The Steel Spring Read Online Free PDF Page A

a lift and up to the top floor.
    ‘Go to reception room four,’ she said. ‘They’re expecting you.’ Jensen walked along the carpeted corridor, reading the doors. He stopped at number four and knocked.
    ‘Come in,’ said a voice.
    There were three men in the room. Two of them were slumped in comfortable armchairs. Their faces were drawn and pale. He did not know either of them. There was a third person over by the window, standing with his back to the door. As he turned round, Jensen recognised him. It was the man from the election posters. The man considered to represent the totally interdependent concepts of welfare, security and accord better than anyone else. He had been the Minister for the Interior when Jensen left, and ought to be head of government by now. His Excellency.
    ‘Are you Jensen?’ he said in a shrill, uncontrolled tone.
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Sit down, for God’s sake. Sit down.’
    Inspector Jensen sat down.

CHAPTER 7
    ‘I’ve heard about you, Jensen,’ said His Excellency, the senior minister. ‘You caused me a certain amount of inconvenience a few years back.’
    He was plainly making an effort to keep his voice at a normal level. To sound as if things were as usual.
    ‘Would you like a beer?’ he asked abruptly.
    ‘No, thank you.’
    ‘They make damn good beer here, I must say.’
    He sat down opposite Jensen. As he poured his own beer, his hands shook so much that he almost knocked the glass over.
    ‘You know these gentlemen, of course?’
    Jensen had never seen them before and had no idea who they were, even after the minister had introduced them by name. They were both members of the government.
    ‘Someone said once that the distance between the people and those in authority was too great,’ the senior minister mumbled to himself.
    Jensen knew what he meant. The red-haired police doctor had once said:
    ‘Can you think of anything more abstract and distant than God and the minister? Anything more remote?’
    There was something in what he said. The Accord regime did not promote any kind of cult of the personality; that hadbeen one of its founding principles. The general uniformity and smoothing out that was its goal did not allow for any positions of personal power other than those based on capital, which could be consolidated without the intervention of the public sector. For official functions there was always the Regent to call on. It was only in the last two elections that there had been a named candidate with a face, presumably so the relationship between people in general and the technocrats who exercised formal power should not get too unreal.
    ‘Prime Minister …’ said Jensen, but the man instantly interrupted him.
    ‘I’m not the head of government. The election was … postponed.’
    ‘Why?’
    The minister stood up suddenly. He made a jerky sort of gesture, contemplated his trembling hands for a moment and then thrust them in his jacket pockets.
    ‘Circumstances were such that it was considered appropriate to postpone the democratic elections,’ he said stonily.
    One of the other men cleared his throat and said:
    ‘Inspector Jensen?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘Did you send in your declaration of loyalty?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘I told you there was no connection,’ the minister said peevishly.
    In the room, all was silent. Outside, the jet engines roared. Jensen looked at the men one after the other and said calmly:
    ‘What’s happened?’
    ‘The incomprehensible thing is, we don’t know. We don’t know what’s happened and above all, we don’t know how it’shappened. There’s no logical connection between the details we do know.’
    ‘What details?’
    ‘Jensen, we need to take this from the beginning.’
    ‘Yes. Why are we here?’
    ‘I don’t know.’
    ‘You don’t know? How did you get here?’
    ‘The same way as you. On a plane. From abroad. We were on our way back from a … state visit. But we couldn’t get any further than this. All communications