Spy Sinker by Len Deighton

Author:Len Deighton
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw, pdf
Publisher: Harper Collins, Inc.
Published: 2010-09-29T22:00:00+00:00

13

Whitelands, England. June 1983.

‘No, Dicky, I can hear you perfectly,’ said Bret Rensselaer as he pressed the phone to his ear and shrugged at Silas Gaunt, who was standing opposite him with the extension earpiece. Dicky Cruyer, German Stations Controller, was phoning from Mexico City and the connection was not good. ‘You’ve made it all perfectly clear. I can’t see any point in going through it again. Yes, I’ll talk to the Director-General and tell him what you said. Yes. Yes. Good to talk to you, Dicky. I’ll see what I can do. Goodbye. Goodbye.’ He replaced the handset and sighed deeply.

Silas Gaunt put the earpiece in the slot and said, ‘Dicky Cruyer tracked you down.’

‘Yes, he did,’ said Bret Rensselaer, although there had been little difficulty about it. The Director-General had told Bret to visit Silas and ‘put him in the picture’. Bret had left the Whitelands telephone number as his contact, and Mrs Porter – Gaunt’s housekeeper – had put the call from Mexico through to the farm manager’s office.

Having thanked the greenhouse boy who’d run to get them, Silas, wearing an old anorak, muddy boots and corduroy trousers tied with string at the ankles, led the way – ducking under the low door – out to the cobbled yard. Bret was being shown round the farm.

‘I don’t encourage guns any more,’ said Silas. ‘Too damned hearty. Those gigantic early breakfasts and mud all through the house. It became too much for Mrs Porter and to tell you the truth, too much for me too. Anglers are not so much trouble: quieter, and they’re gone all day with a packet of cheese sandwiches.’

Silas swung open the yard gate and fastened it again after Bret. The fields stretched away into the distance. The harvest would be gathered early. The field behind the barn would be the first one cut and flocks of sparrows, warned by the sound of the nearby machinery that the banquet would not be there forever, were having a feed that made their flight uncertain as they swooped and fluttered amongst the pale ears.

It was a lovely day: silky cirrus torn and trailed carelessly across the deep blue sky. The sun was as high as it could get, and, like a ball thrown into the air, it paused and the world stood still, waiting for the afternoon to begin.

As they walked along they kept close to the hedge so that Silas could be sure it had been properly trimmed and weeded. He grabbed ears of unripe wheat, and with the careless insolence of the nomad, crushed them in his hand, scattering chaff, husk and seed through his splayed fingers. Bret, who had no interest in farms or farming, plodded awkwardly behind in the rubber boots that Silas had found for him, with a stained old windbreaker to protect his elegant dark blue suit. They went through a door set in the tall walls that surrounded the kitchen garden. It was a wonderful wall, light and dark bricks making big diamond patterns that were just visible under the espaliered fruit trees.

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