‘No,’ said de Lisle. They were pulling up at the gate; the police were converging on them, tapping on the window. He let them wait. ‘You’ve got it wrong. You and Leo form a team of your own. You’re the other side of the wire. Both of you. That’s your problem. Whatever definitions, whatever labels. That’s why you’re beating the air.’
They entered the car park and de Lisle drove round to the canteen side where Turner had stood that morning, staring across the field.
‘I’ve got to see his house,’ Turner said. ‘I’ve got to.’ They were both looking ahead of them, through the windscreen.
‘I thought you’d ask me that.’
‘All right, forget it.’
‘Why should I? I’ve no doubt you’ll go anyway. Sooner or later.’
They got out and walked slowly over the tarmac. The despatch riders were lying on the lawn, their motor-bikes stacked round the flagpole. The geraniums, martially arranged, glinted like tiny guardsmen along the verges.
‘He loved the Army,’ de Lisle said, as they climbed the steps. ‘He really loved it.’
As they paused to show their passes yet again to the weasel sergeant, Turner chanced to look back at the carriageway. ‘Look!’ he said suddenly. ‘That’s the pair that picked us up at the airport.’
A black Opel had lumbered into the filter bay; two men sat in the front; from his vantage point on the steps, Turner could make out easily the multiple reflectors of the long driving mirror glittering in the sunlight.
‘Ludwig Siebkron took us to lunch,’ de Lisle said with a dry smile, ‘and now he’s brought us home. I told you: don’t go thinking you’re a specialist.’
‘Then where were you on Friday night?’
‘In the woodshed,’ de Lisle snapped, ‘waiting to murder Lady Ann for her priceless diamonds.’
The cypher room was open again. Cork lay on a truckle bed, a handbook on Caribbean bungalows lay beside him on the floor. On the desk in the dayroom was a blue Embassy envelope addressed to Alan Turner Esquire. His name was typewritten; the style was stiff and rather gauche. There were a number of things, the writer said, which Mr Turner might care to know about in connection with the matter which had brought him to Bonn. If it were convenient, the writer continued, he might care to call for a glass of sherry wine at the above address at half past six o’clock. The address was in Bad Godesberg and the writer was Miss Jenny Pargiter of Press and Information Section, presently on attachment to Chancery. She had signed her name and typed it beneath the signature for reasons of clarity; the P was written rather large, Turner decided; and as he opened the blue rexine diary he permitted himself a rare if puzzled smile of anticipation. P for Praschko; P for Pargiter. And P was the initial on the diary. Come on, Leo, let’s have a look at your guilty secret.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Jenny Pargiter
‘I assume,’ Jenny Pargiter began, in a prepared statement, ‘that you are used to dealing in delicate matters.’
The sherry stood between them on the glass-topped sofa table. The flat was dark and ugly: the chairs were Victorian wicker, the drapes German and very heavy. Constable reproductions hung in the dining alcove.
‘Like a doctor, you have standards of professional confidence.’
‘Oh sure,’ said Turner.
‘It was mentioned at Chancery meeting this morning that you were investigating Leo Harting’s disappearance. We were warned not to discuss it, even among ourselves.’
‘You’re allowed to discuss it with me,’ said Turner.
‘No doubt. But I naturally would wish to be told how much further any confidence might go. What, for instance, is the relationship between yourselves and Personnel Department?’
‘It depends on the information.’
She had raised the sherry glass to the level of her eye and appeared to be measuring the fluid content. It was an attitude evidently designed to demonstrate her sophistication and her ease of mind.
‘Supposing someone – supposing I myself had been injudicious. In a personal matter.’
‘It depends who you’ve been injudicious with,’ Turner replied, and Jenny Pargiter coloured suddenly.
‘That is not what I meant at all.’