Listening Devices, Looking Devices

For all of their microphones hidden in pot plants, listening devices trained at opposite offices and tiny tape-recorder robots crawling through air ducts, even the finest espionage agents money could buy couldn't decipher Ken's intricate plans with Geoff. For five years planning applications had been submitted to local councils across the country, contracts with estate agents signed, arrangements made with water authorities; all a smokescreen. Carefully laid out on the bed were all the particular things Ken would need for the trip ahead: crisps, of course, bulging wads of the major foreign currencies, a spare pair of kecks, his glasses (pint and half-pint) and the bedclothes. Rolling the lot up into a portable sausage shape, he realised with a heavy heart that he had burst the bags of crisps and would have to sleep in crisp-strewn sheets, again, spending the night nibbling on various flavours as he came across them, because he absolutely could not bring himself - could not afford, at this stage - to waste crisps on any account. Perhaps another account was needed, at long last, but all the major supermarkets had been tried and it was simply beyond their grasp that a gentleman might want to do things the old fashioned way for a change, and be trusted to keep a slate, to say good-day to the delivery boy as he left the packages of groceries, perhaps slip him a fiver if he'd clean the windows while he was about. New windows once a year, that was the unfortunate truth of the matter. New windows, because the old ones were looking frightfully grubby, and the hand prints and smudge-marks of nose-grease from young faces pressed up against the glass, trying to peer in at what old-man Kenneth was concocting in there and whether he might have any crisps to spare today just wouldn't go away and surely some light ought be allowed to get in at winter-time. Then the 'phone rang.

"Ken?"
"Yes Geoff."
"Ready?"
"Nearly."
"I'll meet you there."
"Good-bye."

Ken selected a cane, took his hat from the fridge, and set off. Five minutes later he was back to pick up his bed-roll, put on a jacket, brush his teeth, switch off the stove and lock the house behind him. A further three minutes after that, and he had arrived at the station again, stood sternly on the platform staring at the man reading a newspaper on the bench on the opposite platform and wondering if he would have time to go back a second time and make a flask of tea for the journey when Geoff entered his field of vision and said

"Hello!"

which didn't so much take Ken by surprise as cause the exact amount of shock necessary to dislodge him from a train of thought that threatened to take his conscious mind away from the immediate vicinity for perhaps several hours, during which time any other trains he might be better off concentrating on would have arrived and departed many times.

"Hi Geoff" returned Ken plainly, "have you seen that man on the opposite platform. I think he's been following me."

"I have Ken" said Geoff cheerfully, "I've got one of my own" and gestured behind him to another man with the same suit, same newspaper and, most markedly, the same demeanour of quite deliberate ignorance to the stares of Ken and Geoff. The two had grown quite fond of the attention over the years, devising little exchanges to let their watchers know that the watchees were almost, but not quite aware that they were being watched, lately becoming almost a joke that they both expected would be shared all round when the watchers finally threw up their arms and said "you've got me!" But it still hadn't happened, nothing had come to a close, and it looked like today was going to be another standard move of the pawns in this cat-and-mouse hunt for the truth. As you and I both know, that wasn't quite true on this particular morning.

Polar Bear - The King of Aberdeen (from Held on the Tips of Fingers).