An empty tram rolled past, its windows protected with adhesive mesh. A single church bell began its monotonous chime, a dirge for Christian virtue in an empty city. They were walking again, closer together, but still the man in front did not look back. They rounded another corner; ahead of them, the great spire of the Minster was cut like thin metal against the empty sky. Reluctantly the first chimes were answered by others, until all over the town there rose a slow cacophony of uncertain peals. An Angelus? An air raid? A young policeman, standing in the doorway of a sports shop, bared his head. In the Cathedral porch, a candle burned in a bowl of red glass; to one side stood a religious bookshop. The plump man paused, leaned forward as if to examine something in the window; glanced down the road; and in that moment the light from the window shone full upon his features. The smaller mall ran forward: stopped; ran forward again; and was too late.
The limousine had drawn up, an Opel Rekord driven by a pale man hidden in the smoked glass. Its back door opened and closed; ponderously it gathered speed, indifferent to the one sharp cry, a cry of fury and of accusation, of total loss and total bitterness which, drawn as if by force from the breast of him who uttered it, rang abruptly down the empty street and, as abruptly, died. The policeman spun around, shone his torch. Held in its beam, the small man did not move; he was staring after the limousine. Shaking over the cobbles, skidding on the wet tramlines, disregarding the traffic lights, it had vanished westward towards the illuminated hills.
‘Who are you?’
The beam rested on the coat of English tweed, too hairy for such a little man, the fine, neat shoes grey with mud, the dark, unblinking eyes.
‘Who are you?’ the policeman repeated; for the bells were everywhere now, and their echoes persisted eerily.
One small hand disappeared into the folds of the coat and emerged with a leather holder. The policeman accepted it gingerly, unfastened the catch while he juggled with his torch and the black pistol he clutched inexpertly in his left hand.
‘What was it?’ the policeman asked, as he handed back the wallet. ‘Why did you call out?’
The small man gave no answer. He had walked a few paces along the pavement.
‘You never saw him before?’ he asked, still looking after the car. ‘You don’t know who he was?’ He spoke softly, as if there were children sleeping upstairs; a vulnerable voice, respectful of silence.
‘No.’
The sharp, lined face broke into a conciliatory smile. ‘Forgive me. I made a silly mistake. I thought I recognised him.’ His accent was neither wholly English nor wholly German, but a privately elected no-man’s land, picked and set between the two. And he would move it, he seemed to say, a little in either direction, if it chanced to inconvenience the listener.
‘It’s the season,’ the small man said, determined to make conversation. ‘The sudden cold, one looks at people more.’ He had opened a tin of small Dutch cigars and was offering them to the policeman. The policeman declined so he lit one for himself.
‘It’s the riots,’ the policeman answered slowly, ‘the flags, the slogans. We’re all nervous these days. This week Hanover, last week Frankfurt. It upsets the natural order.’ He was a young man and had studied for his appointment. ‘They should forbid them more,’ he added, using the common dictum. ‘Like the Communists.’
He saluted loosely; once more the stranger smiled, a last affecting smile, dependent, hinting at friendship, dwindling reluctantly. And was gone. Remaining where he was, the policeman listened attentively to the fading footfall. Now it stopped; to be resumed again, more quickly – was it his imagination? – with greater conviction than before. For a moment he pondered.
‘In Bonn,’ he said to himself with an inward sigh, recalling the stranger’s weightless tread, ‘even the flies are official.’
Taking out his notebook, he carefully wrote down the time and place and nature of the incident. He was not a fast-thinking man, but admired for his thoroughness. This done, he added the number of the motor-car, which for some reason had remained in his mind. Suddenly he stopped; and stared at what he had written; at the name and the car number; and he thought of the plump man and the long, marching stride, and his heart began beating very fast. He thought of the secret instruction he had read on the recreation-room noticeboard, and the little muffled photograph from long ago. The notebook still in his hand, he ran off for the telephone kiosk as fast as his boots would carry him.