（外文电子版资料）Smith, Michael Marshall - Missed Connection.doc

MISSED CONNECTION PAGE PAGE 7 MISSED CONNECTION by Michael Marshall Smith Lawson was already regretting the decision to go shopping by the time he was standing in line waiting to buy a ticket for the tube. All but one of the time- and labour-saving automatic ticket dispensers was either closed or unable to give change, and it was all he could do not to let out yelps of irritated despair at the inability of those in front of him to understand the process of getting the machine to yield up its wares. The station seemed to be unusually full of squalling children and jabbering mad people, and the flu which hed thought in decline was thriving in the damp mildness of the winter afternoon. All in all he was beginning to feel like death cooled down, and he was barely on step one of the afternoon. His ticket finally obtained, Lawson walked through the subway to the steps down to the Victoria line, where a discouraging number of people were already gathered. Hed realised before venturing out of the house that going into central London the Saturday before Christmas was a bad idea; but several weeks of late nights at the office with no time to take lunch-breaks meant that virtually none of his nearest and dearest had yet been ticked off the present list. The fact that so many other people from Finsbury Park alone were going in at the same time boded very ill for the state of London proper. But he had his route planned, and knew which exactly shops he was going to. Damage limitation. Essential. Simply meandering about on a day like today was a recipe for disaster. You had to go in, buy what you wanted, get out and go on to the next one. Then go home immediately, at least an hour ahead of the general exodus. Only way to do it. Feeling rather like a commander in the field maximising his chances of surviving a difficult and potentially dangerous mission, Lawson walked up to the very far right end of the platform, until he was up against the wall by the side of the tu