The Ipcress File

Epilogue

It’s a dead sure way of getting into trouble putting too much information down on paper, but I suppose having got this far I had better tell you the true end of the IPCRESS fiasco.

The Minister just wanted to know how to evade questions, as all Ministers do. He asked me a few searching questions like, ‘Any good fishin’ in the Lebanon?’ and ‘Have another?’ and ‘D’you know young Chillcott-Oakes?’ After leaving the Minister I drove down to a house near Staines. I knocked on the door in a rather strange series of rhythms, and a woman with a moustache opened it. In the back room there was an old man standing amid three partly packed suitcases. I gave him sixty crumpled five-pound notes, which were genuine, and two mediumquality forged UK passports.

The man said, ‘Thank you,’ and the woman said the same thing, twice more. As I turned to leave, he said, ‘I’ll be at number 19[33] if you ever need me.’

I said thanks and drove to London, and the little old man who had been my jailer at the house in Wood Green took the plane to Prague. This, too, was a spy’s insurance policy.