Free Siege at the Villa Lipp by Eric Ambler Page B

spread of hands. ‘Where was I to leave it? In my flat where it could be found by the friend with whom I share the place? She works for Langridge and adores him. Ought I to have tried explaining the whole situation to her? And how could I be certain, that even though I’d promised to co-operate with these people, they wouldn’t send someone to watch me anyway? All things considered, it seemed sensible to go through the motions of co-operating by taking the box of tricks with me. Does anyone mind if I smoke?’
    She started fumbling in her satchel, but Melanie was there so promptly with cigarette box and lighter that any respite Dr Henson may have been hoping for was brief. When she saw that we were all just waiting for the more crucial parts of her explanation and that no one felt disposed, at that stage, to assist her by making any sort of comment, she continued.
    ‘In Amsterdam the only place I could have left it safely was in the airport consigne. But if I was being watched, and I still don’t know whether I was or not, that would have given the game away completely. How could I have returned with my lie about having failed to use the camera through lack of opportunity, when they knew that I’d ditched it at Schipol Airport? So I put off doing anything about it and waited to see where we were going. It was after Turin when I first began to wonder if perhaps I had been making a mistake, if perhaps I’d allowed my personal dislike of Langridge and his Secret Service nonsense to cloud my judgement, or distort it sufficiently for me to reject any and every argument that he put up without even pausing to consider it. However, it turned out that whether I liked it or not, one of his arguments, along with some of the phrases he used to advance it, had stuck in my mind.’
    Connell said, ‘Aha!’ an exclamation she ignored.
    ‘Professor Langridge said‘ - and she ran her fingers through her hair again in the way Ihad seen from the terrace - ‘he said that this conference as I had described it, seemed to have more to do with journalism than with scholarship. And not even investigative journalism of the socially useful kind. It sounded to him more like one of those exercises in sensationalism currently favoured by the popular press and the seamier television channels. A news or TV feature is manufactured out of interviewing at a secret rendezvous some notorious terrorist or other wanted criminal.’
    She began now to stride about, slicing the air with the edges of her hands as she spoke. It was obvious that she had begun to reproduce Professor Langridge’s physical mannerisms along with his rhetoric.
    ‘And what is the object of these journalistic antics?’ she demanded at the ceiling. ‘I will tell you. For the new media which indulge in them the object is readier access to the eyes and ears of audiences of cretins. For the crooks and thugs who are the star performers the reward is a big jar of the most marvellous cosmetic ointment of all - free publicity. Smeared with that stuff even the most odious of men and the most detestable of causes can enlist a measure of popular sympathy and support. Many distinguished politicians as well as eminent divines have become involved in such tawdry enterprises, so why not an ageing Dutch professor of sociology?’
    She avoided locking at Krom, who seemed to be more amused than annoyed by what she was now saying, and continued to talk at, or to, me. ‘The team-leader gathers the brainwashed and compliant subordinates before setting off into the wide, baby-blue yonder. What is different about this adventure? Two things. Journalists working for the established media are to some extent privileged. Unless the casework upon which we are engaged happens to confer on us quasi-medical standing we most certainly are not. And neither are your collaborators. The only way you could refuse information about these criminal contacts you propose to make, should you be challenged on the subject