Free The Last Two Weeks of Georges Rivac by Geoffrey Household Page A

done, he set out for the rendezvous with Mrs Fanshawe. She was late and he paced uneasily around Thame’s noble church assuring himself that she could not be expected to be punctual after an intricate journey in a foreign land, yet more and more certain that she was already in a police cell or unconscious and on a plane to Hungary.
    â€˜And that leaves me, Georges Rivac, the other secret agent badly wanted by the KGB,’ he remarked to the outspread wings of an incredulous marble angel.
    Incredulous. Quite right! But it could be true. He was shocked that it could be. One does not, he admitted, readily recognise oneself as a character from news or fiction. Examples of non-recognition, Georges? Well, what about some hot-tempered woman who occasionally throws a plate at her husband or lays into him with the poker? How horrified she would be if suddenly she were to identify herself as the wife with a rolling pin in the common cartoon.
    Denys James Scott K.C.M.G. Born 1829. At Rest in the Lord 1900 with a severely consular granite slab. Governor of New Guinea.
    There’s another of them—a chap who represented his country in desert or forest or among a stone age tribe. How can he fail to interest his fellows by all they do not know and can hardly imagine? And then one day Sir Denys, with too fierce a hangover for his age, asks himself: what are you? Answer: the club bore.
    So there it is, Georges! You are a secret agent and must accept it. Sunday School 10 a.m. The meeting of the Parish Council will take place on Tuesday. Miss Zia Fodor is having her toenails pulled out. What a shame! They must be pretty toenails. Where the hell is she?
    When she passed through the lych gate he did not immediately recognise her. Green tweed, cap, red boots had all gone. She was bare-headed, wearing a neat summer frock of printed linen—he knew it was linen because he represented a small Belfast firm—and easily swinging her suitcase instead of leaving it at the bus station.
    â€˜Thank God you’ve made it!’
    â€˜Were you worried? I went shopping this morning—that’s why I’m late. Have you found me a nice place to stay and do I have to register with the police?’
    â€˜No. You are British by marriage.’
    He explained her new identity and the story he had made up for her.
    â€˜Won’t they know my accent isn’t French?’
    â€˜They will not, Zia. In the English countryside all foreign accents are assumed to be French unless obviously German. They recognise that from war films.’
    â€˜And I look too young for a general’s wife.’
    â€˜I know. But your parents thought he was a good catch and you submitted to their wishes. Anyway the general is charming and his moustache exciting.’
    â€˜What’s happened to you, Georges?’ she asked. ‘This morning you’re full of mischief.’
    â€˜I’m on holiday, you see, till tomorrow.’
    â€˜Tomorrow?’
    â€˜Tomorrow we should hear from Suzi. And I have been in touch with a friend called Paul Longwill. He has become a financier or thinks he is, and he’s finding out for me what the City knows about Bridge Holdings.’
    He sent her off to the White Hart at once, regretfully watching the taxi drive away. But it was essential that if the trail of one was picked up it should not lead to the other.
    Saturday was still holiday. When he called at Thame Post Office for the expected letter from Lille there was nothing for him; so he had to wait till Monday for those damned brochures in which he only half believed. It was astonishing that only a week had passed since the plausible Karel Kren had called at his office and lured him into this intrigue or trusted him to see it through. Trusted. That was better.
    At eleven he called on Paul Longwill. A lumpy, pretty girl was bouncing round the paddock on a bay mare watched by Paul and a young man who could have passed for a male model of