Free Winston’s War by Michael Dobbs

right now nobody gives a damn about what you or bloody Winston Churchill thinks.”
    It was then that Burgess had thrown himself across the desk, his face only inches from the Controller's. The Controller tried to pull away, partly in surprise but also in disgust. He could smell the raw garlic.
    “Seems to me it's about time you lined up for your party cap-badge, isn't it?” Burgess spat.
    The Controller was speechless, unable to breathe, assailed by insult and foulness.
    “ Sieg -fucking- Heil!” Burgess threw over his shoulder as he turned and stormed out of the door, kicking it so hard that a carpenter had to be summoned to repair the hinge.
    That was why Burgess decided to get drunk. He'd get drunk, get obliterated, then he'd see what Chance threw his way. But as yet it was a little too early, even for him. He didn't like to get drunk before noon. He briefly considered going to ease his frustrations in the underground lavatories at Piccadilly Circus, but they'd just stepped up the police patrol so there was no question of his being able to get away with it. Too risky, even for him. So instead he'd kill some time. Get his hair cut. At Trumper's.
    Which was how he met McFadden.
    “You've got good thick hair, sir”—although in truth it was already beginning to recede and looked as if something was nesting in it. “Nice curl. But you should get it cut more often.”
    “There are many things I should do more often,” Burgess snapped.
    “How would you like it cut, sir?”
    “Preferably in silence.”
    Burgess felt suddenly miserable. He'd been unjustifiably rude to the barber, which in itself was no great cause for regret. Burgess had a tongue honed on carborundum and his rudeness was legendary. But McFadden had simply soaked it up, dropped his eyes, shown not a flicker of emotion or resentment. As if he were used to the lash. Which cut through to a very different part of Burgess, for his was a complex soul. Yes, he could be cruel and could find enjoyment in it, particularly when drunk, but there were few men who were more affected by genuine distress. While inflicting wounds freely himself, hewould in equal measure give up time, money, and his inordinate energies to help heal wounds inflicted by others. And the whole pleasure about insulting people was that it should be deliberate and give him a sense of achievement and superiority, a sort of twisted intellectual game. Kicking a crippled barber was way below his usual standards.
    He sat silently, guiltily, listening to the snipping of scissors. Then he became aware of a voice from the next booth, a deep, rumbling voice that evidently belonged to a banker in the City who was coming to the end of a troubled week. “I probably shouldn't mention this, but…” the financier began as, layer by layer, he discarded the burdens of his business, any one of which might have helped a sharp investor turn a substantial profit. But there was no danger, of course, because there was only a barber to overhear him, and other gentlemen.
    Suddenly Burgess understood how much like a confessional these cubicles were, with their polished wood, the whispered tones, and almost sepulchral atmosphere. You relaxed, closed your eyes, drifted. Yet when you looked up again the face staring back at you from the mirror would not be your own, not the youthful, virile self you knew so well and took for granted. What you saw instead, and more and more with every passing month, was the face of your long-dead father as though from another world, the spirit world. A world of different rules, where there were no secrets, where everything was shared. It sparked his curiosity.
    Burgess stirred himself. “Sorry,” he apologized to McFadden. “Bad day.”
    “That's what we're here to help with, sir,” Mac responded, bringing out the words slowly in a voice that was evidently of foreign origin but not immediately traceable, one more accent in a city which in recent years had become flooded with