Spy Sinker by Len Deighton Page A

had changed her mind. But each time she spoke to him – long before she could bring the conversation to the point she wanted – he persuaded her that her first duty was to her country and the Department. Even the Director-General had spoken with unusual gravity about this scheme to get her into position as a field agent, a field agent of prime importance. It would, of course, show that women could bring off an intelligence coup as well as any man. That, more than anything else, had helped her keep going when her spirits were low.
    Since the beginning of the year her tiffs and differences with Bernard had multiplied. It wasn't all Bernard's fault, things had been difficult for him too. Operation 'Reisezug' had been something of a disaster: three of their own people killed, or so the rumour said. Max Busby was carrying a lot of the material in his memory and Max never came back.
    Bernard didn't talk about it but anyone who knew him could see how shaken he was.
    Bernard was now officially 'rested' from field work and, in what might have been an effort to comfort her, Bret Rensselaer had let slip the fact that the Department had decided that Bernard should spend the rest of his life behind a desk. Not the German Desk. Dicky Cruyer-a vain and shallow man – had got the German Desk. Bernard was in line for it and would have done it with more skill and intelligence, but Dicky had the administrative experience as well as the personality and background that the Department favoured for top jobs. Bernard said that all Dicky had was the right old school tie, but Bernard could be a bit touchy about such things. She'd wondered if Bret decided against Bernard's promotion because of her assignment, but Bret insisted that it was a decision made at the top.
    She was sure that her painful domestic life could be transformed if Bret would let her confide in her husband. As it was she couldn't always account for her movements. It had been bad enough when she'd only had to have the odd meeting with Martin Euan Pryce-Hughes. Now there were countless covert briefings by Bret and a lot of studying to do. And the studying was of material that she mustn't let Bernard catch sight of. Bernard was smart and quick. She wouldn't have to make many mistakes for him to guess what was happening, and the D-G had taken it upon himself to tell her that if Bernard discovered what was planned the whole thing was off.
    Poor Bernard; poor Billy; poor Sally. She sat on the bench at Waterloo and thought about them all. She felt drained and ill. Crying released the tension within her but it did nothing to alleviate the pain. She cried some more in the constrained, unobtrusive and dignified way she'd learned to cry at boarding school, and stared across the concourse where people were hurrying for their commuter trains or saying their farewells. She told herself that their troubles might be worse than hers but that did nothing to help: in fact it made her feel even more dejected.
    The weather did nothing to cheer her. It was one of those miserably cold and rainy days that so often punctuate an English summer. Everyone was bundled into coats and scarves and the cold damp air contributed to Fiona's chilly gloom. Trains arrived; trains departed. A young woman wanted to know the time, and an elderly couple walked past arguing vociferously. Pigeons and sparrows came gliding down from the girders of the roof, encouraged by a bearded man on a bench nearby who threw crumbs to them. She sat there watching the birds for what seemed a long time.
    'Pardon me, madam.' Fiona looked up to see two men: a uniformed railway policeman and a man in civilian clothes. 'You were talking to a young woman a few minutes back?' It was the policeman who spoke.
    At first she thought they were going to tell her to move on, or arrest her for soliciting, or make some other sort of fuss, but then she realized that the man in civilian clothes was not a policeman. 'Yes?'
    'In a dark blue coat, with a red