Free The Clown Service by Guy Adams

presence. ‘All set then? Good man, Thompson. Reel on top.’
    The film opened with a blurry shot of the Oceanic Terminal at Heathrow. A Vickers V10 was disgorging its passengers onto the tarmac. The camera man was no threat to Hollywood. The lens jerked around until he managed to focus it on one passenger in particular, a middle-aged, dark-haired man who was so bland in appearance he could only be a spy.
    ‘Know him?’ the Colonel asked as the camera followed its target towards the terminal entrance.
    ‘Should I?’
    ‘We think you soon will. Russian, by the name of Olag Krishnin. Our dossier on him is so thin we have to put a paperweight on it to stop the wind blowing it away.’
    ‘But there’s enough in there to mark him out for special interest?’
    ‘We think he’s working in a similar field to you.’ The Colonel became evasive; nobody liked discussing my field. I imagine vice squad have the same problem: everybody talking around the subject. ‘He’s published a couple of papers in your line.’
    ‘Such as?’
    He shrugged. ‘It’s all beyond me. Distant viewing or something …’
    Remote
viewing, I decided. The esoteric spy’s Holy Grail.
    ‘When was this filmed?’ I asked.
    ‘A couple of days ago. The Met flagged him up and eventually I got to hear about it.’
    I could smell the brandy and cigar smoke of the Colonel’s club. People like him did most of their work via the old boy’s network.
    ‘Any idea where he’s gone now?’ I asked. It was all very well to show the man getting off a plane, but if the surveillance had stopped there then how was I to know whether he had subsequently got back on one?
    ‘Turns out he has a house over here, bugger’s been living on our doorstep for eighteen months. Bloody embarrassing, frankly. Our friends in Special Branch have been keeping an eye on him, but they’re getting restless.’
    This was normal. Nobody enjoyed the mind-numbing aspects of surveillance and it was a frequent complaint by SpecialBranch that they had enough on their plate without having to act as watchdogs for us.
    ‘So I should take over?’
    ‘There’s no point in just pulling him in,’ said the Colonel. ‘We need to know what he’s been doing here all this time. Keep tabs on him, size him up, give me something to work with.’
    ‘All right,’ I said, ‘give me what you’ve got and I’ll liaise with the boys in blue.’
b) Farringdon Road, Clerkenwell, London, 19th December 1963
    You couldn’t blame Special Branch for balking at surveillance duty. It was (and is) the most excruciatingly dull business.
    Krishnin had taken occupation of a little terraced house just off Farringdon Road. Using their usual persuasive tactics, Special Branch had forced their way into the house opposite. Having been convinced that their cellar was about to fill with sewage unless fixed by the local council, the occupants were now taking a holiday with the wife’s sister in Cornwall. We’d slap a little concrete around once done and they’d be none the wiser.
    Their bedroom window gave a good view of Krishnin’s house. My predecessors had shifted a cheap dresser out of the way so that a desk and chair could be placed there, shaded by net curtains.
    We made an unwelcome intrusion in that little room of frilled valances and floral wallpaper. A bored copper had been poking around – there was evidence of his nosiness all over the place. I did my best to cover up after him, strangely uncomfortable – given the reason I was there – with intruding into their lives. The bedroom was littered with personality, pictures in frames, potsof half-used make-up, opened letters (which I had no doubt the previous surveillant had taken the time to read). We never think how we might look to others as they poke through these, our private spaces, rooms that are extensions of ourselves.
    Nobody had had the opportunity to install listening devices across the road so I was soon left to wonder what point I was