They passed down Lambeth Road, where the God of Battles presides; the Imperial War Museum one end, schools the other, hospitals in between; a cemetery wired off like a tennis court. You cannot tell who lives there. The houses are too many for the people, the schools too large for the children. The hospitals may be full, but the blinds are drawn. Dust hangs everywhere, like the dust of war. It hangs over the hollow façades, chokes the grass in the graveyard: it has driven away the people, save those who loiter in the dark places like the ghosts of soldiers, or wait sleepless behind their yellow-lighted windows. It is a road which people seem to have left often. The few who returned brought something of the living world, according to their voyages. One a piece of field, another a broken Regency terrace, a warehouse or dumping yard; or a pub called the Flowers of the Forest.
It is a road filled with faithful institutions. Over one presides our Lady of Consolation, over another, Archbishop Amigo. Whatever is not hospital, school, pub or seminary is dead, and the dust has got its body. There is a toyshop with a padlocked door. Avery looked into it every day on the way to the office; the toys were rusting on the shelves. The window looked dirtier than ever; the lower part was striped with children’s fingermarks. There is a place that mends your teeth while you wait. He glimpsed them now from the car, counting them off as they drove past, wondering whether he would ever see them again as a member of the Department. There are warehouses with barbed wire across their gates, and factories which produce nothing. In one of them a bell rang but no one heard. There is a broken wall with posters on it. You are somebody today in the Regular Army. They rounded St George’s Circus and entered Blackfriars Road for the home run.
As they approached the building, Avery sensed that things had changed. For a moment he imagined that the very grass on the wretched bit of lawn had thickened and revived during his brief absence; that the concrete steps leading to the front door, which even in Midsummer managed to appear moist and dirty, were now clean and inviting. Somehow he knew, before he entered the building at all, that a new spirit had infected the Department.
It had reached the most humble members of the staff. Pine, impressed no doubt by the black staff car and the sudden passage of busy people, looked spruce and alert. For once he said nothing about cricket scores. The staircase was daubed with wax polish.
In the corridor they met Woodford. He was in a hurry. He was carrying a couple of files with red caution notices on the cover.
‘Hullo, John! You’ve landed safely, then? Good party?’ He really did seem pleased to see him. ‘Sarah all right now?’
‘He’s done well,’ said Leclerc quickly. ‘He had a very difficult run.’
‘Ah yes; poor Taylor. We shall need you in the new section. Your wife will have to spare you for a week or two.’
‘What was that about Sarah?’ Avery asked. Suddenly he was frightened. He hastened down the corridor. Leclerc was calling but he took no notice. He entered his room and stopped dead. There was a second telephone on his desk, and a steel bed like Leclerc’s along the side wall. Beside the new telephone was a piece of military board with a list of emergency telephone numbers pinned to it. The numbers for use during the night were printed in red. On the back of the door hung a two-colour poster depicting in profile the head of a man. Across his skull was written, ‘Keep it here’, and across his mouth, ‘Don’t let it out here’. It took him a moment or two to realize that the poster was an exhortation to security, and not some dreadful joke about Taylor. He lifted the receiver and waited. Carol came in with a tray of papers for signature.
‘How did it go?’ she asked. ‘The Boss seems pleased.’ She was standing quite close to him.
‘Go? There’s no film. It wasn’t among his things. I’m going to resign; I’ve decided. What the hell’s wrong with this phone?’
‘They probably don’t know you’re back. There’s a thing from Accounts about your claim for a taxi. They’ve queried it.’
‘Taxi?’
‘From your flat to the office. The night Taylor died. They say it’s too much.’
‘Look, go and stir up the exchange, will you, they must be fast asleep.’
Sarah answered the telephone herself.
‘Oh, thank God it’s you.’
Avery said yes, he had got in an hour ago. ‘Sarah, look, I’ve had enough, I’m going to tell Leclerc—’ But before he could finish she burst out, ‘John, for God’s sake, what have you been doing? We had the police here, detectives; they want to talk to you about a body that’s arrived at London Airport; somebody called Malherbe. They say it was sent from Finland on a false passport.’
He closed his eyes. He wanted to put down the receiver, he held it away from his ear but he still heard her voice, saying John, John. ‘They say he’s your brother; it’s addressed to you, John; some London undertaker was supposed to be doing it all for you … John, John, are you still there?’
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘it’s all right. I’ll take care of it now.’
‘I told them about Taylor: I had to.’
‘Sarah!’
‘What else could I do? They thought I was a criminal or something; they didn’t believe me, John! They asked how they could get hold of you; I had to say I didn’t know; I didn’t even know which country or which plane; I was ill, John, I felt awful, I’ve got this damn ’flu and I’d forgotten to take my pills. They came in the middle of the night, two of them. John, why did they come in the night?’
‘What did you tell them? For Christ’s sake, Sarah, what else did you say to them?’
‘Don’t swear at me! I should be swearing at you and your beastly Department! I said you were doing something secret; you’d had to go abroad for the Department – John, I don’t even know its name! – that you’d been rung in the night and you’d gone away. I said it was about a courier called Taylor.’
‘You’re mad,’ Avery shouted, ‘you’re absolutely mad. I told you never to say!’
‘But, John, they were policemen! There can’t be any harm in telling them.’ She was crying, he could hear the tears in her voice. ‘John, please come back. I’m so frightened. You’ve got to get out of this, go back to publishing; I don’t care what you do but …’
‘I can’t. It’s terribly big. More important than you can possibly understand. I’m sorry, Sarah. I just can’t leave the office.’ He added savagely, a useful lie, ‘You may have wrecked the whole thing.’
There was a very long silence.
‘Sarah, I’ll have to sort this out. I’ll ring you later.’
When at last she answered he detected in her voice the same flat resignation with which she had sent him to pack his things. ‘You took the cheque book. I’ve no money.’
He told her he would send it round. ‘We’ve got a car,’ he added, ‘specially for this thing, chauffeur-driven.’ As he rang off he heard her say, ‘I thought you’d got lots of cars.’
He ran into Leclerc’s room. Haldane was standing behind the desk; his coat still wet from the rain. They were bent over a file. The pages were faded and torn.
‘Taylor’s body!’ he blurted out. ‘It’s at London Airport. You’ve messed the whole thing up. They’ve been on to Sarah! In the middle of the night!’
‘Wait!’ It was Haldane who spoke. ‘You have no business to come running in here,’ he declared furiously. ‘Just wait.’ He did not care for Avery.
He returned to the file, ignoring him. ‘None at all,’ he muttered, adding to Leclerc: ‘Woodford has already had some success, I gather. Unarmed combat’s all right; he’s heard of a wireless operator, one of the best. I remember him. The garage is called the King of Hearts; it is clearly prosperous. We inquired at the bank; they were quite helpful if not specific. He’s unmarried. He has a reputation for women; the usual Polish style. No political interests, no known hobbies, no debts, no complaints. He seems to be something of a nonentity. They say he’s a good mechanic. As for character—’ he shrugged. ‘What do we know about anybody?’
/> ‘But what did they say? Good Heavens, you can’t be fifteen years in a community without leaving some impression. There was a grocer wasn’t there – Smethwick? – he lived with them after the war.’
Haldane allowed himself a smile. ‘They said he was a good worker and very polite. Everyone says he’s polite. They remember one thing only: he had a passion for hitting a tennis ball round their back yard.’
‘Did you take a look at the garage?’
‘Certainly not. I didn’t go near it. I propose to call there this evening. I don’t see that we have any other choice. After all, the man’s been on our cards for twenty years.’
‘Is there nothing more you can find out?’
‘We would have to do the rest through the Circus.’
‘Then let John Avery clear up the details.’ Leclerc seemed to have forgotten Avery was in the room. ‘As for the Circus, I’ll deal with them myself.’ His interest had been arrested by a new map on the wall, a town plan of Kalkstadt showing the church and railway station. Beside it hung an older map of Eastern Europe. Rocket bases whose existence had already been confirmed were here related to the putative site south of Rostock. Supply routes and chains of command, the order of battle of supporting arms, were indicated with lines of thin wool stretched between pins. A number of these led to Kalkstadt.
‘It’s good, isn’t it? Sandford put it together last night,’ Leclerc said. ‘He does that kind of thing rather well.’
On his desk lay a new whitewood pointer like a giant bodkin threaded with a loop of barrister’s ribbon. He had a new telephone, green, smarter than Avery’s, with a notice on it saying ‘Speech on this telephone is NOT secure.’ For a time Haldane and Leclerc studied the map, referring now and then to a file of telegrams which Leclerc held open in both hands as a choirboy holds a psalter.
Finally Leclerc turned to Avery and said, ‘Now, John.’ They were waiting for him to speak.
He could feel his anger dying. He wanted to hold on to it but it was slipping away. He wanted to cry out in indignation: how dare you involve my wife? He wanted to lose control, but he could not. His eyes were on the map.
‘Well?’
‘The police have been round to Sarah. They woke her in the middle of the night. Two men. Her mother was there. They came about the body at the airport: Taylor’s body. They knew the passport was phoney and thought she was involved. They woke her up,’ he repeated lamely.
‘We know all about that. It’s straightened out. I wanted to tell you but you wouldn’t let me. The body’s been released.’
‘It was wrong to drag Sarah in.’
Haldane lifted his head quickly: ‘What do you mean by that?’
‘We’re not competent to handle this kind of thing.’ It sounded very impertinent. ‘We shouldn’t be doing it. We ought to give it to the Circus. Smiley or someone – they’re the people, not us.’ He struggled on: ‘I don’t even believe that report. I don’t believe it’s true! I wouldn’t be surprised if that refugee never existed; if Gorton made the whole thing up! I don’t believe Taylor was murdered.’
‘Is that all?’ Haldane demanded. He was very angry.
‘It’s not something I want to go on with. The operation, I mean. It isn’t right.’
He looked at the map and at Haldane, then laughed a little stupidly. ‘All the time I’ve been chasing a dead man you’ve been after a live one! It’s easy here, in the dream factory … but they’re people out there, real people!’
Leclerc touched Haldane lightly on the arm as if to say he would handle this himself. He seemed undisturbed. He might almost have been gratified to recognise symptoms which he had previously diagnosed. ‘Go to your room, John, you’re suffering from strain.’
‘But what do I tell Sarah?’ He spoke with despair.
‘Tell her she won’t be troubled any more. Tell her it was a mistake … tell her whatever you like. Get some hot food and come back in an hour. These airline meals are useless. Then we’ll hear the rest of your news.’ Leclerc was smiling, the same neat, bland smile with which he had stood among the dead fliers. As Avery reached the door he heard his name called softly, with affection: he stopped and looked back.
Leclerc raised one hand from the desk and with a semicircular movement indicated the room in which they were standing.
‘I’ll tell you something, John. During the war we were in Baker Street. We had a cellar and the Ministry fixed it up as an emergency operations room. Adrian and I spent a lot of time down there. A lot of time.’ A glance at Haldane. ‘Remember how the oil lamp used to swing when the bombs fell? We had to face situations where we had one rumour, John, no more. One indicator and we’d take the risk. Send a man in, two if necessary, and maybe they wouldn’t come back. Maybe there wouldn’t be anything there. Rumours, a guess, a hunch one follows up; it’s easy to forget what intelligence consists of: luck, and speculation. Here and there a windfall, here and there a scoop. Sometimes you stumbled on a thing like this: it could be very big, it could be a shadow. It may have been from a peasant in Flensburg, or it may come from the Provost of King’s, but you’re left with a possibility you dare not discount. You get instructions: find a man, put him in. So we did. And many didn’t come back. They were sent to resolve doubt, don’t you see? We sent them because we didn’t know. All of us have moments like this, John. Don’t think it’s always easy.’ A reminiscent smile. ‘Often we had scruples like you. We had to overcome them. We used to call that the second vow.’ He leant against the desk, informally. ‘The second vow,’ he repeated.
‘Now, John, if you want to wait until the bombs are falling, till people are dying in the street …’ He was suddenly serious, as if revealing his faith. ‘It’s a great deal harder, I know, in peacetime. It requires courage. Courage of a different kind.’
Avery nodded. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said.
Haldane was watching him with distaste.
‘What the Director means,’ he said acidly, ‘is that if you wish to stay in the Department and do the job, do it. If you wish to cultivate your emotions, go elsewhere and do so in peace. We are too old for your kind here.’
Avery could still hear Sarah’s voice, see the rows of little houses hanging in the rain; he tried to imagine his life without the Department. He realised that it was too late, as it always had been, because he had gone to them for the little they could give him, and they had taken the little he had. Like a doubting cleric, he had felt that whatever his small heart contained was safely locked in the place of his retreat: now it was gone. He looked at Leclerc, then at Haldane. They were his colleagues. Prisoners of silence, the three of them would work side by side, breaking the arid land all four seasons of the year, strangers to each other, needing each other, in a wilderness of abandoned faith.
‘Did you hear what I said?’ Haldane demanded.
Avery muttered: ‘Sorry.’
‘You didn’t fight in the war, John,’ Leclerc said kindly. ‘You don’t understand how these things take people. You don’t understand what real duty is.’
‘I know,’ said Avery. ‘I’m sorry. I’d like to borrow the car for an hour … send something round to Sarah, if that’s all right.’
‘Of course.’
He realised he had forgotten Anthony’s present. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said again.
‘Incidentally—’ Leclerc opened a drawer of the desk and took out an envelope. Indulgently he handed it to Avery. ‘That’s your pass, a special one from the Ministry. To identify yourself. It’s in your own name. You may need it in the weeks to come.’
‘Thanks.’
‘Open it.’
It was a piece of thick pasteboard bound in Cellophane, green, the colour washed downwards, darker at the bottom. His name was printed across it in capitals with an electric typewriter: Mr John Avery. The legend entitled the bearer to make inquiries on behalf of the Ministry. There was a signature in red ink.
‘Thanks.’
‘You’re safe with that,’ Leclerc said.
‘The Minister signed it. He uses red ink, you know. It’s tradition.’
He went back to his room. There were times when he confronted his own image as a man confronts an empty valley, and the vision propelled him forward again to experience, as despair compels us to extinction. Sometimes he was like a man in flight, but running towards the enemy, desperate to feel upon his vanishing body the blows that would prove his being; desperate to imprint upon his sad conformity the mark of real purpose, desperate perhaps, as Leclerc had hinted, to abdicate his conscience in order to discover God.
PART THREE
Leiser’s Run
‘To turn, as swimmers into cleanness leaping, Glad from a world grown old and cold and weary’
Rupert Brooke, ‘1914’
10
Prelude
The Humber dropped Haldane at the garage.
‘You needn’t wait. You have to take Mr Leclerc to the Ministry.’
He picked his way reluctantly over the tarmac, past the yellow petrol pumps and the advertisement shields rattling in the wind. It was evening; there was rain about. The garage was small but very smart; showrooms one end, workshops the other, in the middle a tower where somebody lived. Swedish timber and open plan; lights on the tower in the shape of a heart, changing colour continuously. From somewhere came the whine of a metal lathe. Haldane went into the office. It was empty. There was a smell of rubber. He rang the bell and began coughing wretchedly. Sometimes when he coughed he held his chest, and his face betrayed the submissiveness of a man familiar with pain. Calendars with showgirls hung on the wall beside a small handwritten notice, like an amateur advertisement, which read, ‘St Christopher and all his angels, please protect us from road accidents. F.L.’ At the window a budgerigar fluttered nervously in its cage. The first drops of rain thumped lazily against the panes. A boy came in, about eighteen, his fingers black with engine oil. He wore an overall with a red heart sewn on to the breast pocket with a crown above it.
‘Good evening,’ said Haldane. ‘Forgive me. I’m looking for an old acquaintance; a friend. We knew one another long ago. A Mr Leiser. Fred Leiser. I wondered if you had any idea …’
The Looking Glass War Page 11