Lately Mirabelle had reflected wistfully if people even noticed her – a smartly dressed woman who came and went along the Promenade, always alone.
In wartime people took action because of what they believed in. In peacetime people were driven by their private concerns.
The smog curled between the streetlamps and the spokes of the wrought iron framework. It seemed through your body and into your bones.
Wellsted will remember this moment for the rest of his life. It is the first time he desires something for himself that is not dedicated to his own advancement. It is the moment he falls in love.
She was herself in their company but a very specific version of herself.
It took a certain kind of person to come from luxury and seek out danger.
Cases fired by emotion rather than money were dangerous.
The atmosphere felt unexpectedly intense and the music was frantic. The beat made it both difficult to think straight and pleasant to move – like swimming almost.
It’s ridiculous – a girl steps out, goes dancing, gets her hair cut, decides to spend the summer in Italy and it’s a scandal. A chap does it and no one bats an eyelid.
Britain wouldn’t have won the war without its eccentric geniuses.
In the doorway of Fortnum & Mason a young couple were kissing, oblivious to the world. The neon signs mounted on the buildings cast a glossy veneer over the streetscape, glowing through the smog. Around the statue of Eros there were crowds of younger...
He didn’t look as if he’d been through a whirlwind exactly but he’d certainly endured a stiff breeze.
He’s more a shape in a drape than a hep cat
The law don’t like jazz clubs. No one wants anything to do with that kind of trouble.
During the war some of the country’s sharpest minds had looked as if they had been dragged through a hedge backwards.
There’s nothing like a military man, even out of uniform.
People see what they expect to see.
Sometimes a person’s first assumption was very telling. It revealed how they perceived the situation.
