The hours crawled by like all the useless hours I had wasted waiting for spies to come and go—in cars, on street corners, in railway stations and lousy cafés. I had two beds in two hotels and couldn't sleep in either of them. I owned a comfortable, leather-upholstered Sunbeam with a brand-new heater but was obliged to freeze in a clapped-out Toyota. Gathering Larry's moleskin over my shoulders like a cape, I tried repeatedly to go to sleep, in vain. By seven I was pacing the gravel, fretting about the fog. I'm stranded! I'll never get down the hill! By eight-thirty, in perfect visibility, I arrived at the entrance to the covered car park of a new shopping centre, only to learn that on Sundays it didn't open till nine. I drove to a cemetery and mindlessly studied headstones for half an hour, returned to the shopping centre, and embarked on the next leg of my spy's odyssey. I parked in the car park, bought shaving cream and razor blades for the seeming, caught a cab to Clifton, collected my Sunbeam from the Eden, and drove it back to the shopping centre. I parked the Sunbeam as close to the Toyota as I could, freed a reluctant trolley from its string of partners, placed it alongside the Toyota, dumped the four bin bags into it, boots, typewriter, answering machine, and green raincoat, and transferred the whole lot to the Sunbeam.
All this without shame or circumspection, because when God invented the supermarket, we used to say in the Office, he provided us spies with something we had till then only dreamed of: a place where any fool could transfer anything in the world from one car to another without any other fool noticing.
Then, because I had no wish to draw attention to Miss Sally Anderson of Cambridge Street—or for that matter Free Prometheus Ltd., or Terry Altman, Esq.—I drove the Toyota to a filthy industrial estate beyond the city's parking zone, pulled the plastic cover over it, and wished it an unfond farewell.
Then back to the supermarket car park and so by Sunbeam to the Hotel Eden, where I parked, paid my bill with a Cranmer credit card, and took a cab to the Starcrest motel, where I paid a second bill with Bairstow's credit card.
Thence to the Eden to collect my car, and so to Honey-brook to sleep, perchance to dream.
* * *
Or not, as Larry would say.
On the verge opposite the main gates, two cyclists were busy doing nothing. In the hall, a painfully written note from Mrs. Benbow regretted that "what with my husband's heart and the questions going on by police," she would not be obliging me in the future. The rest of my mail was scarcely more cheerful: two demands from the Bristol Constabulary for payment of parking fines I had not incurred; a letter from the office of the Value Added Tax inspector advising me that, acting on information received, he proposed to launch a full investigation of my assets, income, outgoings, and receipts over the last two years. And a premature bill from Mr. Rose, my carrier, who had never been known to send a bill to anyone unless someone went round to his home and threatened him with the collectors. Only my friend the excise officer seemed to have escaped enlistment:
David Beringer, ex-Office. Never happier than when he was resettled.
A last envelope remained. Brown. Poor quality. Typed on an old portable. Postmark Helsinki. The flap tightly sealed. Or, as I suspected, resealed. One sheet of paper inside, ruled. Inky handwriting. Male. Blotched. Headed Moscow and dated six days ago.
I continued staring at the letter. Peter for Volodya Zorin. Peter for talking on the telephone and arranging to meet him in Shepherd Market. Peter for deniable initiatives of friendship. Peter the victim of an unjust hell, under house arrest and waiting to be shot at dawn, welcome to the club.
