and it would avertsuspicion, although the idea made me queasy inside. The last person I wanted to see now was Vanessa – let alone use her as an alibi. I snapped out of it. I wasn’t about to be hanged because of an attack of qualms.
I climbed into the front seat and put the key in the ignition. The house was in my rear-view mirror, dark and deserted under the sliver of moon. I had a sudden memory of school: holidays when I’d stayed behind, the gloom of empty dormitories in the dark.
I started her up, and began to move off slowly.
*
Winding through the empty lanes at about twenty miles an hour with the lights dimmed, the urge to push the pedal and leave it all behind was almost overpowering. But I couldn’t yet risk it. I didn’t want to wake people up.
I’d gone about ten miles when I came to a call box. I parked on the verge, went in and put in a collection of sixpences. Nothing happened. I cursed and was just about to hang up when I got through.
‘Yes?’ said a gruff voice.
‘Something is going to fall like rain,’ I said. ‘And it won’t be flowers.’
‘Pardon?’
Oh, Christ.
‘Something is going to fall like rain – and it won’t be flowers.’
There was a long pause, and then a resigned ‘Righty-ho’ and he hung up. It’s only when you’re forced to rely on emergency measures that you see all the holes in them: a straight-faced ‘Please pass the message on to Sasha that I need to meet at location four in two hours’ would have sounded a deal less suspicious to anyone listening in. And what the hell had Auden been going on about? I wondered. Why would flowers fall like rain? Wouldn’t rain be the more likely turn of events?
The spy games concluded, I climbed back in the car and set off again.I carried on weaving through the lanes until I reached the turn-off to the A32, and then put my foot down. It had already gone half ten, and it was going to be very tight getting everything done and still making Ronnie Scott’s before midnight. I tuned the radio to some rock music on one of the pirate stations. I could barely hear it at this speed, but all I wanted was some noise. As the car tunnelled through the night, I wanted something chaotic to churn beneath it all, to keep me conscious that the soft years were over.
There was no way back.
*
I wound the window down to let some air in.
He was already there, which was a good sign. A no-show would have left me with all sorts of difficulties. I had given myself two hours from placing the call, but that was the absolute minimum: standard procedure was four hours, with an intricate set of checks and double-backs I’d developed over the years, but that clearly hadn’t been possible tonight. This was an emergency, and I was working to a very tight deadline – Vanessa would be arriving soon, checking her coat, ordering a Cointreau – and it had been tempting to take a few more shortcuts on the security. I comforted myself with the fact that it was a Sunday night, which was probably the safest time of the week. I finished my cigarette, then got out of the car and walked across the street.
*
There were fewer people than I’d hoped for: some old men playing mah-jong; a couple of dockers. I breathed in the smell of fried rice, pork and incense. This was location four, the New Friends restaurant, one of the last surviving vestiges of the old Chinatown. A waitress with impossibly thick eyelashes drifted towards me, but I nodded in the direction of the man hunched over a table in the corner, and she moved off again.
He was pushing the remains of a chow mein around his plate and nursing a cup of tea. His postage stamps, our usual cover for conversation, were already neatly laid out on the table.
I seated myself beside him. I’d last seen him six months ago. His beard was a little greyer, his paunch a little wider.
‘Hello, Sasha,’ I said.
‘Hello, Paul. I hope this is good.’
He was irritated at being called out to an emergency meeting:
I climbed into the front seat and put the key in the ignition. The house was in my rear-view mirror, dark and deserted under the sliver of moon. I had a sudden memory of school: holidays when I’d stayed behind, the gloom of empty dormitories in the dark.
I started her up, and began to move off slowly.
*
Winding through the empty lanes at about twenty miles an hour with the lights dimmed, the urge to push the pedal and leave it all behind was almost overpowering. But I couldn’t yet risk it. I didn’t want to wake people up.
I’d gone about ten miles when I came to a call box. I parked on the verge, went in and put in a collection of sixpences. Nothing happened. I cursed and was just about to hang up when I got through.
‘Yes?’ said a gruff voice.
‘Something is going to fall like rain,’ I said. ‘And it won’t be flowers.’
‘Pardon?’
Oh, Christ.
‘Something is going to fall like rain – and it won’t be flowers.’
There was a long pause, and then a resigned ‘Righty-ho’ and he hung up. It’s only when you’re forced to rely on emergency measures that you see all the holes in them: a straight-faced ‘Please pass the message on to Sasha that I need to meet at location four in two hours’ would have sounded a deal less suspicious to anyone listening in. And what the hell had Auden been going on about? I wondered. Why would flowers fall like rain? Wouldn’t rain be the more likely turn of events?
The spy games concluded, I climbed back in the car and set off again.I carried on weaving through the lanes until I reached the turn-off to the A32, and then put my foot down. It had already gone half ten, and it was going to be very tight getting everything done and still making Ronnie Scott’s before midnight. I tuned the radio to some rock music on one of the pirate stations. I could barely hear it at this speed, but all I wanted was some noise. As the car tunnelled through the night, I wanted something chaotic to churn beneath it all, to keep me conscious that the soft years were over.
There was no way back.
*
I wound the window down to let some air in.
He was already there, which was a good sign. A no-show would have left me with all sorts of difficulties. I had given myself two hours from placing the call, but that was the absolute minimum: standard procedure was four hours, with an intricate set of checks and double-backs I’d developed over the years, but that clearly hadn’t been possible tonight. This was an emergency, and I was working to a very tight deadline – Vanessa would be arriving soon, checking her coat, ordering a Cointreau – and it had been tempting to take a few more shortcuts on the security. I comforted myself with the fact that it was a Sunday night, which was probably the safest time of the week. I finished my cigarette, then got out of the car and walked across the street.
*
There were fewer people than I’d hoped for: some old men playing mah-jong; a couple of dockers. I breathed in the smell of fried rice, pork and incense. This was location four, the New Friends restaurant, one of the last surviving vestiges of the old Chinatown. A waitress with impossibly thick eyelashes drifted towards me, but I nodded in the direction of the man hunched over a table in the corner, and she moved off again.
He was pushing the remains of a chow mein around his plate and nursing a cup of tea. His postage stamps, our usual cover for conversation, were already neatly laid out on the table.
I seated myself beside him. I’d last seen him six months ago. His beard was a little greyer, his paunch a little wider.
‘Hello, Sasha,’ I said.
‘Hello, Paul. I hope this is good.’
He was irritated at being called out to an emergency meeting:
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