London Match
Len Deighton
Language: English
Pages: 448
ISBN: 0586066357
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Long-awaited reissue of the final part of the classic spy trilogy, GAME, SET and MATCH, when the Berlin Wall divided not just a city but a world.
The spy who’s in the clear doesn’t exist…
Bernard Samson hoped they’d put Elvira Miller behind bars. She said she had been stupid, but it didn’t cut any ice with Bernard. She was a KGB-trained agent and stupidity was no excuse.
There was one troubling thing about Mrs Miller’s confession - something about two codewords where there should have been one. The finger of suspicion pointed straight back to London.
And that was where defector Erich Stinnes was locked up, refusing to say anything.
Bernard had got him to London; now he had to get him to talk…
She watched Gloria’s every move and there was tacit criticism in the way she was so reluctant to help pass the dishes down the table. Gloria must have noticed, but she gave no sign of it. She was clever with the children: cheerful, considerate, persuasive, and helpful but never maternal enough to provoke resentment. Gloria took her cue from Nanny, consulting her and deferring to her in such a way that Nanny was forced into Fiona’s role while Gloria became a sort of super-nanny and elder sister.
intelligence official who is now working for the KGB. It would be okay for Dicky to have normal social contact with her. It would be okay for Dicky to be seeing her in the course of his job. But treason and infidelity have too much in common. Dicky was meeting Tessa secretly, and that sort of thing makes Internal Security very very nervous.’ ‘Is that why he gave her up?’ ‘Who told you he gave her up?’ ‘Sometimes I think you don’t even trust me, Bernard.’ ‘Who told you he gave her up?’ A big
danger of taking them with you? Can’t you see the way in which they’ll become hostages to your good behaviour? Isn’t it obvious that once they’re there you’ll never again be allowed to come West all together? They’ll always keep the children there to be sure you do your duty as a good Communist and return East as every good Soviet citizen must.’ ‘What of their life now? You’re always working. Nanny spends her life watching TV. They’re shunted from your mother to my father and back again. Soon
Samson,’ said Moskvin mockingly. His German was awkward and ungrammatical but his manner said everything. ‘My people know I’m here, Moskvin,’ I said. ‘They’ll be putting out a red alert any time now.’ ‘Are you trying to frighten me?’ he said. ‘Your people know nothing, and they don’t care. It is Christmas. You are all alone, Herr Samson, all alone. Your people in London will be eating pudding, watching your Queen speaking on television and getting drunk!’ ‘We’ll see,’ I muttered ominously, but
prizing up floorboards, and poking screwdrivers deep into the plaster with that sort of inscrutable delight that comes to men blessed by governmental authority to be destructive. It was typical of the overnight places the KGB provided for the faithful. Top floors: cold, cramped and cheap. Perhaps they chose these sleazy accommodations to remind all concerned about the plight of the poor in the capitalist economy. Or perhaps in this sort of district there were fewer questions asked about comings