"Hall, Adam - The Sinkiang Executive" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hall Adam)

Lightning came again on the black windows.

'Is it the next stop?' she asked me. 'Piccadilly?'

'Yes.'

She nodded, turning back to stare at the windows. Then the train lurched and the waiting was over and I reached up with my left hand to brace myself against the partition; and now the woman couldn't see my face any more because my arm was blocking her view.

The only sound was the moaning of the wheels, and someone saying, on the other side of the compartment, that it was going to snow. There was no other sound of any significance. But time was going by, and my right arm began tiring. I would have liked to rest it, but couldn't.

Katia, I thought, Katia, remembering her name but not her face, or not very much. Just a girl standing there under the lamp with the two men on each side of her, standing there looking at me and smiling. It was all I needed, this thought.

And the memory of her name. Katia.

The train began slowing.

I kept my eyes on the opposite side of the compartment now. The Glow of Wundalite, a panel read, For a Festive Christmas! It was already late January. Perhaps they meant for next Christmas too, for every Christmas. That would be the message, really: that you could have a Festive Christmas with those things lit up all over the tree. I let my mind, or part of it, consider these ideas, surprised that I needed so desperately to hang on to something ordinary and acceptable as a focus for thought while the soundlessness went on, and the fierce primeval satisfaction.

The train came to a halt and as people started moving I pushed against the plump woman, forcing her towards the doors on the opposite side as they opened and some of the passengers got out.

'Is this -'

'Yes,' I told her, 'but we'll have to hurry.' I took her arm and stopped her falling as we reached the doors.

'Are you sure this -'

'Piccadilly,' I said, and made certain she didn't turn round. 'I'll look after you, don't worry.'

But as soon as she'd got her feet on the platform I turned away and didn't look back. I was one of the first through the gates and a minute later I was walking fast in the blinding rain with my head down and my hands dug into my pockets and a kind of laughter coming that I tried to stop, but couldn't.


'What the hell for?' I asked him.

Holmes shut the file and went back to his desk and sat down and said: 'It's all I know. You're on standby. Signal ends.' He picked up the phone.

'Put that bloody thing down,' I told him, and he did, looking up at me with his totally expressionless face. 'I want to know who sent for me.'

Gently he said: 'I was going to phone Tilson, to see if he knew.'

Holmes is like that: he manoeuvres you around till you shit on your own doorstep and then says now look what you've done.

'Tilson won't know,' I said with an edge. Tilson was in Briefing, and therefore one of the last people you go through on your way out to the field. 'Only a director could have slapped me on standby when I'm due for leave and you ought to know that. How long have you been here?'

'Longer,' he said, 'than you.'

I went out of his office and left the door open, going along to Debriefing. I passed Matthews near the stairway, leaning backwards behind a stack of files he was carrying. 'Who's got in?' I asked him. 'Where from?'

'Anywhere.'