‘Whatever there was of that has worn pretty thin by now,’ Bradfield remarked, with a hint of that dismay, or self-contempt, which Turner now occasionally discerned in him.
‘Then what about the Thursday meeting?’
A look of sheer pain crossed Bradfield’s face.
‘My God, you are insufferable,’ he said, more as a mental note, a privately recorded judgment, than an insult directly intended.
‘The Thursday conference that never was! It was you who took Harting off that conference; you who gave the job to de Lisle. But Harting still went out Thursday afternoons all right. Did you stop him? Did you hell. I expect you even know where he went, don’t you.’ He held up the gunmetal key he had taken from Harting’s suit. ‘Because there’s a special place, you see. A hideaway. Or maybe I’m telling you something you know already. Who did he meet out there? Do you know that too? I used to think it was Praschko, until I remembered you fed me that idea, you yourself. So I’m going bloody carefully with Praschko.’
Turner was leaning across the desk, shouting at Bradfield’s bowed head. ‘As to Siebkron, he’s rolling up a whole bloody network, like as not. Dozens of agents, for all we know; Harting was just one link in a chain. You can’t begin to control what Siebkron knows and doesn’t know. We’re dealing with reality, you know, not diplomacy.’ He pointed to the window and the blurred hills across the river. ‘They sell horses over there! They screw around, talk to friends, make journeys; they’ve been beyond the edge of the forest, they know what the world looks like!’
‘It requires very little, in an intelligent person, to know that,’ said Bradfield.
‘And that’s what I’m going to tell Lumley when I get back to the smoke. Harting didn’t work alone! He had a patron as well as a controller and for all I know, they were the same man! And for all I bloody well know, Leo Harting was Rawley Bradfield’s fancy boy! Having a bit of public school vice on the side!’
Bradfield was standing up, his face contracted with anger. ‘Tell Lumley what you like,’ he whispered, ‘but get out of here and don’t ever come back,’ and it was then that Mickie Crabbe put his red, bubbling face round Miss Peate’s connecting door.
He was looking puzzled and slightly indignant, and he was chewing absurdly at his ginger moustache. ‘Rawley, I say,’ he said and began again, as if he had started in the wrong octave. ‘Sorry to burst in, Rawley. I tried the door in the corridor but the latch was down. Sorry, Rawley. It’s about Leo,’ he said.
The rest came out with rather a rush. ‘I’ve just seen him down at the railway station. Bloody well having a beer.’
‘Be quick,’ said Bradfield.
‘Doing a favour for Peter de Lisle. That’s all,’ Crabbe began defensively. Turner caught the smell of drink on his breath, mingling with the smell of peppermint. ‘Peter had to go down to the Bundestag. Debate on Emergency Legislation, big thing apparently, second day, so he asked me to cover the jamboree at the railway station. The Movement’s leaders, coming in from Hanover. Watch the arrivals, see who turned up. I often do odd jobs for Peter,’ he added apologetically. ‘Turned out to be a Lord Mayor’s Show. Press, television lights, masses of cars lined up in the road’ – he glanced nervously at Bradfield – ‘where the taxis stand, Rawley, you know. And crowds. All singing rah-rah and waving the old black flags. Bit of music.’ He shook his head in private wonder. ‘That square is plastered with slogans.’
‘And you saw Leo,’ Turner said, pressing. ‘In the crowd?’
‘Sort of.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, the back of his head. Head and shoulders. Just a glimpse. No time to grab him: gone.’
Turner seized him with his big stone hands. ‘You said you saw him having a beer!’
‘Let him go,’ said Bradfield.
‘Hey steady!’ For a moment Crabbe looked almost ferocious. ‘Well, I saw him later, you see. After the show was over. Face to face sort of thing.’
Turner released him.