Sublime

The East German sentry fired, quite carefully, away from them, into his own sector. The first shot seemed to thrust Karl forward, the second to pull him back. Somehow he was still moving, still on the bicycle, passing the sentry, and the sentry was still shooting at him. Then he sagged, rolled to the ground, and they heard quite clearly the clatter

Or, as a loyal servant of his corporation, assuring us that smoking is harmless to the health of the Third World and great banks are there to serve the public. What have I learned over the last fifty years? Come to think of it, not much. Just that the morals of the secret world are very like our own.

largish sum was missing (not three figures but four, according to a lady with blue hair who worked in the telephone room) and they’d got it back, nearly all of it, and they’d stuck a lien on his pension. Others said they didn’t believe it—if Alec had wanted to rob the till, they said, he’d know better ways of doing it than fiddling with HQ accounts