Spy hook: a novel Read Free

it was too late. “Don’t tip the driver,” said Jim, still smiling as the doors closed on me. “It’s against company policy.” The last I saw of him was that cold Cheshire Cat smile. It hung in my vision for a long time afterwards.
    When I got outside in the street the snow was piling higher and higher, and the air was crammed full of huge snowflakes that came spinning down like sycamore seeds with engine failure.
    “Where’s your baggage?” said the driver. Getting out of the car he tossed the remainder of his coffee into the snow where it left a brown ridged crater that steamed like Vesuvius. He wasn’t looking forward to a drive to the airport on a Friday afternoon, and you didn’t have to be a psychologist to see that in his face.
    “That’s all,” I told him.
    “You travel light, mister.” He opened the door for me and I settled down inside. The car was warm, I suppose he’d just come in from a job, expecting to be signed out and sent home. Now he was in a bad mood.
    The traffic was slow even by Washington weekend standards I thought about Jim while we crawled out to the airport. I suppose he wanted to get rid of me. There was no other reason why Jim would invent that ridiculous story about Bret Rensselaer . The idea of Bret being a party to any kind of financial swindle involving the government was so ludicrous that I didn’t even give it careful thought. Perhaps I should have done. The plane was half-empty. After a day like that, a lot of people had had enough, without enduring the tender loving care of any airline company plus the prospect of a diversion to Manchester. But at least the half-empty First Class cabin gave me enough leg-room. I accepted the offer of a glass of champagne with guch enthusiasm that the stewardess finally left the bottle with me. I read the dinner menu and tried not to think about Jim Prettyman. I hadn’t pressed him hard enough. I’d resented the unexpected phone call from Morgan, the D-G’s personal assistant. I’d planned to spend this afternoon shopping.
    Christmas was past and there were sale signs everywhere. I’d glimpsed a big model helicopter that my son Billy would have gone crazy about. London was always ready to provide me with yet another task that was nothing to do with me or my immediate work. I had the suspicion that this time I’d been chosen not because I happened to be in Washington but because London knew that Jim was an old friend who’d respond more readily to me than to anyone else in the Department. When this afternoon Jim had proved recalcitrant I had rather enjoyed the idea of passing his rude message back to that stupid man Morgan. Now it was too late I was beginning to have second thoughts. Perhaps I should have taken up his offer to do it as a personal favour to me.
    I thought about Jim’s warnings. He wasn’t the only one who thought the Department. might still be blaming me for my wife’s defection. But the idea that they’d frame me for embezzlement was a new one. It would wipe me out, of course. No one would employ me if they made something like that stick. It was a nasty thought, and even worse was that throwaway line about getting to me through my father. How could they get to me through my father? My father didn’t work for the Department any more. My father was- dead.
    I drank more champagne - fizzy wine is not worth drinking if you allow the chill to go off it - and finished the bottle before closing my eyes for a moment in an effort to remember exactly what Jim had said. I must have dozed off. I was tired: really tired.
    The next thing I knew the stewardess was shaking me roughly and saying, “Would you like breakfast, sir?” “I haven’t had-dinner.”
    “They tell us not to wake passengers who are asleep.”
    “Breakfast?”
    “We’ll be landing at London Heathrow in about forty-five minutes.”
    It was an airline breakfast: shrivelled bacon, a plastic egg with a small stale roll and UHT milk for the coffee. Even