White hair, feathery and cowlicked, like a cockatoo. The handshake, though, was brutal, unexpected in this gangly string bean of a man. It took a lot of ­people by surprise.
    â€œCopeland. Chris,” he beamed at me.
    I sat. He sat. He asked me how things were. I told him things were fine and dandy, thank you very much. He clasped his hands upon the desk in front of him. Steepled his index fingers. Said, “I’m told that you’re an old Hungary op.”
    He looked at me, eyes blue and quizzical under the thick white tufts of brow.
    I had expected many things. This wasn’t one of them.
    â€œThat was . . . a few years back. I was there, oh, three times. About a week, each trip.”
    â€œReally . . . ?” He frowned. His fingers meshed, his two hands squeezed into a ball. “Assume you’ve got some expertise, then? Language? Contacts? Things like that?”
    â€œWell, I can order beer. If the waiter speaks English.”
    He watched me, hands clutched on the desk in front of him.
    I said, “What’s this about?”
    â€œAh. Now then.” His fingers opened, moved across the slick oak surface. “Adam Shailer? The name familiar? He’s off to Hungary in a week or two. Requests your company, apparently.”
    Seddon raised one bright white eyebrow. He had very pale, very innocent blue eyes, but there was precious