Free Blame It on the Bossa Nova by James Brodie

appreciate being leaned on, however gently..... People like me who can arrange five witnesses to say you assaulted a policeman... What will that get you? Five years? It’s not worth it... There’s dozens of bent Old Etonians in the woodwork. Burgess and Maclean weren’t the only ones. Rentokill will get them in the end... I can assure you it’s far more rewarding to be working for the good guys.”
    I had my doubts about the efficacy of Rentokill but I kept them to myself. I looked cautiously round at Adrian.
    “It’s alright Adrian, you can leave us now.”
    “See you Adrian,” I said ambiguously, but I don’t think he lost any sleep.
     
    Once in a pub in Cambridge, in a part of the town as far removed from dreaming spires as is the underground city of proles in Metropolis from the fresh air, some mates and I jokingly engaged an old working class communist in argument. He was a Stalinist; we had taken the obvious ‘What about the purges? What about Hungary? Whatever happened to Baby Marx?’ line - The Humanists - We cared. He had seen through us. Halfway through our talk after I had made, what I thought, a particularly telling point he rounded on me. “You can be bought, you can be bought.” He’d said it intensely, his face pressed close to mine, but with a twinkle in the eye as he reached to get us all another round. But he’d meant it. And inside me I’d known he was right.
     
    Forsythe sat opposite. We were alone now. He was looking, he thought searchingly, into my face. Of course I knew I could be bought. It wasn’t even a question of how much. Just how many times.
    “Tell me what you want me to do,” I said.
     
    *****
     
    It hadn’t been a good day for me. Things had started to go wrong with my arrival at the Labour Exchange in Battersea Park Road. I’d registered there on the first day I’d moved into the flat at the tail end of August. That had been the good old days- the worst unemployment figures since the war. Four hundred and thirty thousand. It had been easy to register yourself as something slightly awkward and turn up every week for your dole money.
    Now a letter dropped through my door summoning me to report to Battersea Labour Exchange; a virulent flu epidemic had completely changed the situation. When I arrived I had been offered a form of employment which I, alone, considered beneath my station. I had been forced to go to Balham to interview for a job. I had succeeded in failing the interview but had jeopardised my chances of receiving further benefit. I walked back dispirited through the side streets between Balham and Battersea.
    As I passed the Duke of Cambridge, a Young’s pub just off Battersea Park, they were unbolting the doors for opening time. I went inside. It was pleasant sitting there drinking alone after the rigours of the day, looking at the head of a pint of Special, watching a regular come in with his dog and strike up a boring conversation with the landlord. Such is the stuff of the English pub. But it was soon spoiled for me by a bunch of young layabouts - office workers. They sat nearby and soon smashed my mellow mood with their jarring shouts and laughter as they selected their World eleven to play Mars at football. They had pencilled in either Pele or “Tosh” Chamberlain of Fulham to play at number eleven. I couldn’t take any more I drank up and left.
    It was only just gone six o’clock but already it was dark and the chill in the air no longer had the charm of a long lost friend. I walked up towards Albert Bridge at a brisk pace, I just wanted to get back to the flat. I had settled for writing the day off. A bath, some grub, perhaps the television, and then to bed - The Modern Monk. As I drew close I looked up and got a shock, the light was on in the living room overlooking the park. I quickly crossed the road and leaned against the park fence to get a better look, but I could see no one, just a light glowing away. Then I realized it must be the owner,