See Charlie Run by Brian Freemantle Page B

it,’ said Wilson.
    â€˜Shall I advise Langley he hasn’t got the authority?’
    â€˜Good God, no!’ said Wilson, hurriedly. ‘Tell them he has.’
    â€˜But that’s …’
    â€˜Backing our man in the field,’ finished Wilson.
    â€˜There are some other things I’d like to discuss with you,’ said Harkness, starting to open Charlie’s accounts file he’d brought with him to the Director’s office.
    â€˜Later,’ said Wilson. ‘Not now.’
    The deputy director decided he had been right in alerting Cartright.

Chapter Four
    Not having to pay for his own laundry was a perk of foreign travel. Charlie included for pressing the more creased of his two suits – the one that had been a give-away bargain in the January sales with the green check in the trousers only slightly different from that in the jacket – and gave himself odds of 6-4 that Harkness would knock it off his expenses. Charlie was still pissed off, getting caught out the previous evening. Only temporary, he thought, a private promise to himself.
    He left unhurriedly, increasing his pace immediately outside, going at once to the lifts serving the shopping area. He managed to get himself into the corner with his back to the wall, enabling him to see everyone who entered after him. Three Asian men, a Caucasian couple and a man by himself, Charlie noted. The single man disembarked on the first floor and two more Japanese got in after another couple talking animatedly in what Charlie thought to be German, but wasn’t sure. The new arrivals filled the elevator, so the grouping stayed until it reached the ground floor. Charlie made as if to emerge, behind everyone else, but then mimed the pocket-patting charade of someone who had forgotten something and stepped back into the lift, to return to the hotel level. One of the Asians who had travelled down with him just managed to get back in with the freshly entering group. Gotcha! thought Charlie. Back at the hotel level, he went directly to the long, open-lounge bordering corridor, towards the main exit, stopping abruptly to feign interest in the antique shop at the end. His pursuer was trapped in the middle of the walkway. The man still made the effort, halting like Charlie at one of the arcade shops. You’re dead, cowboy, thought Charlie. He went further on towards the main area, wondering if there was any more surveillance.
    As the taxi went towards the Ginza, Charlie decided Tokyo was a city full up with people and tight-together houses. It was the uncertain time, sticky with rainy-season heat. Although it was dry at the moment, everyone carried condom-sheathed umbrellas that by an ingenuity of engineering bloomed into the real thing at the first shower.
    Charlie sat with his money ready, isolating the Akasaka Mitsuke Underground station as the car went beneath the elevated roadway and glad of the clog of traffic. He waited until the cab was practically alongside before stopping the driver, gesturing with supposed impatience at the traffic delay and thrusting notes into the man’s hand. The impression of a full-up city was greater in the subway, and as well as the people noise there was the crickets-in-the-bushes clatter of the passenger counters at the barriers. He chose a train already at the platform, not trying to check for pursuit until he was actually on board. As the doors closed, Charlie thought that if he had £I for every time he’d used tube trains to lose a tail he could afford his own personal chiropodist. Charlie knew it would be difficult for him to spot his follower in a crowded situation of many Japanese, which was why he’d taken particular care. The man in the lift had been wearing a grey suit, muted tie, white shirt, with neither hat, topcoat nor spectacles. The mistake had been the shoes – a subject frequently on Charlie’s mind – black and polished so highly they could have been made