'Lower your voice, they'll overhear.'
'Tell me! Have you been having conversations with Karfeld? Is that what sent Leo on his night walk? Is that what it was all about?'
Bradfield did not reply.
'Holy God,' Turner whispered. 'We're like the rest of them, after all. Like Siebkron and Praschko; we're trying to make our number with tomorrow's lucky winner!'
'Take care!' Bradfield warned.
'Allerton... what Allerton said ' 'Allerton? He knows nothing!'
'Karfeld came in from Hanover that Friday night. Secretly to Bonn. For a confidence. He even arrived and left on foot, it was so secret. You didn't go to Hanover after all, did you, that Friday night? You changed your plans, cancelled your ticket. Leo found that out from the Travel Clerks -'
'You're talking utter nonsense.'
'You met Karfeld in Bonn. Siebkron laid it on, and Leo followed you because he knew what you were up to!'
'You're out of your mind.'
'No, I'm not. But Leo is, isn't he? Because Leo suspected. All the time, in the back of his mind, he knew that you were secretly reinsuring against the Brussels failure. Until he saw that file, until he actually saw and knew, he thought he might still act within the law. But when he saw the Green File he knew: it really was happening again. He knew. That's why he was in a hurry. He had to stop you, he had to stop Karfeld before it was too late!'
Bradfield said nothing.
'What was in the Green File, Bradfield? What's he taken with him as a keepsake? Why was that the only file he stole? Because it contained the minutes of those meetings, was it? And that's what's drawn your fire! You've got to get the Green File back! Did you sign them, Bradfield? With that willing pen of yours?' His pale eyes were alight with anger. 'When did he steal the despatch box, let's just think:
Friday... Friday morning he had his verification, didn't he? He saw it in black and white: that was the other proof he was looking for. He took it to Aickman... "They're up to their old tricks, we've got to stop it before it's too late... we're the chosen ones." That's why he took the Green File! To show them!
Children, look, he wants to say,history really is repeating itseif; and it isn't comedy at all!'
'It was a document of the highest secrecy. He could go to prison for years for that alone.'
'But he never will, because you want the file and not the man. That's another part of the three-inch freedom, is it?'
'Would you prefer me to be a fanatic?'
'What he'd suspected for months, picked up in the wind of Bonn gossip and the scraps he got from her; now he had the proof: that the British were hedging their bets. Taking out a with-profits policy on the Bonn-Moscow axis. What's the deal, Bradfield?
What's the small print now? Christ, no wonder Siebkron thought you were playing a treble game! First you put all your chips on Brussels and very wise too. "Let nothing disturb theenterprise." Then you hedge the bet with Karfeld and you get Siebkron to hold your stake. "Bring me secretly to Karfeld," you say to him. "The British also are interested in a Moscow axis." Very informally interested, mind. Purely explanatory talks and no witnesses, mind. But an eventual trade alignment with the East is not at all out of the question,Herr Doktor Karfeld, if you should ever happen to become a credible alternative to a crumbling coalition! As a matter of fact we're quite anti-American ourselves these days, it's in the blood, you know, Herr Doktor Karfeld...'
'You missed your vocation.'
'And then what happens? No sooner has Siebkron brought Karfeld to your bed than he learns enough to make his blood run cold: the British Embassy is compiling a dossier on Karfeld's unsavoury past! The Embassy already has the records the only records, Bradfield - and now they're sizing up to blackmail him on the side. And that's not all!'
'No.'
'Siebkron and Karfeld have hardly got used to that little shock before you provide a bigger one. One that really rocks them. Not even Albion, they thought, could be that perfidious: the British are actually trying to assassinate Karfeld. It makes no sense of course. Why kill the man you want to blackmail? They must have been puzzled to death. No wonder Siebkron looked so sick on Tuesday night!'
'Now you know it all. You share the secret: keep it.'
'Bradfield!'
'Well?'
'Who do you want to win? This afternoon, out there, who's your money on this time, Bradfield? On Leo; or the cut-price ally?'
Bradfield switched on the engine.
'Cut-price friends! They're the only kind we can afford! They're the only kind we've got the guts to make! We're a proud nation, Bradfield! You can get Karfeld for twenty-five per cent off now, can't you! Never mind if he hates us. He'll come round! People change! And he thinks about us all the time! That's an encouraging start! A little push now and he'll run for ever.'
'Either you're in or you're out. Either you're involved or you're not.' He hesitated. 'Or would you rather be Swiss?' Without another word or glance, Bradfield drove up the hill, turned right and vanished in the direction of Bonn. Turner waited until he was out of sight before walking back a long the river path towards the cab rank. As he went there rose suddenly behind him an unearthly rumble of feet and voices, the saddest, deepest sound he had ever heard in his life. The columns had begun to move; they were shuffling slowly forward, mediocre, ponderous and terrifying, a mindless grey monster that could no longer be held back, while beyond them, almost hidden in the mist, stood the wooded outline of Chamberlain's hill.
Epilogue
Bradfield led the way; de Lisle and Turner followed. It was early evening and the streets were empty of traffic. In all Bonn, nothing stirred but the mute, grey-clad strangers who swarmed the alleys and hastened towards the market square. The black bunting, becalmed, drifted in idle swathes over the ebbing tide.
Bonn had never seen such faces. The old and the young, the lost and the found, the fed and the hungry, the clever, the dull, the governed and the ungoverned, all the children of the Republic, it seemed, had risen in a single legion to march upon her little bastions. Some were hillsmen, darkhaired, straddle-legged and scrubbed for the outing; some were clerks, Bob Cratchits nipped by the quick air; some were Sunday men, the slow infantry of the German promenade, in grey gabardine and grey Homburg hats.
Some carried their flags shamefully, as if they had outgrown them, some as banners borne to the battle, others as ravens strung for market. Birnam Wood had come to Dunsinane.
Bradfield waited for them to catch up.
'Siebkron reserved space for us. We should enter the square higher up. We shall have to force our way to the right.' Turner nodded, barely hearing. He was looking everywhere, in to every face and every window, every shop, corner and alley.
Once he seized de Lisle's arm, but whoever it was had gone, lost again in the changing mass.
Not just the square itself: balconies, windows, shops, every foothold and crevice was filled with grey coats and white faces, and the green uniforms of soldiers and police. And still they came, more of them, cramming the mouths of the darkening alleys, craning their necks for a sight of the speaker's stand, searching for a leader, faceless men searching for one face; while Turner peered desperately among them for a face he had never seen. Overhead, in front of the floodlights, loudspeakers hung like warnings from their wires; beyond them, the sky was failing.
He'll never make it, Turner thought dully; he'll never penetrate a crowd like this. But Hazel Bradfield's voice came back to him: I had a younger brother, he played scrum-half; you could hardly tell them apart. 'To the left,' Bradfield said. 'Make for the hotel.'