LondonANDREI arrived in London by train, at Liverpool Street station, after a three-day journey. He was one of three officials travelling together from Moscow, through Poland, Germany, East and West, and Holland. The others were much older, and one of them was charged with keeping an eye on him. The Ministry knew everything about Andrei; otherwise he would not have been given the job.
As the train clattered through the flat Essex countryside, with its villages and towns and light industry, and approached the outer suburbs of London, Andrei’s excitement grew. There was much more traffic on the roads and the train was not drawn by a steam-engine as it had been in 1956. The clothes that the three of them were wearing seemed drab. Everything here now seemed much richer, with more colour and v
