Fixing Sixty Six by Tim Flower

Author:Tim Flower [Flower, Tim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781916282506
Publisher: Talk About Productions
Published: 2019-11-08T20:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

Sunday, 26th June 1966

I had arranged for a cab to take me to the West London Air Terminal the following morning, hoping the FA would reimburse me. In the past, I would have had Nell drive me. But given the events of the previous day, I didn’t want to ask the favour or risk an hour-long argument.

The roads were so quiet, it was barely half-past eight when we followed one of BEA’s navy blue and white Routemaster buses up the approach to the terminal buildings: a jarringly modern, steel and glass tower emblazoned with the BEA logo, attached to a matching rectangular box. We drove up the “In” ramp - a squat, concrete helter-skelter for cars and taxis - and pulled up outside the departures area on the first floor.

I was still paying the cabbie, when a young porter with a peaked cap perched jauntily on the back of his head chirped, ‘I’ll take them for yer,’ and started stacking my luggage onto his red metal trolley. By promising him a two bob tip, I got him to take me inside the vast, pillared concourse to the enquiry desk - where I collected a small, square envelope with my name on it containing a lone stubby key - and onto the nearby bank of left luggage lockers. There I inserted the key into the door of number twenty-one and was relieved to discover inside, a bulging, brown foolscap envelope addressed to me, marked “Strictly Confidential. Addressee Only.”

Not wanting to open it in front of the porter, I had him drop me by the check-in desks and paid him off. Then shielding the envelope from the queues of well-healed flyers, I cautiously removed its contents.

There were two thin bundles of foreign bank notes: 130 “MARKKAA” issued by “FINLANDS BANK” and 300 “KRONER NORGES BANK”. Although I hadn’t a clue what a tenner in either currency would buy me, I suddenly felt as affluent as my fellow travellers looked. The feeling didn’t last long. In a BEA cardboard wallet, I found my airline ticket and discovered I was booked on their 10.50 flight to Helsinki - in tourist class.

The other items in the envelope were an itinerary, what appeared to be a briefing paper and a list of newspaper contacts. I glanced down the latter and saw all the usual suspects’ names, including my Mirror colleague, Ken Jones. I could hear them pillorying me for “going over to the other side”.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.