'No mistake, old boy. Sorry.'
'Well, I suppose we must believe you. I suggest we go back to the Embassy.' He glanced at Turner. 'Unless you prefer to stay. If you have some further theory to test.' He looked round the buffet. Every face was turned towards them. Behind the bar, a chrome machine was steaming unattended. Not a hand moved. 'You seem to have made your mark here anyway.' As they walked slowly back to the car, Bradfield said, 'You can come in to the Embassy to collect your possessions but you must be out by lunchtime. If you have any papers, leave them with Cork and we'll send them on by bag. There's a flight at seven. Take it. If you can't get a seat, take the train. But go.'
They waited while Bradfield spoke to the policemen and showed them his red card. His German sounded very English in tone but the grammar was faultless. The policeman nodded, saluted and they took their leave. Slowly they returned to the Embassy through the sullen faces of the aimless crowd.
'Extraordinary place for Leo to spend the night,' Crabbe muttered, but Turner was fingering the gunmetal key in the OHMS envelope in his pocket, and still wondering, for all his sense of failure, whose door it had unlocked.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The Strain of Being a Pig He sat at the cypher room desk, still in his raincoat, packing together the useless trophies of his investigation: the army holster, the folded print, the engraved paper knife from Margaret Aickman; the blue-bound diary for counsellors and above, the little notebook for diplomatic discounts, and the scratched tin of five wooden buttons cut to size; and now the sixth button and the three stubs of cigar.
'Never mind,' said Cork kindly.
'He'll turn up.'
'Oh sure. Like the investments and the Caribbean dream. Leo's everybody's darling. Everybody's lost son, Leo is. We all love Leo, although he cut our throats.'
'Mind you, he couldn't half tell the tale.' He was sitting on the truckle bed in his shirt-sleeves, pulling on his outdoor shoes. He wore metal springs above the elbows and his shirt was like an advertisement on the Underground. There was no sound from the
corridor. 'That's what got you about him. Quiet, but a sod.'
A machine stammered and Cork frowned at it reprovingly. 'Blarney,' he continued. 'That's what he had. The magic. He could tell you any bloody tale and you believed it.'
He had put them in to a paper waste-bag. The label on the outside said 'SECRET. Only to be disposed of in the presence of two authorised witnesses.'
'I want this sealed and sent to Lumley,' he said, and Cork wrote out a receipt and signed it.
'I remember the first time I met him,' Cork said, in the cheerful voice which Turner associated with funeral breakfasts. 'I was green. I was really green. I'd
only been married six months. If I hadn't twigged him I'd have-'
'You'd have been taking his tips on investment. You'd have been lending him the code books for bedside reading.' He stapled the mouth of the bag, folding it against itself.
'Not the code books. Janet. He'd have been reading her in bed.' Cork smiled happily. 'Bloodyneck! You wouldn't credit it. Come on then. Lunch.'
For the last time Turner savagely clamped together the two arms of the stapler. 'Is de Lisle in?'
'Doubt it. London's sent a brief the size of your arm. All hands on deck. The dips are out in force.' He laughed. 'They ought to have a go with the old black flags. Lobby the deputies. Strenuous representations at all levels. Leave no stone unturned.
And they're going for another loan. I don't know where the Krauts get the stuff from sometimes. Know what Leo said to me once? "I tell you what, Bill, we'll score a big diplomatic victory. We'll go down to the Bundestag and offer them a million quid. Just you and me. I reckon they'd fall down in afaint." He was right, you know.'
Turner dialled de Lisle's number but there was no reply. 'Tell him I rang to say goodbye,' he said to Cork, and changed his mind. 'Don't worry.'
He called Travel Section and enquired about his ticket. It was all in order, they assured him; Mr Bradfield had sent down personally and the ticket was waiting for him at the desk. They seemed impressed. Cork picked up his coat.
'And you'd better cable Lumley and give him my time of arrival.'
'I'm afraid H. of C.'s done that already,' Cork said, with something quite near to a blush.
'Well. Thanks.' He was at the door, looking back in to the room as if he would never see it again. 'I hope it goes all right with the baby. I hope your dreams come true. I hope everyone's dream comes true. I hope they all get what they're looking for.'
'Look: think of it this way,' Cork said sympathetically. 'There's things you just don't give up, isn't there?'
'That's right.'
'I me an you can't pack everything up neat and tidy. Not in life, you can't. That's for girls, that is. That's just romantic. You get like Leo otherwise: you can't leave a thing alone. Now what are you going to do with yourself this afternoon? There's a nice matinee at the American cinema... No. Wouldn't be right for you: lot of screaming kids.'
'What do you me an, he can't leave a thing alone?'
Cork was drifting round the room, checking the machines, the desks and the secret waste.
'Vindictive. Vindictive wasn't in it. He had a feud with Fred Anger once; Fred was Admin. They say it ran five years till Fred was posted.'
'What about?'
'Nothing.' He had picked a scrap of paper from the floor and was reading it. 'Absolutely sweet Fanny Adams. Fred cut down a lime tree in Leo's garden, said it was endangering the fence. Which it was. Fred told me: "Bill," he said, "that tree would have fallen down in the autumn." '
'He had a thing about land,' Turner said. 'He wanted his own patch. He didn't like being in limbo.'
'Know what Leo did? He made a wreath out of leaves. Brought it into the Embassy and nailed it on to Fred's office door. With bloody great two-inch nails. Crucified it near enough. The German staff thought Fred had snuffed it. Leo didn't laugh though. He wasn't joking; he really meant it. He was violent,see. Now dips don't notice that. All oil and how-d'-you-do, he was to them. And helpful, I'm not saying he wasn't helpful. I'm just saying that when Leo had a grudge, I wouldn't fancy being the other end of it. That's all I'm saying.'
'He went for your wife, did he?'
'I put a stop to that,' said Cork. 'Just as well. Seeing what happened elsewhere. The Welfare Dance, that was. A couple of years back. He started coming it.
Nothing nasty, mind. Wanted to give her a hair- dryer and that. Meet me up on the hill, that lark. I said to him, "You find your own hair to dry," I said. " She's mine." You can't blame him though, can you? Know what they say about refugees: they lose everything except their accents. Dead right, you know. Trouble with Leo was, he wanted it all back. So I suppose that's it: take the pick of the files and run for it. Flog them to the highest bidder. It's no more than what we owe him, I don't suppose.' Satisfied with his security check, Cork stacked together his brochures and came towards the door where Turner stood. 'You're from the North, aren't you?' he asked. 'I can tell by your voice.'
'How well did you know him?'
'Leo? Oh, like all of us really. I'd buy this and that, give him a saucer of milk now and then; put an order in for the Dutchman.'
'Dutchman?'
'Firm of diplomatic exporters. From Amsterdam. Cheaper if you can be bothered; you know. Do you anything: butter, meat, radios, cars, the lot.'
'Hair-dryers?'
'Anything. There's a rep. calls every Monday. Fill in your form one week, chuck it in to Leo and you get the order the next. I expect there was a bit in it for him; you know. Mind you, you could never catch him out. I me an you could check up till you were blue in the face: you'd never find out where he took his divi.