The One a Month Man Read Online Free

lifestyle, and future. She can embarrass the US government. She could conceivably be in more danger now than on that bleak winter’s night thirty years ago. So, you see, you’re as likely to be as unpopular with her as you will assuredly be with Pope.’
    ‘The kind of cold case to get burned on,’ I said.
    ‘Pomfrey’s very words,’ Sharkey said, laughing.

2
    L unching alone at a historic restaurant in the High Street, I trolled through the file. Thirty years ago, Richard Pope was twenty-four years old, six feet and three inches tall, weighing thirteen stone. His complexion was described as fair, matching the mug-shot, eyes ice-blue. Hair black and cropped short. He had a strong, stubborn face with a square, pugilist’s jaw. His build was said to be muscular: what else would you expect from a beefy Boat Race oarsman? The physical dimensions told me nothing about the man behind the mask. The ‘Scream’ mask.
    Of course, there were no recent photos of him. The CIA weren’t in the habit of circulating publicity shots of their operatives , especially if they were involved in
black ops
, such as trying to blow up dictators with explosive cigars or conspiring with gangsters to have presidents rubbed out; little party tricks like those.
    Flicking backwards through the file, I came to his statement, made some three weeks after the assault on Tina Marlowe.
    I was on the Thames in Oxford in the afternoon, while my parents shopped in London. I met them at the Randolph Hotel around five o’clock. We had afternoon tea; cakes and biscuits. We talked about mundane matters; what they’d bought in London, what we all wanted for Christmas, and where we’d dine that evening; those sorts of trivial things.
    The weather was so miserable and cold, the three of us were in agreement that we’d stay in the hotel for dinner. Because we’d had a late afternoon-tea, we also decided that we’d eat late. After going to our rooms, I had a bath and lay on my bed, reading, watching some TV, and dozing.
    Around seven-thirty, I had a shave and put on a suit for dinner. My parents are always particular about dressing formally when dining out. That’s the way I’ve been brought up in Washington and I did it automatically wherever I was in the world – as did my parents, of course.
    We had a couple of bottles of wine between the three of us with our meal and also a glass of port with cheese and biscuits, then coffee. My father smoked one of his favourite Cuban cigars with his coffee
.
    Not today, he wouldn’t, I mused, reflecting on how mores had moved on and how documents such as this gave an insight into social history and evolution. I remembered the furore when the government proposed forbidding smoking in restaurants, then pubs. Now it seemed as distant as ‘pea soup’ London smogs.
    We went upstairs together. I watched the tail-end of the news in my parents’ room and also the beginning of a special edition of
‘Match of the Day’.
For some reason, there were a number of top games being played on the Friday of that week. My father had played American football at Harvard and still follows the sport, but he knows little about soccer, so I had to explain the rules. We saw the highlights of Arsenal against Aston Villa and Manchester United versus Chelsea. That was enough for me. I was feeling sleepy. I’d put in quite a lot of hard work on the river. At dinner, I’d eaten a huge steak – even by my standards. The combination of exercise, a hearty meal, and the alcohol was kicking in. I told my parents I was ready to turn in, we said good night, and I went to my adjoining room, via the intersecting door.
    I was asleep within ten or fifteen minutes and slept soundly until about seven the next morning. Because it was a Saturday, I didn’t have
to be at the river until noon. My parents had arranged to have breakfast at nine and I went to their room at about eight fifty-five. We went down to breakfast as a family.
    I did not leave my