Spy Story

I walked back on the other side of the street. It was a fine night. Above the crooked rooftops there was a pattern of stars. The crisp polar air that had driven away the low clouds made the traffic noises, and my footsteps, abnormally loud. I trod warily, moving past each of the parked cars as if looking for my own. I need not have been so cautious. I saw them fifty yards ahead and long before they might have seen me. It was an orange Ford: black vinyl top, rear-window slats and that absurd spoiling device to stop the rear wheels lifting at speeds above Mach One. Frazer. There were undoubtedly others like it, but this was Frazer’s car. The long whip aerial and finally the silhouetted triangle of the Admiralty permit on the windscreen confirmed it. It would be just like Frazer to want a mileage allowance instead of using a car from their pool.

There was a girl with him. They were smoking and talking, but they were situated perfectly to watch the entrance to number eighteen.

They say that on his deathbed, Voltaire, asked to renounce the devil, said, ‘This is no time to be making new enemies.’ That’s how I felt about Frazer, and whoever and whatever was behind him. I turned the ignition key and thought about home.

I wanted the end of the live concert on Radio 3 but got the news on Radio 4. On Monday the car workers would strike for a thirty-five per cent wage increase, and a six-week paid holiday. The Russians had announced the six-man team that would go to Copenhagen for the German reunification talks. Two of the Russian team were women, including its leader, who was in the running for chairman of the whole circus. (A proposal energetically supported by Women’s Liberation, who planned to march to Westminster on Sunday afternoon.) There’d been a fire in a Finsbury Park hairdresser’s, and a stick-up in a pay-office in Epsom. The weather forecast was frost, overcast skies and rain following. And I’d missed the best part of the concert.