Yesterday’s Spy. Len Deighton

      LEN DEIGHTON

       Yesterday’s Spy

      Copyright

      This novel is entirely a work of fiction.

      The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

      Published by HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

       www.harpercollins.co.uk

      First published in Great Britain by

      Jonathan Cape Ltd in 1975

      Copyright © Len Deighton 1975

      Introduction copyright © Pluriform Publishing Company BV 2012

      Cover designer’s note © Arnold Schwartzman 2012

      Len Deighton asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

      A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

      Ebook Edition © June 2012 ISBN: 9780007458417

      Version: 2017-05-23

      All rights reserved under International Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

      Table of Contents

       Title Page

       Copyright

       Introduction

       Chapter 1

       Chapter 2

       Chapter 3

       Chapter 4

       Chapter 5

       Chapter 6

       Chapter 7

       Chapter 8

       Chapter 9

       Chapter 10

       Chapter 11

       Chapter 12

       Chapter 13

       Chapter 14

       Chapter 15

       Chapter 16

       Chapter 17

       Chapter 18

       Chapter 19

       Chapter 20

       Chapter 21

       Chapter 22

       Chapter 23

       Chapter 24

       Chapter 25

       Chapter 26

       Chapter 27

       Chapter 28

       Chapter 29

       Chapter 30

       Cover designer’s note

       About the Author

       By Len Deighton

       About the Publisher

       Introduction

      They say that New York City is the place to enjoy when you are young and Paris is the city for those of mature years. Maybe it depends how much money you spend.

      It is not true that I prefer to stay in broken-down dumps rather than grand hotels. I love grand hotels but I also find certain sorts of dumps, and the people who frequent them, intriguing. Back in the distant past I had a room in the Adlon in Communist East Berlin, or at least in that hotel’s ruined remains. It was so dilapidated that it seemed as if a violent sneeze would be enough to make it fall apart. But looking down from this back room I could see the East German border guards and their barrack rooms, their armoury, kennels and guard dogs. The noise from the dogs being brought out gave notice of some new drama at the nearby Wall. It was rather like standing in the wings for a Grand-Guignol show.

      A quite different and more enjoyable time came when my family squeezed into the attic of a Gasthof not far from Munich. The discomfort was more than made up for by the friendliness of the Swabian couple who worked so hard and kept so cheerful and let us into the kitchen to learn some secrets of south German cooking. We stayed in that lakeside village for months. My two sons went to school nearby and my understanding of the German south and its people proved valuable for my book Winter, which I wrote there using one of the earliest laptop computers. We were all sorry to depart.

      When Charlie Kasher, the executive producer of the film of The Ipcress File, visited me in the Hotel Chelsea – on West 23^rd