Billion-Dollar Brain by Len Deighton Page A

Denmark,’ she said. ‘That’s how it all began.’
    She squirmed against me and suddenly we were kissing. Her mouth was clumsy and awkward like a child’s good night, and when she spoke the words vibrated inside my mouth. ‘Passionate, dramatic and vicious,’ she said. ‘Gemini and Aquarius are good in conjunction.’ She was still kissing me and kneading my leg skilfully.
    ‘Oh well,’ I thought. ‘I might as well see if there’s anything in this astrology lark.’

Chapter 9
    Harvey flew in the next day. We went out to meet him at the airport and Signe hugged him and told him how much she’d missed him and how she had cooked all his favourite foods for one vast homecoming meal but she had had an urgent phone call about sickness in the family and the dinner had all burned up so now we must eat in a restaurant.
    The story about the dinner was a fantasy, but I envied Harvey his welcome just the same. She ran across the airport like a newly born antelope unsteady on its legs, and stood with elbows bent and legs apart as though afraid of toppling through her fantasies into womanhood.
    The first thing I did was tell Harvey that the eggs and all my baggage had been stolen at the airport, but Harvey Newbegin was in one of his rich-busyman moods and went bustling around making tutting noises for a couple of days. He took the idea of the package being stolen with studied anger andsaid the people concerned ‘really took a flyer. It was booby-trapped like crazy.’
    ‘Thanks,’ I said. ‘That would have been nice if the customs had asked me to open it.’
    Harvey gave me a heavy-lidded glance. ‘Customs were fixed.’
    Then he slammed off into his office. Any room into which Harvey put his typewriter he called his office.
    Harvey spent a lot of time in the office and apart from asking me if I’d spoken to Dawlish—a suggestion which I impassively denied—he didn’t say much to me until the morning of the third day, which was a Tuesday. Harvey took me out to a sauna club he belonged to. It was a short drive from the city. Harvey had always had a mania for showers and baths and he had taken to the sauna ritual with great enthusiasm. This club was on a small island off the coast; it was reached by a causeway. There was little to show that we were on an island, for the snow covered everything from horizon to horizon. The clubhouse was tucked into a line of fir trees, a low building rich with the reds and browns of natural wood. The snow made horizontal lines of white where it had lodged between the timbers.
    We undressed and walked right through the shiny white-tiled shower room where a woman attendant was scrubbing someone with a loofah. Harvey opened a heavy door. ‘This is the smoke room,’ Harvey said. ‘Typically Finnish.’
    ‘Good,’ I said. I don’t know why I said that.
    Inside it was the size and shape of a cattle truck. Two slotted benches occupied most of the space and they were high up so that you had to sit with neck bent or smash your head against the ceiling. All the inside surfaces were wood, the fire smoke had blackened them and the heat produced a rich resinous smell of burning pine.
    We sat on the bench looking out of the window that was the size of a very large letter-box. The thermometer was reading over 100° Centigrade, but Harvey had fiddled with the stove and said it would get hot in a moment. ‘That’s nice,’ I said. I felt as if someone was pressing my lungs with a steam-iron. Through the double glazing the trees were heavy with snow, and when the wind blew handfuls of it away it looked as though the trees were breathing on the cold air.
    Harvey said, ‘You’ve got to understand that we are a very special little outfit. That’s why I wanted to make sure that you didn’t say anything about it to Dawlish.’
    I nodded.
    ‘You didn’t say anything to him. On your honour?’
    What a strange medieval mind you have, I thought. ‘On your honour’ is calculated to make me break