sight of his travel plans for the coming months. Through our commercial attaché in Tokyo,’ Waddell added sheepishly.
‘With minimal hope of success.’
‘Quite. The Japs are a particularly hard lot to crack. Naturally secretive. Genuinely inscrutable.’ He produced a manila envelope from his case and handed it over. ‘This is some more background on Harrison and the school.’ Waddell flicked out his arm to look at his watch. ‘Heavens! I’ve a meeting in twenty minutes.’ He summoned the waiter for the bill.
‘You don’t … you don’t think you’re imagining this threat?’ Sam suggested tentatively.
‘Unfortunately not.’
‘But you seem to be basing it on three pieces of purely circumstantial evidence. An emotional letter to a newspaper, a book written twenty-five years ago, and the fact that we don’t know where Harrison is. I mean, he might be visiting a relative in Scunthorpe for all we know.’
Waddell signed a credit-card slip, adding a precise 10 per cent for a tip. They got up and by the time they reached the stairs, the waiter had retrieved their coats.
Outside in the street a light rain was falling. Waddell produced a small umbrella from his briefcase, holding it over their heads as they walked back towards Vauxhall Bridge.
‘No, Sam. I don’t think we’re imagining it. You see, one other piece of information emerged this morning. Two weeks ago Harrison set up a trust and put all his assets into it. The premises for the Bordhill Community, his remaining capital, the lot.’
‘So?’
Waddell stopped and fixed Sam with a look that said for Christ’s sake start taking this seriously, chum .
‘The lawyer who prepared the deeds told us he gained the impression his client wasn’t expecting to be around for much longer.’
Sam stared back obstinately. If he was to be forced into this mission, he would make them spell out the reasons for it line by line. ‘And from that you deduced …’
‘That for Peregrine Harrison, killing Kamata is so goddam important he’s ready to die in the process.’
Four
As he made his way back to Ealing on the tube, Sam flicked cynically through the pages of Harrison’s book, unable to convince himself the threat was real. The way he saw it, the PM had told SIS to jump and the buck had been passed to Waddell, who’d put his name in the frame. Simple as that. Days, weeks of effort were about to be wasted. Then Peregrine Harrison would reappear, asking why all the fuss.
The cold weather was beginning to get to him. The thought of prowling around the windswept flatlands of Cambridgeshire looking for Harrison’s Bordhill community did not appeal. Spending the next couple of days in bed with Julie did .
When he arrived at the flat he browsed through the file Waddell had given him, finding most of the contents merely duplicated what he’d learned at lunch. Then he opened Harrison’s book again, A Jungle Path to Hell , and began reading it more seriously.
The opening chapter was written in the clipped style of a previous age, telling of a school leaver’s excitement about joining the army in the late summerof 1940. Despite the recent and salutary lesson of Dunkirk, the war had still been an adventure to him.
My upbringing in Burma made me a natural for service in the Pacific and after basic training I was shipped out to Rangoon, considering myself a lucky blighter not to have been dispatched to the deserts of north Africa. A year later however, our belief that the Japs would never dare take on the British in Burma and Malaya received a nasty shock. They invaded with great strength, remarkable speed and with the tactics to outwit our own rather incompetent commanders. There began a retreat for us which involved trekking through a thousand miles of jungle before reaching the safety of India .
Harrison wrote movingly of the loss of hundreds of his comrades to disease and Japanese bullets during that withdrawal, and expressed a deep concern for his
‘With minimal hope of success.’
‘Quite. The Japs are a particularly hard lot to crack. Naturally secretive. Genuinely inscrutable.’ He produced a manila envelope from his case and handed it over. ‘This is some more background on Harrison and the school.’ Waddell flicked out his arm to look at his watch. ‘Heavens! I’ve a meeting in twenty minutes.’ He summoned the waiter for the bill.
‘You don’t … you don’t think you’re imagining this threat?’ Sam suggested tentatively.
‘Unfortunately not.’
‘But you seem to be basing it on three pieces of purely circumstantial evidence. An emotional letter to a newspaper, a book written twenty-five years ago, and the fact that we don’t know where Harrison is. I mean, he might be visiting a relative in Scunthorpe for all we know.’
Waddell signed a credit-card slip, adding a precise 10 per cent for a tip. They got up and by the time they reached the stairs, the waiter had retrieved their coats.
Outside in the street a light rain was falling. Waddell produced a small umbrella from his briefcase, holding it over their heads as they walked back towards Vauxhall Bridge.
‘No, Sam. I don’t think we’re imagining it. You see, one other piece of information emerged this morning. Two weeks ago Harrison set up a trust and put all his assets into it. The premises for the Bordhill Community, his remaining capital, the lot.’
‘So?’
Waddell stopped and fixed Sam with a look that said for Christ’s sake start taking this seriously, chum .
‘The lawyer who prepared the deeds told us he gained the impression his client wasn’t expecting to be around for much longer.’
Sam stared back obstinately. If he was to be forced into this mission, he would make them spell out the reasons for it line by line. ‘And from that you deduced …’
‘That for Peregrine Harrison, killing Kamata is so goddam important he’s ready to die in the process.’
Four
As he made his way back to Ealing on the tube, Sam flicked cynically through the pages of Harrison’s book, unable to convince himself the threat was real. The way he saw it, the PM had told SIS to jump and the buck had been passed to Waddell, who’d put his name in the frame. Simple as that. Days, weeks of effort were about to be wasted. Then Peregrine Harrison would reappear, asking why all the fuss.
The cold weather was beginning to get to him. The thought of prowling around the windswept flatlands of Cambridgeshire looking for Harrison’s Bordhill community did not appeal. Spending the next couple of days in bed with Julie did .
When he arrived at the flat he browsed through the file Waddell had given him, finding most of the contents merely duplicated what he’d learned at lunch. Then he opened Harrison’s book again, A Jungle Path to Hell , and began reading it more seriously.
The opening chapter was written in the clipped style of a previous age, telling of a school leaver’s excitement about joining the army in the late summerof 1940. Despite the recent and salutary lesson of Dunkirk, the war had still been an adventure to him.
My upbringing in Burma made me a natural for service in the Pacific and after basic training I was shipped out to Rangoon, considering myself a lucky blighter not to have been dispatched to the deserts of north Africa. A year later however, our belief that the Japs would never dare take on the British in Burma and Malaya received a nasty shock. They invaded with great strength, remarkable speed and with the tactics to outwit our own rather incompetent commanders. There began a retreat for us which involved trekking through a thousand miles of jungle before reaching the safety of India .
Harrison wrote movingly of the loss of hundreds of his comrades to disease and Japanese bullets during that withdrawal, and expressed a deep concern for his
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