Billion-Dollar Brain by Len Deighton

imitation of a girl in a fashion magazine. ‘She’s wearing a fabulous black silk sheath dress and satin shoes. Satin shoes. She looks me up and down and says, “I’m Mr Newbegin’s wife.” Mr Newbegin. She turns to her friend and says, “It’s just terrible that Harvey didn’t tell her it was formal. I’m sure she has a dozen really pretty little formals she could have worn.” She’s so patronizing you’ve no idea. She’s horrid.’ Signe produced a little box and began applying bright green shadow to her eyelids. She finished, fluttered her lashes at me and smoothed the corduroy dress over her wide hips. She rested the side of her face against my legs. ‘She’s horrid,’ she repeated. ‘Terrible life she leads.’
    ‘She sounds a bit fierce,’ I said.
    ‘She’s a Leo; fire sign, sun sign. Lightning and domination. Pushing. It’s a masculine sign of driving force. Men Leos are OK, but women Leos tend to push their husbands. Harvey Newbegin is the same sign as me: Gemini. Air. Mercury. Split twins, passionate, dramatic, vicious, intelligent. Lots of movement, darting around to avoid trouble. Terrible with Leo. Geminis and Leos have an evasive relationship. It’s a bad combination.’
    ‘But you get on well with Harvey?’
    ‘Wonderfully. You’ve got nice brown arms. You’re an Aquarian.’
    ‘Have they all got brown arms?’
    ‘Air sign. Spirit and mystery. Always keep a part of themselves back. They have a high wall around them, more profound than most people, more detached and scientific. It’s my favourite sign, goes well with Gemini.’ She grasped my arm to demonstrate. Her fingers were slim and feather-like. She ran them down my arm lightly enough to make me shiver. She picked up my hand, put my fingertips into her open mouth, twisted my hand and kissed my palm noisily.
    ‘Do you like that?’ I didn’t answer.
    She grinned and dropped my hand.
    ‘When I get married I’m going to keep my name. What’s your name? I never can remember.’
    ‘Dempsey,’ I said.
    ‘Well if I married you I would want to have the name Signe Laine-Dempsey.’
    ‘You were just about to tell me what sort of terrible life Mrs Newbegin has.’
    Signe pulled a face of distaste. ‘Businessmen. Horrid wives talking about their husband’s cars. Big business, you know. It’s the women I hate, I quite like older men.’
    ‘Well, that gives me a chance,’ I said. ‘I’m old enough to be your father.’
    ‘You are not old enough to be my father,’ she said while tracing a pattern with her thumbnail into the knee of my trousers.
    ‘Don’t do that, there’s a good girl.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘Well this is one of my better suits for one thing.’
    ‘And also it’s rather disturbing?’
    ‘Yes and also it’s rather disturbing.’
    ‘There you are: Geminis do affect Aquarians.’
    ‘I am old enough to be your father,’ I said to myself as much as to her.
    ‘I wish you wouldn’t keep saying that. I’m nearly eighteen.’
    ‘Well in September eighteen and a half years ago,’ I thought for a moment, ‘I had just finished my exams. I went to Ipswich for a holiday. There was a company of ATS girls billeted in the same street.’ I paused to think hard. ‘Is your mother a blonde ATS girl with a mole on her right shoulder and a slight lisp?’
    Signe giggled. ‘Yes. I swear it’s true.’
    She lifted my vest at the back of my trousers. ‘You have a very nice back,’ she said. She ran a finger along the vertebrae appreciatively. ‘A very nice back. That’s important in a man.’
    ‘I thought you were going to remove that spot from my shirt,’ I said. ‘That’s why I’m sitting here in my vest, remember?’
    ‘A very nice back,’ she said. ‘I should know, after all my father was one of the most famous osteopaths in the whole of Sweden.’
    ‘It’s a good shirt,’ I said. ‘You needn’t wash it, leave it to soak.’
    ‘Until he was called to set a bone in the back of the Queen of