Hope
Len Deighton was trained as an illustrator at the Royal College of Art in London. His writing career began with The Ipcress File which was a spectacular success and was made into a classic film starring Michael Caine.
Since then he has written many books of fiction and non-fiction. These include spy stories and war novels such as Goodbye Mickey Mouse and Bomber which the BBC recently made into a day-long radio drama in 'real time'. Last year Deighton's history of World War Two, Blood, Tears and Folly, was published to wide acclaim — Jack Higgins called it 'an absolute landmark'.
The first three Bernard Samson stories — Game, Set and Match — were made into an internationally aired thirteen-hour television series. These were followed by Hook, Line and Sinker. Deighton's latest novel, Charity, brings to a close the third Samson trilogy, Faith, Hope and Charity.
BY LEN DEIGHTON
FICTIONNON-FICTION
The Ipcress FileFighter: The True Story of the Battle
Horse Under Waterof Britain
Funeral in BerlinBlitzkrieg: From the Rise of Hitler to
Billion Dollar Brainthe Fall of Dunkirk
An Expensive Place to DieAirshipwreck
Only When I LarfABC of French Food
BomberBlood, Tears and Folly
Declarations of War
Close-Up
Spy Story
Yesterday's Spy
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Spy
SS-GB
XPD
Goodbye Mickey Mouse
Mamista
City of Gold
Violent Ward
THE SAMSON SERIES
Berlin Game
Mexico Set
London Match
Winter: A Berlin Family 1899-1945
Spy Hook
Spy Line
Spy Sinker
Faith
Hope
Charity
LEN DEIGHTON
____________________________________________________
HOPE
HarperCollins Publishers
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Special overseas edition 1996
This paperback edition 1996
1 3 5 7 9 8 6 4 2
First published in Great Britain by
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ISBN 0 00 647899 9
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HOPE
I
Mayfair, London, October 1987.
A caller who wakes you in the small dark silent hours is unlikely to be a bringer of good news.
When the buzzer sounded a second time I reluctantly climbed out of bed. I was at home alone. My wife was at her parents' with our children.
'Kosinski?'
'No,' I said.
The overhead light of the hallway shone down upon a thin, haggard man in a short waterproof flight jacket and a navy-blue knitted hat. In one hand he was carrying a cheap briefcase of the sort that every office worker in Eastern Europe flaunts as a status symbol. The front of his denim shirt was bloody and so was his stubbly face, and the outstretched hand in which he held the key to my apartment. 'No,' I said again.
'Please help me,' he said. I guessed his command of English was limited. I couldn't place the accent but his voice was muffled and distorted by the loss of some teeth. That he'd been badly hurt was evident from his hunched posture and the expression on his face.
I opened the door. As he tottered in he rested his weight against me, as if he'd expended every last atom of energy in getting to the doorbell and pressing it.
He only got a few more steps before twisting round to slump on to the low hall table. There was blood everywhere now. He must have read my mind for he said, 'No. No blood on the stairs.'
He'd taken the stairs rather than the lift. It was the choice of experienced fugitives. Lifts in the small hours make the sort of sound that wakens janitors and arouses security men. 'Kosinski,' he said anxiously. 'Who are you? This is Kosinski's place.' If he had been a bit stronger he might have been angry.
'I'm just a friendly burglar,' I explained.
I got him back on his feet and dragged him to the bathroom and to the tub. He rolled over the edge of it until he was full length in the empty bath. It was better that he bled there. 'I'm Kosinski's partner,' he said.
'Sure,' I said. 'Sure.' It was a preposterous claim.
I got his jacket off and pushed him flat to open his shirt. I could see no arterial bleeding and most of the blood was in that tacky congealed state. There were a dozen or more deep cuts on his hands and arms where he had deflected the attack, but it was the small stab wounds on his body that were the life-threatening ones. Under his clothes he was wearing a moneybelt. It had saved him from the initial attack. It wasn't the sort of belt worn by tourists and backpackers, but the heavy-duty type used by professional smugglers. Almost six inches wide, it was made of strong canvas that from many years of use was now frayed and stained and bleached to a light gray color. The whole belt was constructed of pockets that would hold ingots of the size and shape of small chocolate bars. Now it was entirely empty. Loaded it would have weighed a ton, for which reason there were two straps that went over the shoulders. It was one of these shoulder straps that had no doubt saved this man's life, for there was a fresh and bloody cut in it. A knife thrust had narrowly missed the place where a twisted blade floods the lungs with blood and brings death within sixty seconds.
'Just a scratch,' I said. He smiled. He knew how bad it was.
To my astonishment George Kosinski, my brother-in-law, arrived five minutes later. George, who had left England never to return, was back! I suppose he'd been trying to head off my visitor, for he showed little surprise to find him there. George was nearly forty years old, his wavy hair graying at the temples. He took off his glasses. 'I came by cab, Bernard. A car will arrive any minute and I'll take this fellow off your hands.' He said it as casually as if he were the owner of a limousine service. Then he took out a handkerchief and began rubbing the condensation from his thick-rimmed glasses.
'He loses consciousness and then comes back to life,' I said. 'He urgently needs attention. He's lost a lot of blood; he could die any time.'