4

“SO WHAT DO YOU SAY?”

Alex opened his eyes. So he was still alive! That was a nice surprise. He was lying on a bed in a large, comfortable room. The bed was modern, but the room was old with beams running across the ceiling, a stone fireplace, and narrow windows in an ornate wooden frame. He had seen rooms like this in books when he was studying Shakespeare. He would have said the building was Elizabethan. It had to be somewhere in the country. There was no sound of traffic. Outside, he could see trees.

Someone had undressed him. His school uniform was gone. Instead he was wearing loose pajamas, silk from the feel of them… All his clothes were here, neatly hung up. He took out a pair of Gap combat trousers, Nike sweatshirt and sneakers, got dressed, then sat on the bed and waited.

About fifteen minutes later there was a knock and the door opened. A young Asian woman in a nurse’s uniform came in, beaming.

“Oh, you’re awake. And dressed. How are you feeling? Not too groggy, I hope. Please come this way. Mr Blunt is expecting you for lunch.”

Alex followed her out of the room. The stairs led down into a tall galleried room with a rug spread out over flagstones and a fireplace big enough to park a car in. A long, polished wooden table had been set for three. Alan Blunt and a dark, rather masculine woman sucking a peppermint were already sitting down. Mrs Blunt?

“Alex.” Blunt smiled briefly as if it was something he didn’t enjoy doing. “It’s good of you to join us.”

Alex sat down. “You didn’t give me a lot of choice.”

“Yes. I don’t quite know what Crawley was thinking of, having you shot like that, but I suppose it was the easiest way. May I introduce my colleague, Mrs Jones.”

The woman nodded at Alex. Her eyes seemed to examine him minutely, but she said nothing.

“Who are you?” Alex asked. “What do you want with me?”

Blunt began. “As I’m sure you’ve gathered,” he said, “the Royal and General is not a bank. In fact, it doesn’t exist… it’s nothing more than a cover. And it follows, of course, that your uncle had nothing to do with banking. He worked for me. My name, as I told you at the funeral, is Blunt. I am the chief executive of the Special Operations Division of MI6. And your uncle was, for want of a better word, a spy.”

Task

Locate the following words in the text:

ornate

groggy

flagstones

masculine

executive

Explain the meaning of each of these words and use them in an example sentence.

Questions

1. What clues suggested to Alex that he was now in the country? The fact that Alex could see trees outside and could not hear traffic suggested to him that he was in the country.

2. How can the reader tell that the people who have Alex don't want to hurt him? Alex is being given luxury treatment. He has been put in silk pyjamas and has woken up in a large comfortable bed. He has a nurse who has watched over him and seems to care that he is feeling okay. These things suggest that the people who have Alex do not wish to hurt him.

3. How is Mrs Jones described in the text? What kind of person do you think she is? Mrs Jones is described as a 'dark, rather masculine woman sucking a peppermint.' She examines Alex carefully, but keeps very quiet and lets Blunt do the talking. She appears to be quite observant and understated. Mrs Jones greets Alex with a nod, suggesting that she is quite serious and professional, rather than warm and friendly.

4. Do you think Alex will be shocked to hear that his uncle was a spy? Give a reason for your answer. On the one hand, it would be surprising for anyone to hear that their uncle was a secret spy. On the other hand, considering the strange circumstances Alex as already found himself in (as well as the discovery of the files in his uncle's office) it probably is not as much of a shock as it otherwise would have been.

5. What do you think Blunt and Jones want with Alex? Are there any clues in the text that suggest that they want him for something? The title of the chapter is, "So what do you say?" This implies that something is going to be proposed to Alex, which he would need to agree to. Considering his uncle was a spy, it seems probably that they will be asking Alex to take part in a mission of some kind.