'That may be the world you've come from,' Gaunt said suddenly, staring at him as if in revelation, 'but it isn't mine, Mr Turner, so don't come taking it out of me, see. I did my best by Leo and I would again, and I don't know what's all twisted in your mind. Poison, that's what it is; poison.'
'Go to hell.' Turner tossed him the keys, and Gaunt let them fall at his feet.
'If there's something else you know about him, some other gorgeous bit of gossip, you'd better tell me now. Fast. Well?'
Gaunt shook his head. 'Go away.'
'What else do the talkers say? A bit of fluff in the choir was there, Gaunt? You can tell me, I won't eat you.'
'I never heard.'
'What did Bradfield think of him?'
'How should I know? Ask Bradfield.'
'Did he like him?'
Gaunt's face had darkened with disapproval.
'I've no occasion to say,' he snapped. 'I don't gossip about my superiors.'
'Who's Praschko? Praschko a name to you?'
'There's nothing else. I don't know.'
Turner pointed at the small pile of Leo's possessions on the desk. 'Take those up to the cypher room. I'll need them later. And the press cuttings. Give them to the clerk and make him sign for them, understand? Whether you fancy him or not. And make a list of everything that's missing. Everything he's taken home.'
He did not go immediately to Meadowes, but went outside and stood on the grass verge beside the car park. A veil of mist hung over the barren field and the traffic stormed like an angry sea. The Red Cross building was dark with scaffolding and capped by an orange crane: an oil rig anchored to the tarmac. The policemen watched him curiously, for he remained quite still and his eyes seemed to be trained upon the horizon, though the horizon was obscure. At last - it might have been in response to a command they did not hear - he turned and walked slowly back to the front steps.
'You ought to get a proper pass,' the weasel-faced sergeant said, 'coming in and out all day.'
Registry smelt of dust and sealing wax and printer's ink. Meadowes was waiting for him. He looked haggard and deeply tired. He did not move as Turner came towards him, pushing his way between the desks and files, but watched him dully and with contempt.
'Why did they have to send you?' he asked. 'Haven't they got anyone else? Who are you going to wreck this time?'
CHAPTER SIX
The Memory Man
They stood in a small sanctum, a steel-lined tank which served both as a strong-room and an office. The windows were barred twice over, once with fine mesh and once with steel rods. From the adjoining room came the constant shuffle of feet and paper. Meadowes wore a black suit. The edges of the lapels were studded with pins. Steel lockers like sentinels stood along the walls, each with a stencilled number and a combination lock.
'Of all the people I swore I'd never see again -'
'Turner was at the top of the list. All right. All right, you're not the only one. Let's get it over, shall we?'
They sat down.
'She doesn't know you're here,' said Meadowes. 'I'm not going to tell her you're here.'
'All right.'
'He met her a few times; there was nothing between them.'
'I'll keep away from her.'
'Yes,' said Meadowes. He did not speak to Turner, but past him, at the lockers. 'Yes, you must.'
'Try and forget it's me,' Turner said. 'Take your time.' For a moment his expression seemed to yield, as the shadows formed upon his plain complexion, until in its way his face was as old as Meadowes', and as weary.
'I'll tell it you once,' Meadowes said, 'and that's all. I'll tell you all I know, and then you clear out.'
Turner nodded.
'It began with the Exiles Motoring Club,' Meadowes said. 'That's how I met him really. I like cars, always have done. I'd bought a Rover, Three Litre, for retirement-'
'How long have you been here?'
'A year. Yes, a year now.'
'Straight from Warsaw?'
'We did a spell in London in between. Then they sent me here. I was fifty-eight. I'd two more years to run and after Warsaw I reckoned I'd take things quietly. I wanted to look after her, get her right again-'
'All right.'
'I don't go out much as a rule but I joined this club, UK and Commonwealth it is mainly, but decent. I reckoned that would do us nicely: one evening a week, the rallies in the summer, get-togethers in the winter. I could take Myra, see; get her back into things, keep an eye on her. She wanted that herself, in the beginning. She was lost; she wanted company. I'm all she's got.'
'All right,' Turner said.
'They were a good lot when we joined, though it's like any other club, of course, it goes up and down; depends who runs it. Get a good crowd in and you have a lot of fun; get a bad crowd, there's jiving and all the rest.'
'And Harting was big there, was he?'
'You let me go at my own speed, right?' Meadowes' manner was firm and disapproving: a father corrects his son. 'No. He was not big there, not at that time. He was a member there, that's all, just a member. I shouldn't think he showed up, not once in six meetings. Well, he didn't belong really. After all he was a diplomat, and the Exiles isn't meant for dips. Mid-November, we have the Annual General Meeting. Haven't you got your black notebook then?'
'November,' Turner said, not moving, 'The AGM. Five months ago.'
'It was a funny sort of do really. Funny atmosphere. Karfeld had been on the go about six weeks and we were all wondering what would happen next, I think. Freddie Luxton was in the chair and he was just off to Nairobi; Bill Aintree was Social Secretary and they'd warned him for Korea, and the rest of us were in a flutter trying to elect new officers, get through the agenda and fix up the winter outing. That's when Leo pipes up and in a way that was his first step into Registry.'
Meadowes fell silent. 'I don't know what kind of fool I am,' he said. 'I just don't know.'
Turner waited.
'I tell you: we'd never heard of him, not really, not as somebody keen on the Exiles. And he had this reputation, you see-'
'What reputation?'
'Well, they said he was a bit of a gypsy. Always on the fiddle. There was some story about Cologne. I didn't fancy what I'd heard, to be frank, and I didn't want him mixed up with Myra.'
'What story about Cologne?'
'Hearsay, that's all it is. He was in a fight. A night-club brawl.'
'No details?'
'None.'
'Who else was there?'
'I've no idea. Where was I?'
'The Exiles, AGM.'
'The winter outing. Yes. "Right," says Bill Aintree. "Any suggestions from the floor?" And Leo's on his feet straight away. He was about three chairs down from me. I said to Myra: "Here, what's he up to?" Well, Leo had a proposal, he said. For the winter outing. He knew an old man in Königswinter who owned a string of barges, very rich and very fond of the English, he said; quite high in the Anglo-German. And this old fellow had agreed to lend us two barges and two crews to run the whole club up to Koblenz and back. As some kind of quid pro quo for a favour the British had done him in the Occupation. Leo always knew people like that,' said Meadowes; and a brief smile of affection illuminated the sadness of his features. 'There'd be covered accommodation, rum and coffee on the way and a big lunch when we got to Koblenz.
Leo had worked the whole thing out; he reckoned he could lay it on at twenty-one marks eighty a head including drinks and a present for his friend.' He broke off. 'I can't go any quicker, it's not my way.'
'I didn't say anything.'
'You're pressing all the time, I can feel it,' Meadowes said querulously, and sighed. 'They fell for it, we all did, Committee or not. You know what people are like: if one man knows what he wants...'
'And he did.'
'I suppose some reckoned he'd got an axe to grind, but no one cared. There was a few of us thought he was taking a cut to be honest, but well, maybe he deserved it. And the price wa
s fair enough any time. Bill Aintree was getting out: he didn't care. He seconded. The motion's carried and recorded without a word being said against, and as soon as the meeting's over, Leo comes straight across to me and Myra, smiling his head off. "She'll love that," he says, "Myra will. A nice trip on the river. Take her out of herself." Just as if he'd done it specially for her. I said yes, she would, and bought him a drink. It seemed wrong really, him doing so much and no one else paying him a blind bit of notice, whatever they say about him. I was sorry for him. And grateful,' he added simply. 'I still am: we had a lovely outing.'
Again he fell silent, and again Turner waited while the older man wrestled with private conflicts and private perplexities. From the barred window came the tireless throb of Bonn's iron heartbeat: the far thunder of drills and cranes, the moan of vainly galloping cars.
'I thought he was after Myra to be honest,' he said at last. 'I watched out for that, I don't mind admitting. But there wasn't a breath of it, not on either side. Goodness knows, I'm sharp enough on that after Warsaw.'
'I believe you.'
'I don't care whether you believe me or not. It's the truth.'
'He had a reputation for that as well, did he?'
'A bit.'
'Who with?'
'I'll go on with the story if you don't mind,' Meadowes said, looking at his hands. 'I'm not going to pass on that kind of muck. Least of all to you. There's more nonsense talked in this place than is good for any of us.'
'I'll find out,' Turner said, his face frozen like a dead man's. 'It'll take me longer, but that needn't worry you.'
'Dreadfully cold, it was,' Meadowes continued. 'Lumps of ice on the water, and beautiful, if that means anything to you. Just like Leo said: rum and coffee for the grown ups, cocoa for the kids, and everyone happy as a cricket. We started from Königswinter and kicked off with a drink at his place before we went aboard, and from the moment we get there, Leo's looking after us. Me and Myra. He'd singled us out and that was it. We might have been the only people there for him. Myra loved it. He put a shawl round her shoulders, told her jokes... I hadn't seen her laugh like it since Warsaw. She kept saying to me: "I haven't been so happy for years."'
'What sort of jokes?'
'About himself mainly... running on. He had a story about Berlin, him shoving a cartload of files across the parade ground in the middle of a cavalry practice, and the sergeant-major on his horse, and Leo down there with the handcart... He could do all the voices, Leo could; one minute he was up on his horse, the next minute he's the Guard corporal... He could even do the trumpets and that. Wonderful really; wonderful gift. Very entertaining man, Leo... very.'
He glanced at Turner as if he expected to be contradicted, but Turner's face was without expression. 'On the way back, he takes me aside. "Arthur, a quiet word," he says; that's him, a quiet word. You know the way he talks.'
'No.'
'Confiding. Everyone's special. "Arthur," he says, "Rawley Bradfield's just sent for me; they want me to move up to Registry and give you a hand up there, and before I tell him yes or no, I'd like to hear what you feel." Putting it in my hands, you see. If I didn't fancy the idea, he'd head it off; that's what he was hinting at. Well, it came as a surprise, I don't mind telling you. I didn't quite know what to think; after all he was a Second Secretary... it didn't seem right, that was my first reaction. And to be frank I wasn't sure I believed him. So I asked him: "Have you any experience of archives?" Yes, but long ago, he said, though he'd always fancied going back to them.'
'When was that then?'
'When was what?'
'When was he dealing with archives?'
'Berlin, I suppose. I never asked. You didn't ask Leo about his background really; you never knew what you might hear.' Meadowes shook his head. 'So here he was with this suggestion. It didn't seem right, but what could I say? "It's up to Bradfield," I told him. "If he sends you, and you want to come, there's work enough." Well, it worried me for a bit, to be honest. I even thought of talking to Bradfield about it but
I didn't. Best thing is, I thought, let it blow over; I'll probably hear no more of it. For a time that's just what happened. Myra was bad again, there was the leadership crisis at home and the gold row in Brussels. And as for Karfeld, he was going hammer and tongs all over the place. There were deputations out from England, Trade Union protests, old comrades and I don't know what. Registry was a beehive, and Harting went clean out of my mind. He was Social Secretary of the Exiles by then, but otherwise I hardly saw him. I mean he didn't rate. There was too much else to think of.'
'I get it.'
'The next thing I knew was, Bradfield sends for me. It was just before the holiday - about 20th December. First, he asks me how I'm getting along with the Destruction programme. I was a bit put out; we'd really been going it those last months. Destruction was about the last thing anyone had been bothering with.'
'Go carefully now: I want the fat as well as the lean.'
'I said it was hanging fire. Well, he says, how would I feel if he sent me someone to help out with it, come and work in Registry and bring it up to date? There's been the suggestion, he said, nothing definite, and he wanted to sound me out first, there'd been the suggestion Harting might be able to lend a hand.'
'Whose suggestion?'
'He didn't say.'
It was suddenly upon them; and each in his way was mystified:
'Whoever suggested anything to Bradfield,' Meadowes asked. 'It makes no sense.'
'That's rather what I wondered,' Turner confessed, and the silence returned.
'So you said you'd have him?'
'No, I told him the truth. I said I didn't need him.'
'You didn't need him? You told Bradfield that?'
'Don't press me like that. Bradfield knew very well I didn't need anyone. Not for Destruction anyway. I'd been on to Library in London and spoken to them, back in November that was, once the Karfeld panic began. I'd told them I was worried about the programme, I was way behind, could I let it go till the crisis was over? Library told me to forget it.' Turner stared at him.
'And Bradfield knew that? You're certain Bradfield knew?'
'I'd sent him a minute of the conversation. He never even referred to it. Afterwards I asked that PA of his and she was certain she'd put it up to him.'
'Where is it? Where's the minute now?'
'Gone. It was a loose minute: it was Bradfield's responsibility whether he preserved it or not. But they'll know about it in Library all right; they were quite surprised later on to find we'd bothered with Destruction at all.'
'Who did you speak to in Library?'
'Once to Maxwell, once to Cowdry.'
'Did you remind Bradfield of that?'
'I began to, but he just cut me off. Closed right down on me. "It's all arranged," he says. "Harting's joining you mid-January and he'll manage Personalities and Destruction." So lump it, in other words. "You can forget he's a diplomat," he said. "Treat him as your subordinate. Treat him how you like. But he's coming mid-January and that's a fact." You know how he throws people away. Specially Harting.'
Turner was writing in his notebook but Meadowes paid no attention.
'So that's how he came to me. That's the truth. I didn't want him, I didn't trust him, not completely anyway, and to begin with I suppose I let him know it. We were just too busy: I didn't want to waste time breaking in a man like Leo. What was I supposed to do with him?'
A girl brought tea. A brown woolly cosy covered the pot and the cubes of sugar were individually wrapped and stamped with the Naafi 's insignia. Turner grinned at her but she ignored him. He could hear someone shouting about Hanover.
'They do say things are bad in England too,' Meadowes said. 'Violence; demonstrations; all the protests. What is it that gets into your generation? What have we done to you? That's what I don't understand.'
'We'll start with when he arrived,' Turner said. That's what it would be like, he thought, to have a father you b
elieved in: values for their own sake and a gap as wide as the Atlantic.
'I said to Leo when he came, "Leo, just keep out of the way. Don't get between my feet, and don't go bothering other people." He took it like a lamb. "Right-ho, Arthur, whatever you say." I asked him whether he'd got something to get on with. Yes, he said, Personalities would keep him going for a bit.'
'It's like a dream,' Turner said softly, looking up at last from his notebook. 'It's a lovely dream. First of all he takes over the Exiles. A one man takeover, real Party tactics; I'll do the dirty work, you go back to sleep. Then he cons you, then he cons Bradfield, and within a couple of months he's got the pick of Registry. How was he? Cocky? I should think he could hardly stand up for laughing.'
'He was quiet. Not cocky at all. Subdued I'd say. Not at all what they told me he was like.'
'Who?'
'Oh... I don't know. There's a lot didn't like him; there's a lot more were jealous of him.'
'Jealous?'
'Well, he was a diplomat, wasn't he. Even if he was a temporary. They said he'd be running the place in a fortnight, taking ten per cent on the files. You know the way they talk. But he'd changed. They all admitted that, even young Cork and Johnny Slingo. You could almost date it, they said, from when the crisis began. It sobered him down.' Meadowes shook his head as if he hated to see a good man go wrong. 'And he was useful.'
'Don't tell me. He took you by surprise.'
'I don't know how he managed it. He knew nothing about archives, not our kind anyway; and I can't for the life of me see how he got near enough to anyone in Registry to ask; but by mid-February, that Personalities Survey was drafted, signed off and away, and the Destruction programme was back on the rails. We were working all round him: Karfeld, Brussels, the Coalition crisis and the rest of it. And there was Leo, still as a rock, working away at his own bits and pieces. No one told him anything twice, I think that was half the secret. He'd a lovely memory. He'd scrounge a bit of information, tuck it away, and bring it out weeks later when you'd forgotten all about it. I don't think he forgot a word anyone ever said to him. He could listen with his eyes, Leo could.' Meadowes shook his head at the reminiscence: 'The memory man, that's what Johnny Slingo used to call him.'
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