Funeral in Berlin. Len Deighton

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       12

      Every piece has its mode of attack but only a pawn will attack en passant. Similarly only a pawn can be captured in this manner.

       Thursday, October 10th

      When I left Hallam I drifted north. The Saddle Room was rocking until the spurs jingled and a girl with a back-combed bouffon of red hair was twisting with obsessive grace on a table top which put her ten inches above floor level, not allowing for the back-combing. Her feet knocked the glasses to the floor with rhythmic abandon. No one seemed to mind. I walked as far as the stairs and peered into the smoke and noise. Two girls with large but tight sweaters narcissistically twisted back to back. I poured two or three double whiskies into the back of my throat, watched the floor and tried to forget what a crummy trick I had pulled on Hallam.

      It was still raining outside. The doorman and I looked around for a taxi. I found one, gave the doorman a florin and climbed in.

      ‘I saw it first.’

      ‘What?’ I said.

      ‘I saw it first,’ said the girl with the back-combed bouffon. She said it slowly and patiently. She was about five foot ten, light in complexion, nervous of movement, dressed with skilful simplicity. She had a rather wide, full mouth and eyes like a trapped doe. Now she kneaded her face around while querulously telling me yet again that she’d seen the cab before I had.

      ‘I’m going towards Chelsea,’ she said, opening the door.

      I looked around. The bad weather had driven cabs into hiding. ‘OK,’ I said, ‘hop in. We’ll do your journey first.’

      The cab pulled into a tight lock and my new friend eased her back-combing on to the leather-work with a sigh.

      ‘Cigarette?’ she said and flicked the corner of a pack of Camels with a skill that I can never master. I took one and brought a loose Swan Vesta match from my pocket. I dug my thumbnail into the head and ignited it. She was impressed and stared into my eyes as I lit the cigarette. I took it pretty calmly, just like I didn’t have a couple of milligrammes of flaming phosphorus under the nail and coming through the pain threshold like a rusty scalpel.

      ‘Are you in Advertising?’ she said. She had a soft American accent.

      ‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I’m an account executive with J. Walter Thompson.’

      ‘You don’t look like any of the Thompson people I know.’

      ‘That’s true,’ I said. ‘I’m the vanguard of the button-down shirt mob.’ She gave a polite little laugh. ‘Where in Chelsea?’ the driver called. She told him. ‘It’s a party,’ she said to me.

      ‘Is that why you have that bottle of Guinness in your pocket?’ I asked.

      She tapped it to make sure it was still there. ‘Ghoul,’ she said smiling. ‘That’s to wash my hair in.’

      ‘In Guinness?’ I said.

      ‘If you want body,’ she said patting her hair.

      ‘I want body,’ I said. ‘Believe me, I do.’

      ‘My name is Samantha Steel,’ she said politely. ‘People call me Sam.’