Dark Side of the Street - Jack Higgins [9]
The door closed behind him with a click and Crabtree sat there in the silence, waiting, feeling more alone than at any other time in his life. It seemed an age before he heard heavy feet pounding along the corridor and the anxious knocking started on the door.
The previous Wednesday when it all started, was a morning of bright sunshine and Chavasse had chosen to walk through the park on his way to Bureau headquarters. Life, for an intelligence agent, is a strange and rather haphazard existence compounded of short, often violent, periods of service in the field followed by months of comparative inactivity, often spent in routine antiespionage investigations or administration.
For almost half a year Chavasse had clocked in each morning as ordered, to sit behind a desk in a converted attic in the old house in St. John's Wood to spend the day sifting through reports from field sections in all parts of the globe--demanding, highly important work that had to be done thoroughly or not at all--and so damned boring.
But the sun was out, the sky was blue, the dresses were shorter than he'd ever known them, so that for once he took his time and strolled across the grass between the trees smoking a cigarette, discovering and not for the first time in his life, that after all, a man didn't need a great deal to be utterly and completely happy--for the moment, at any rate. Somewhere a clock struck eleven. He glanced at his watch, swore softly and hurried towards the main road.
It was almost half past the hour when he went up the steps of the house in St. John's Wood and pressed the bell beside the brass plate that carried the legend Brown & Co--Importers and Exporters.
After a few moments, the door was opened by a tall greying man in a blue serge uniform and Chavasse hurried past him. "I'm late this morning, George."
George looked worried. "Mr. Mallory was asking for you. Miss Frazer's been phoning down every five minutes for the past hour."
Chavasse was already half-way up the curving Regency staircase, a slight flicker of excitement moving inside him. If Mallory wanted him urgently, then it had to be for something important. With any kind of luck at all the pile of reports that overflowed from his in-tray were going to have to be passed on to someone else. He moved along the landing quickly and opened the white-painted door at the far end.
Jean Frazer turned from a filing cabinet, a small, attractive woman of thirty who wore a red woollen dress of deceptively simple cut that made the best of her rather full figure. She removed her heavy library spectacles and shook her head.
"You would, wouldn't you?"
Chavasse grinned. "I went for a walk in the park. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and I seemed to see unattached young females everywhere."
"You must be getting old," she said and picked up the telephone.
"Oh, I wouldn't say that. Skirts are shorter than ever. I was often reminded of you."
A dry, remote voice cut in on them. "What is it?"
"Mr. Chavasse is here, Mr. Mallory."
"Send him in. No calls for the next hour."
She replaced the receiver and turned, a slight mocking smile on her mouth. "Mr. Mallory will see you now, sir."
"I love you too," Chavasse said and he crossed to the green baize door, opened it and went in.
"Prison escapes have always been a problem," Black said. "They never average less than two hundred and fifty a year."
"I must say that seems rather a lot." Mallory helped himself to a Turkish cigarette from the box on his desk.
Although by nature a kindly man, as a Detective Chief Superintendent with the special Branch at New Scotland Yard, Charlie Black was accustomed to his inferiors running to heed his slightest command. Indeed, there was a certain pleasure to be derived from the sudden nervousness noted in even the most innocent of individuals when they discovered who and what he was. But we are all creatures of our environment, moulded by everything and anything that has happened to us since