‘Has he always been to that meeting? Every Thursday?’
‘Ever since he came into Registry.’
‘He had a key, didn’t he?’
‘What for? Key to where?’
Turner was on unsure ground. ‘To let himself in and out of Registry. Or he knew the combination.’
Meadowes actually laughed.
‘There’s me and Head of Chancery knows how to get in and out of here, and no one else. There’s three combinations and half a dozen burglar switches and there’s the strong-room as well. Not Slingo, not de Lisle, no one knows. Just us two.’
Turner was writing fast.
‘Tell me what else is missing,’ he said at last.
Meadowes unlocked a drawer of his desk and drew out a list of references. His movements were brisk and surprisingly confident.
‘Bradfield didn’t tell you?’
‘No.’
Meadowes handed him the list. ‘You can keep that. There’s forty-three of them. They’re all box files, they’ve all disappeared since March.’
‘Since he went on his track.’
‘The security classifications vary from Confidential to Top Secret, but the majority are plain Secret. There’s Organisation files, Conference, Personality and two Treaty files. The subjects range from the dismantling of chemical concerns in the Ruhr in 1947 to minutes of unofficial Anglo-German exchanges at working level over the last three years. Plus the Green and that’s Formal and Informal Conversations-‘
‘Bradfield told me.’
‘They’re like pieces, believe me, pieces in a puzzle… that’s what I thought at first…I’ve moved them round in my mind. Hour after hour. I haven’t slept. Now and then-‘ he broke off. ‘Now and then I thought I had an idea, a sort of picture, a half picture, I’d say…’ Stubbornly he concluded:
‘There’s no clear pattern to it, and no reason. Some are marked out by Leo to different people; some are marked “certified for destruction” but most are just plain missing. You can’t tell, you see. You just can’t keep tabs, it’s impossible. Until someone asks for the file you don’t know you haven’t got it.’
‘Box files?’
‘I told you. All forty-three. They weigh a couple of hundredweights between them I should think.’
‘And the letters? There are letters missing too.’
‘Yes,’ Meadowes said reluctantly. ‘We’re short of thirty-three incoming letters.’
‘Never entered, were they? Just lying about for anyone to pick up? What were the subjects? You haven’t put it down.’
‘We don’t know. That’s the truth. They’re letters from German Departments. We know the references because the bag room’s written them in the log. They never reached Registry.’
‘But you’ve checked the references?’
Very stiffly Meadowes said: ‘The missing letters belong on the missing files. The references are the same. That’s all we can tell. As they’re from German Departments, Bradfield has ruled that we do not ask for duplicates until the Brussels decision is through: in case our curiosity alerts them to Harting’s absence.’
Having returned his black notebook to his pocket, Turner rose and went to the barred window, touching the locks, testing the strength of the wire mesh.
‘There was something about him. He was special. Something made you watch him.’
From the carriageway they heard the two-tone wail of an emergency horn approach and fade again.
‘He was special,’ Turner repeated. ‘All the time you’ve been talking, I’ve heard it. Leo this, Leo that. You had your eye on him; you felt him, I know you did. Why?’
‘There was nothing.’
‘What were these rumours? What was it they said about him that frightened you? Was he somebody’s fancy-boy, Arthur? Something for Johnny Slingo, was he, in his old age? Working the queers’ circuit was he, is that what all the blushing’s for?’
Meadowes shook his head. ‘You’ve lost your sting,’ he said. ‘You can’t frighten me any more. I know you; I know your worst. It’s nothing to do with Warsaw. He wasn’t that kind. I’m not a child and Johnny’s not a homosexual either.’
Turner continued to stare at him. ‘There’s something you heard. Something you knew. You watched him, I know you did. You watched him cross a room; how he stood, how he reached for a file. He was doing the silliest bloody job in Registry and you talk about him as if he was the Ambassador. There was chaos in here, you said so yourself. Everyone except Leo chasing files, making up, entering, connecting, all standing on your heads to keep the ball rolling in a crisis. Andwhat was Leo doing? Leo was on Destruction. He could have been making flax for all his work mattered. You said so, not me. So what was it about him? Why did you watch him?’