Catherine, too, is on her feet. The air in Lamb’s office has grown thick with disappointed tobacco, his cigarette still refusing to catch, though it reeks more pungently with his every attempt to inhale it into life. If spies, unlike books, can be judged by their covers, now would be the perfect time to pass sentence on Jackson Lamb. But she is too tired, too many pages have been turned, and all she wants is to be alone. Besides, she has a letter to write.
At the door, she looks back. “I may not be here in the morning,” she says.
“Yes you will,” he assures her.
She raises her eyes to heaven. “And what makes you so certain?”
His cigarette chooses that moment to catch flame, a small orange beacon in a dark room, and his eyes reflect its glow as he says, “Because I can read you like a . . .”
She waits until it’s clear he won’t continue, then says, “Menu? Billboard? Timetable? What?”
“Book,” says Lamb.
ACKNOWLEDEGMENTS
My thanks, as always, to publishers on different sides of the Atlantic. To the Soho crew in the States—Bronwen Hruska, Juliet Grames, Paul Oliver and all their colleagues—my renewed gratitude and ongoing friendship, and the same to the Baskerville team in London, especially Yassine Belkacemi, Charlotte Hutchinson, Jade Chandler, Jocasta Hamilton and Sarah Arratoon.
To my agent, Lizzy Kremer, and her brilliant team, especially Maddalena Cavaciuti, Orli Vogt-Vincent, Georgie Smith and Rachael Sharples: Thank you for steering the bus.
Clown Town has its origins in a conversation with Stephen Lovegrove, to whom I’m profoundly grateful. This took place over dinner at the home of Lucy Atkins and John Shaw—thanks to both of them for that and much more, especially the continued feckless skiving with Lucy. And the same to Barbara Trapido, for roundly demolishing the notion that you should never meet your idols.
There’s no such place as the Spooks’ College, of course, though if there were, it would be fortunate to have Richard Ramage as its librarian. Richard showed me round St. Antony’s, Oxford, bought me lunch and plied me with music, for all of which I’m in his debt.
Speaking of librarians, they continue to offer glimmers of hope in a world otherwise in danger of surrendering to the dark. Long may their candles burn. Booksellers, too, keep the barbarians at bay, and I’m indebted to the crew at Daunt Books here in Summertown, Oxford—Elizabeth, Andy, Ulric, Alice, Amy and Daniel—for fighting the good fight, and also to readers everywhere, who make the writing game possible, and to my friends and colleagues in that same game, who make it fun.
To my mum, my siblings, my in-laws, their offspring and their attachments: much love and many thanks, as always.
Finally, but also to start with, this book is for Jo—all my books are for Jo—whose love and support I hope I never take for granted. Our cats have a role to play, too, of course. Without Jo, I’d write a lot less. Without Tommy and Scout, I’d write a little more. Readers can decide for themselves who to thank.
MH
Oxford
January 2025