A spy like a writer lives outside the mainstream population. He steals his experience through bribes and reconstructs it.
I worked for MI6 in the Sixties during the great witch-hunts when the...
It evolved from my experience in the fifties growing up during the McCarthy...
If you've never felt that you quite got a hold of it you just feel that before you die you've got to try and get it right once. And hope that the experience you have makes up for the some of the diminishing energy.
