His shoes were of a heavy brown brogue and much repaired at the welts. He wore a stained tropical suit and carried a stained canvas bag. He was a big, lumbering man, fair-haired, plain-faced and pale, with the high shoulders and square fingers of an alpinist, and he walked with the thrusting slowness of a barge; a broad, aggressive, policeman’s walk, wilfully without finesse. His age was hard to guess. Undergraduates would have found him old, but old for an undergraduate. He could alarm the young with age, and the aged with his youth. His colleagues had long ceased to speculate. It was known that he was a late entrant, never a good sign, and a former fellow of St Antony’s College, Oxford, which takes all kinds of people. The official Foreign Office publications were reserved.
While they shed a merciless light on the origin of all their other Turners, in the matter of Alan they remained tightlipped, as if, having considered all the facts, they felt that silence was the kindest policy.
‘They’ve called you in too, then,’ said Lambert, catching him up. ‘I must say, Karfeld’s really gone to town this time.’
‘What the hell do they expect us to do? Man the barricades? Knit blankets?’
Lambert was a small, vigorous man and he liked it said of him that he could mix with anyone. He occupied a senior position in Western Department and ran a cricket team open to all grades.
They began the ascent of Clive Steps.
‘You’ll never change them,’ said Lambert. ‘That’s my view. A nation of psychopaths. Always think they’re being got at. Versailles, encirclement, stab in the back; persecution mania, that’s their trouble.’
He allowed time for Turner to agree with him.
‘We’re bringing in the whole of the Department. Even the girls.’
‘Christ, that’ll really frighten them. That’s calling up the reserves, that is.’
‘This could put paid to Brussels, you know. Bang it clean on the nose. If the German Cabinet loses its nerve on the home front, we’re all up a gum-tree.’ The prospect filled him with relish. ‘We shall have to find a quite different solution in that case.’
‘I thought there wasn’t one.’
‘The Secretary of State has already spoken to their Ambassador; I am told they have agreed full compensation.’
‘Then there’s nothing to worry about, is there? We can get on with our weekend. All go back to bed.’
They had reached the top of the steps. The founder of India, one foot casually upon a plateau of vanquished bronze, stared contentedly past them into the glades of the Park. ‘They’ve kept the doors open.’ Lambert’s voice was tender with reverence. ‘They’re on the weekday schedule. My, they are going it. Well,’ he remarked, receiving no admiring echo, ‘you go your way, I go mine. Mind you,’ he added shrewdly, ‘it could do us a lot of good. Unite the rest of Europe behind us against the Nazi menace. Nothing like the stamp of jackboots to stiffen the old alliances.’ With a final nod of undeterred goodwill he was assumed into the imperial darkness of the main entrance. For a moment, Turner stared after him, measuring his slight body against the Tuscan pillars of the great portico, and there was even something wistful in his expression, as if actually he would quite like to be a Lambert, small and neat and adept and unbothered. Rousing himself at last, he continued towards a smaller door at the side of the building. It was a scruffy door with brown hardboard nailed to the inside of the glass and a notice denying entrance to unauthorised persons. He had some difficulty getting through.
‘Mister Lumley’s looking for you,’ said the porter. ‘When you can spare a minute, I’m sure.’
He was a young, effeminate man and preferred the other side of the building. ‘He was enquiring most particularly, as a matter of fact. All packed for Germany, I see.’
His transistor radio was going all the time; someone was reporting direct from Hanover and there was a roar in the background like the roar of the sea.
‘Well, you’ll get a nice reception by the sound of it. They’ve already done the library, and now they’re having a go at the Consulate.’