This novel is something a little different for me. It is a satire set in the

UK at the present moment. There are striking parallels between these days and
the 1930s. There’s a lot of racist people around who are crawling out of the
woodwork as they have been encouraged by the implications of the Brexit vote.

====

“They are and they’re everywhere, bugging my car, in three different places, would you believe it?”

“The bastards, what did you do, Tomcat?”

“Found the transmitters and transferred them to a Lorry heading for the Baltic, y’know.”

Tompkins indicated the apparatus he had used to achieve this, which he was carrying in his hand.

“Three places is a bit steep, isn’t it, though?”

“That’s the biggest insult, by far, so far in our little game,” replied Tompkins.

“Right, so the au pair is off limits now, and she’ll be in the next Belgrade assignment – how do I confirm that?”

“Picture in the lorry, without her mask, sent to my phone number will get you a pigeon by return of post, as it were. Anyway, I must be off, as I have to meet The Man with a Plan at The Old House, and for Pete’s sake don’t tell your au pair anything else.”

“All right, understood loud and clear.”

“Wait here until I have gone from this place,” boomed Tompkins, “I don’t want her knowing who I am, you do understand that Stalky?”

“Absolutely, oh look, what’s hanging from that tree – golly and blazes, if it isn’t the au pair, what’s she playing at?”

“She’s playing at being dead, I think,” said Tompkins, looking at the corpse swinging from the lowest branch of the tree. He strode over, reached up, and cut the rope with his Boy Scout penknife. He laid the body on the ground.

“I hear the sound of sirens, we’re in a quandary here, dead au pair, no knickers, you were her last visitor, as it were, doesn’t look good. I will give her a quick scan with Speedy Bee’s machine and, oh look, a transmitter in her rather ample bosom and it’s the only one,” said Tompkins. He continued, “take the transmitter, Stalky, and attach it to that cow’s backside over there and then try to persuade the cow to walk back to its farm. I will take the dead au pair with me to The Old House and leave her there.”