Haldane dismissed the car and turned off the road toward South Park Gardens, a crescent five minutes from the Avenue. A school, a post office, four shops and a bank. He stooped a little as he walked; a black briefcase hung from his thin hand. He made his way quietly along the pavement; the tower of a modern church rose above the houses; a clock struck seven. A grocer’s on the corner, new facade, self-service. He looked at the name: Smethwick. Inside, a youngish man in overalls was completing a pyramid of cereal foods. Haldane rapped on the glass. The man shook his head and added a packet to the pyramid. He knocked again, sharply. The grocer came to the door.
“I’m not allowed to sell you anything,” he shouted, “so it’s no good knocking, is it?” He noticed the briefcase and asked, “Are you a rep then?”
Haldane put his hand in his inside pocket and held something to the window—a card in a cellophane wrapper like a season ticket. The grocer stared at it. Slowly he turned the key.
“I want a word with you in private,” Haldane said, stepping inside.
“I’ve never seen one of those,” the grocer observed uneasily. “I suppose it’s all right.”
“It’s quite all right. A security inquiry. Someone called Leiser, a Pole. I understand he worked here long ago.”
“I’ll have to call my dad,” the grocer said. “I was only a kid then.”
“I see,” said Haldane, as if he disliked the youth.
It was nearly midnight when Avery rang Leclerc. He answered straightaway. Avery could imagine him sitting up in the steel bed, the Air Force blankets thrown back, his small, alert face anxious for the news.
“It’s John,” he said cautiously.
“Yes, yes, I know who you are.” He sounded cross that Avery had mentioned his name.
“The deal’s off, I’m afraid. They’re not interested … negative. You’d better tell the man I saw; the little, fat man … tell him we shan’t need the service of his friend here.”
“I see. Never mind.” He sounded utterly uninterested.
Avery didn’t know what to say; he just didn’t know. He needed desperately to go on talking to Leclerc. He wanted to tell him about Sutherland’s contempt and the passport that wasn’t right. “The people here, the people I’m negotiating with, are rather worried about the whole deal.”
He waited.
He wanted to call him by his name but he had no name for him. They did not use “Mister” in the Department; the elder men addressed one another by their surnames and called the juniors by their Christian names. There was no established style of addressing one’s superior. So he said, “Are you still there?” and Leclerc replied, “Of course. Who’s worried? What’s gone wrong?” Avery thought: I could have called him “Director,” but that would have been insecure.
“The representative here, the man who looks after our interests … he’s found out about the deal,” he said. “He seems to have guessed.”
“You stressed it was highly confidential?”
“Yes, of course.” How could he ever explain about Sutherland?
“Good. We don’t want any trouble with the Foreign Office just now.” In an altered tone Leclerc continued, “Things are going very well over here, John, very well. When do you get back?”
“I’ve got to cope with the … with bringing our friend home. There are a lot of formalities. It’s not as easy as you’d think.”
“Never mind. When will you be finished?”
“Tomorrow.”
“I’ll send a car to meet you at Heathrow. A lot’s happened in the last few hours; a lot of improvements. We need you badly.” Leclerc added, throwing him a coin, “And well done, John, well done indeed.”
“All right.”
He expected to sleep heavily that night, but after what might have been an hour he woke, alert and watchful. He looked at his watch; it was ten past one. Getting out of bed he went to the window and looked on to the snow-covered landscape, marked by the darker lines of the road which led to the airport; he thought he could discern the little rise where Taylor had died.
He was desolate and afraid. His mind was obsessed by confused visions: Taylor’s dreadful face, the face he so nearly saw, drained of blood, wide-eyed as if communicating a crucial discovery; Leclerc’s voice, filled with vulnerable optimism; the fat policeman, staring at him in envy, as if he were something he could not afford to buy. He realized he was a person who did not take easily to solitude. Solitude saddened him, made him sentimental. He found himself thinking, for the first time since he had left the flat that morning, of Sarah and Anthony. Tears came suddenly to his tired eyes when he recalled his boy, the steel-rimmed spectacles like tiny irons; he wanted to hear his voice, he wanted Sarah, and the familiarity of his home. Perhaps he could telephone the flat, speak to her mother, ask after her. But what if she were ill? He had suffered enough pain that day, he had given enough of his energy, fear and invention. He had lived a nightmare: he could not be expected to ring her now. He went back to bed.