D-Notice by Bill Walker (big ebook reader txt) 📗

won’t lower the rent. But I will introduce you to my niece. She’s asked about you, you know. I think she rather fancies you.”

Michael placed the bags on the top step and managed a pleasant smile. Mrs. Herrick’s niece favored purple hair and safety pins through the nose. “I’d appreciate that Mrs. H, but I’m really not looking to—”

“Now, now,” she said, patting his arm in a motherly way. “You’ve got to stop squirreling yourself away, get out more often....”

She began to prattle, and Michael became even more nervous. He felt a rivulet of sweat trickle down his spine.

Really late.

He began backing down the walk. “Mrs. H, I really do have to be running.”

“I’ll tell Tilly that you’re dying to meet her!” She said, waving.

Turning, he ran toward the corner, where he saw the Number 11 red double-decker idling by the curb, an advert for Player’s cigarettes plastered along its side panel. He might make it. Putting on a burst of speed, Michael reached the rear platform of the bus just as the driver gunned the engine and began steering back into traffic. He leaped on and grabbed the stairway railing, breathing an overheated sigh of relief.

I’ve got to start exercising, he thought, feeling his heart thudding against his rib cage. Dizzy from the unseasonably warm weather and the undue exertion, he trudged into the lower level and settled in one of the seats that faced the aisle, his back to an open window. The bus picked up speed, and Michael closed his eyes when he felt a cooling breeze play across his neck, glad for a moment of relief. He pulled out a handkerchief and wiped his brow, just when the Conductor, a rotund black man with a wide smile and swinging dreadlocks, waddled up to him.

“Where to, Mon?” he asked, his lilting voice betraying its Jamaican roots.

Michael reached into his trousers and extracted a handful of change.

“Horse Guards, please.”

The Conductor deftly set the dial on his portable dispenser and rolled out the appropriately priced ticket. Handing him a few coins, Michael noted the man’s checked shirt open at the neck. The lack of a tie made for an odd look with the standard London Transport uniform. Like so many other aspects of modern life, the lack of regard for traditional dress was becoming the norm.

The ride to London proper lasted ten minutes and Michael got off the bus in Whitehall at Horse Guards Avenue and walked the rest of the way to the Commonwealth War Graves Commission.

Occupying a tiny one-room office behind a frosted-glass door on the second floor at number 45 Whitehall Court—a rambling pile of white stone and gargoyles—it boasted bilious-green walls, a battered partner’s desk surrounded by wall-to-wall filing cabinets of a uniform battleship gray. A fifteen-year-old air conditioner wheezed tepid air from the single window, making the air smell faintly of mildew.

Michael entered the room, shed his jacket, and placed it on the coat stand next to the door. The water cooler burbled a greeting as he slid into his chair and began to study his phone messages. His coworker, Ferguson, lounged across from him, scanning The Daily Mail with disdain, a lit cigarette dangling from his lips.

“Another German War Hero Murdered,” the headline screamed in large bold type.

Everything about Ferguson was rumpled, from his patched tweed jacket and his threadbare corduroy trousers, to his wild thatch of dark-brown hair and affable hang-dog face. Even his desk looked as if it had been visited by a tiny tornado, papers and personal knickknacks scattered about with careless abandon.

“’Ere listen to this!” Ferguson said, dropping his “H’s” in his inimitable Cockney fashion and slapping the paper with his free hand. The ash from his cigarette dislodged, plopping unnoticed onto his tea-stained tie. “‘The Prime Minister announced today that talks with the USSR will commence next month as scheduled, despite rumors to the contrary.’ Bloody contrary this!” he said, making masturbatory motions. “Those bloody Slavs’ll have her for breakfast.”

Michael looked up from his work, his nose wrinkling at the stench of Ferguson’s cigarette. He noticed the overflowing ashtray, a cheap ceramic dish with the Brighton Pavilion painted on it—had crept onto his side of the desk, otherwise as neat as an army recruit’s footlocker. “Don’t you ever empty that thing?”

“Sorry, mate,” Ferguson said, lifting the ceramic dish and overturning it into the waste bin. It raised a noxious cloud of ash, making the room smell even worse. “You call that number I gave you?”

Michael didn’t answer, his eyes fixed on the paper he was desperately trying to study.

“You didn’t, did ya?”

“I had work to do,” he said, still not looking up.

Ferguson threw the paper aside. It landed in a heap on the floor, drawing Michael’s attention.

“Work? Blimey! That’s all you do, Mike. What about having a little fun?” He shook his head and leaned forward across the desk. “Maisy was just about a sure thing. She likes the studious type, she says. And you don’t call the number?”

Michael shrugged. “I lost it.”

“Now that’s a bleedin’ good one,” he laughed. “The neatest man alive and ‘e loses the phone number to the easiest bird in Kensington!”

“I don’t want the ‘easiest bird in Kensington.’ I want someone with a bit of breeding, someone I can relate to.”

“You want a bloody fossil, you do. They don’t make ’em that way anymore. Now, it’s all flash and trash.”

“Then I’d rather do without,” Michael said, getting irritated. “I swear to God, you and my landlady should open up a dating service. In fact, she’s got a niece. You want flash and trash? Have I got the girl for you!”

Before Ferguson could offer a retort, the phone rang. Michael snatched it up, shooting Ferguson a nasty look.