The Moscow Sleepers by Stella Rimington

Author:Stella Rimington
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781408859766
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
Published: 2018-07-21T06:56:27+00:00

30

Miss Girling knew most of Southwold like the back of her hand, but the address she had been given for the police station was a road on the outskirts of the town, on an unattractive 1950s housing estate which it had taken her two buses to reach. She got off the bus, cautiously looking round her. She dreaded meeting anyone she knew as she didn’t want to have to explain that she was out here visiting the police.

As she walked from the bus stop, looking for the number she had been given, she could see nothing that looked like her idea of a police station. She remembered the old one in the centre of the town, which had been closed for several years now. It had been a rather imposing red-brick double-fronted building with steps up the middle and a blue lamp over the door. But this was a street of single-storey buildings, some with small gardens in front and others with concrete for parking cars.

She found the right number house with no difficulty. The strange thing about it was that it looked very little different from all the other houses in the street except that its windows were covered with a fine metal mesh. As she approached, she could see that the building had been extended considerably, using all the space where the back garden had once been. Its front garden was concreted over and two cars were parked there, one an ordinary-looking silver car and one a police car. She walked up to the front door and noticed with some relief that underneath the bell was a small plate that read SUFFOLK POLICE. She rang the bell and the door clicked open.

Inside was a square hall with a low table and a couple of upholstered upright wooden-armed chairs – rather like the visitors’ chairs in a hospital ward. In one of these a young woman was sitting reading a magazine. As Miss Girling came in, she put the magazine on the table and stood up.

‘Miss Florence Girling?’ she asked smiling. ‘Do come in. I’m Diane Kingly. Thank you for coming. I hope you had no difficulty finding this place. It is a bit off the beaten track, I’m afraid.’

‘I had no difficulty,’ replied Florence, somewhat taken aback by the warmth of the welcome.

‘Well, if you’ll follow me, we’ll go somewhere a bit more comfortable.’

Florence followed the young woman along a corridor past several closed doors until she led Florence into a comfortable sitting room with chintz-covered armchairs and a two-seater sofa. Against the wall by the window was a small polished dining table on which stood a cafetière of coffee, cups and saucers and a plate of biscuits.

‘I should think you could do with a cup of coffee after trekking out here,’ said the young woman. ‘Do you take sugar? Biscuit?’

The coffee organised and delivered, the young woman sat down. By now Florence Girling had had a chance to sum her up. She looked most unlike a policewoman but Florence was modern enough to know that they came in all shapes and sizes these days.

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.