‘Oh fine.’
‘Fortunately neither Eich nor the Library are a British responsibility. The Library was founded during the Occupation but handed over to the Germans quite soon afterwards. It’s not controlled and owned exclusively by the Land authority. There’s nothing British about it.’
‘So they’ve burned their own books.’
Shawn gave a startled smile.
‘Well yes, actually,’ he said. ‘Come to think of it, they have. That’s rather a useful point; we might even suggest it to Press Section.’
The telephone was ringing. Shawn lifted the receiver and listened.
‘It’s Lumley,’ he said, putting his hand over the mouthpiece. ‘The porter told him you’re in.’
Turner appeared not to hear. He was studying another telegram; it was quite a short telegram, two paragraphs, not more; it was headed ‘personal for Lumley’ and marked ‘immediate’ and this was the second copy passed to Turner.
‘He wants you, Alan.’ Shawn held out the receiver.
Turner read the text once and then read it again. Rising, he went to the steel cupboard and drew out a small black notebook, unused, which he thrust into the recesses of his tropical suit.
‘You stupid bugger,’ he said very quietly, from the door. ‘Why don’t you learn to read your telegrams? All the time you’ve been bleating about fire extinguishers we’ve had a bloody defector on our hands.’
He held up the sheet of pink paper for Shawn to read.
‘A planned departure, that’s what they call it. Forty-three files missing, not one of them below Confidential. One green classified Maximum and Limit, gone since Friday. I’ll say it was planned.’
Leaving Shawn with the telephone still in his hand, Turner thudded down the corridor in the direction of his master’s room. His eyes were a swimmer’s eyes, very pale, washed colourless by the sea.
Shawn stared after him. That’s what happens, he decided, when you open your doors to the other ranks. They leave their wives and children, use filthy language in the corridors and play ducks and drakes with all the common courtesies. With a sigh, he replaced the receiver, raised it again and dialled News Department. This was Shawn, he said, S-H-A-W-N. He had had rather a good idea about the riots in Hanover, the way one might play it at Press Conference: it was nothing to do with us after all, if the Germans decided to burn their own books… He thought that might go down pretty well as an example of cool English wit. Yes, Shawn, S-H-A-W-N. Not at all; they might even have lunch together some time.
Lumley had a folder open before him and his old hand rested on it like a claw.
‘We know nothing about him. He’s not even carded. As far as we’re concerned, he doesn’t exist. He hasn’t even been vetted, let alone cleared. I had to scrounge his papers from Personnel.’
‘And?’
‘There’s a smell, that’s all. A foreign smell. Refugee background, emigrated in the thirties. Farm School, Pioneer Corps, Bomb Disposal. He gravitated to Germany in forty-five. Temporary sergeant; Control Commission; one of the old carpetbaggers by the sound of it. Professional expatriate. There was one in every mess in Occupied Germany in those days. Some survived, some drifted into the consulates. Quite a few of them reverted; went into the night or took up German citizenship again. A few went crooked. No childhood, most of them, that’s the trouble. Sorry,’ Lumley said abruptly, and almost blushed.
‘Any form?’
‘Nothing to set the Thames on fire. We traced the next of kin. An uncle living in Hampstead: Otto Harting. Sometime adoptive father. No other relations living. He was in the pharmaceutical business. More an alchemist by the sound of it. Patent medicines, that kind of thing. He’s dead now. Dead ten years. He was a member of the Hampstead Branch of the British Communist Party from forty-one to forty-five. One conviction for little girls.’
‘How little?’
‘Does it matter? His nephew Leo lived with him for a bit. Something may have rubbed off. The old man might even have recruited him then, I suppose… Long-term penetration. That would fit the mould. Or someone may have reminded him of it later on. They never let you go, mind, once you’ve had a taste of it. Bad as Catholics.’