See here for Linda G Hill’s prompts and siteL
After checking back with W (at control) I was advised to ask a policeman for directions.
Upon eventually my finding a PC, strolling around inside PC World, and asking him whether I should go ‘West or East?’ I was advised that ‘West is best’ – he happened to be one of the rare ‘rhyming’ policemen of little or no value to society, apart from in a strangely poetic way.
I duly travelled due East, and landed safely in the hitherto unknown Gillingham Airport in Kent (which is close to the Isle of Thanet) at approximately a quarter to.
The secret contact was found casually leaning against the third coffee vending machine on the right (as I had almost been advised that he would be), having kept himself awake and primed for inaction by the consumption of thirty-seven cups of steaming Nitrous Coffee –
‘Guaranteed to stimulate the mind if not the body!’
I handed the contact the tape and he briefly checked it through for authenticity. Finding it to be the genuine article, the contact gave me a recipe for his Grandma’s Treacle Tart Pudding, and a copy of ‘The Tatler and the Bystander’ from 1941.
Finishing the crossword in that magazine made me realise something: that I was terrible at crosswords… and that perhaps I should have spent the intervening 17 days actually earning the pay of a spy.
Needless to say, I was demoted to Dispatch Rider (second class) and given the choice of a donkey or Shank’s Pony as my chariot of choice. Being no fool, I chose the pony.
Graeme Sandford 