It was past midnight when Burgess staggered to the door.
“What say we meet over Christmas?”
“‘Fraid not, Guy. I’m leaving for Berlin as soon as I can get a flight. The air corridor is rather crowded at the moment as you may imagine.”
“Berlin? What’s in Berlin?”
Troy was never going to answer that.
Burgess stood in the doorway looking up at a clear, cold winter sky.
“No raid tonight. Makes a change.”
“The war’s been over three years, Guy.”
He twitched. Shook his head as though trying to dislodge an insect from his hair.
“Eh? What? Bloody hell, so it has. Must be more pissed than I thought. Who’d ever have thought we’d end up missing the war? Hot war … cold war … that’s a joke … this isn’t a cold war … it’s a lukewarm egg custard of a war.”
Burgess trundled off down the yard towards St. Martin’s Lane, to the corner where Ruby the Prostitute had stood until a matter of weeks ago—unsteady on his feet, happy as a newt.
If there really had been a raid on, Troy would have left him on the sofa under an eiderdown rather than booting him out on a cold December night. But there wasn’t. There might never be again, and Troy saw no reason to take him in.
As Burgess turned the corner Troy wondered if, this time, he might actually have seen the last of him.