‘Just dreams. Things he’s seen, I suppose. They say he saw a lot, don’t they? All the atrocities.’
‘Who does?’
‘Talkers. One of the drivers, I think. Marcus. He’s gone now. He had a turn with him up there in Hamburg in forty-six or that. Shocking.’
Turner had opened an old copy of Stern which lay on the bookcase. Large photographs of the Bremen riots covered both pages. There was a picture of Karfeld speaking from a high wooden platform; young men shouted in ecstasy.
‘I think that bothered him, you know,’ Gaunt continued, looking over his shoulder. ‘He spoke a lot about Fascism off and on.’
‘Did he though?’ Turner asked softly. ‘Tell us about that, Gaunt. I’m interested in talk like that.’
‘Well, just sometimes.’ Gaunt sounded nervous. ‘He could get very worked up about that. It could happen again, he said, and the West would just stand by; and the bankers all put in a bit, and that would be it. He said Socialist and Conservative, it didn’t have no meaning any more, not when all the decisions were made in Zurich or Washington. You could see that, he said, from recent events. Well, it was true really, I had to admit.’ For a moment, the whole sound-track stopped: the traffic, the machines, the voices, and Turner heard nothing but the beating of his own heart.
‘What was the remedy then?’ he asked softly.
‘He didn’t have one.’
‘Personal action for instance?’
‘He didn’t say so.’
‘God?’
‘No, he wasn’t a believer. Not truly, in his heart.’
‘Conscience?’
‘I told you. He didn’t say.’
‘He never suggested you might put the balance right? You and he together?’
‘He wasn’t like that,’ Gaunt said impatiently. ‘He didn’t fancy company. Not when it came to… well, to his own matters, see.’
‘Why didn’t your wife fancy him?’
Gaunt hesitated.
‘She liked to keep close to me when he was around, that’s all. Nothing he ever said or did, mind; but she just liked to keep close.’ He smiled indulgently. ‘You know how they are,’ he said. ‘Very natural.’
‘Did he stay long? Did he sit and talk for hours at a time? About nothing? Ogling your wife?’
‘Don’t say that,’ Gaunt snapped.
Abandoning the desk, Turner opened the cupboard again and noted the printed number on the soles of the rubber overshoes.
‘Besides he didn’t stay long. He liked to go off and work night times, didn’t he? Recently I mean. In Registry and that. He said to me: “John,” he said, “I like to make my contribution.” And he did. He was proud of his work these last months. It was beautiful; wonderful to see, really. Work half the night sometimes, wouldn’t he? All night, even.’
Turner’s pale, pale eyes rested on Gaunt’s dark face.
‘Would he?’
He dropped the shoes back into the cupboard and they clattered absurdly in the silence.
‘Well, he’d a lot to do, you know; a great lot. Loaded with responsibilities, Leo is. A fine man, really. Too good for this floor; that’s what I say.’
‘And that’s what happened every Friday night since January. After choir. He’d come up and have a nice cup of tea and a chat, hang about till the place was quiet, then slip off and work in Registry?’
‘Regular as clockwork. Come in prepared, he would. Choir practice first, then up for a cup of tea till the rest had cleared out like, then down to Registry. “John,” he’d say. “I can’t work when there’s bustle, I can’t stand it, I love peace and quiet to be truthful. I’m not as young as I was and that’s a fact.” Had a bag with him, all ready. Thermos, maybe a sandwich. Very efficient man, he was; handy.’
‘Sign the night book, did he?’
Gaunt faltered, waking at long last to the full menace in that quiet, destructive monotone. Turner slammed together the wooden doors of the cupboard. ‘Or didn’t you bloody well bother? Well, not right really, is it? You can’t come over all official, not to a guest. A dip too, at that, a dip who graced your parlour. Let him come and go as he pleased in the middle of the bloody night, didn’t you? Wouldn’t have been respectful to check up at all, would it? One of the family really, wasn’t he? Pity to spoil it with formalities. Wouldn’t be Christian, that wouldn’t. No idea what time he left the building, I suppose? Two o’clock, four o’clock?’