Avery could remember it when the fog lingered contentedly against its stucco walls, or in the summer, when the sunlight would briefly peer through the mesh curtains of his room, leaving no warmth, revealing no secrets. And he would remember it on that winter dawn, its facade stained black, the streetlights catching the raindrops on the grimy windows. But however he remembered it, it was not as a place where he worked, but where he lived.
Following the path to the back, he rang the bell and waited for Pine to open the door. A light shone in Leclerc’s window.
He showed Pine his pass. Perhaps both were reminded of the war: for Avery a vicarious pleasure, while Pine could look back on experience.
“A lovely moon, sir,” said Pine.
“Yes.” Avery stepped inside. Pine followed him in, locking up behind him.
“Time was, the boy would curse a moon like this.”
“Yes indeed.” Avery laughed.
“Heard about the Melbourne test, sir? Bradley’s out for three.”
“Oh dear,” said Avery pleasantly. He disliked cricket.
A blue lamp glowed from the hall ceiling like the night light in a Victorian hospital. Avery climbed the staircase; he felt cold and uneasy. Somewhere a bell rang. It was odd how Sarah had not heard the telephone.
Leclerc was waiting for him: “We need a man,” he said. He spoke involuntarily, like someone waking. A light shone on the file before him.
He was sleek, small and very bland; a precise cat of a man, clean-shaven and groomed. His stiff collars were cut away; he favored ties of one color, knowing perhaps that a weak claim was worse than none. His eyes were dark and quick; he smiled as he spoke, yet conveyed no pleasure. His jackets had twin vents, he kept his handkerchief in his sleeve. On Fridays he wore suede shoes, and they said he was going to the country. No one seemed to know where he lived. The room was in half darkness.
“We can’t do another overflight. This was the last; they warned me at the Ministry. We’ll have to put a man in. I’ve been going through the old cards, John. There’s one called Leiser, a Pole. He would do.”
“What happened to Taylor? Who killed him?”
Avery went to the door and switched on the main light. They looked at one another awkwardly. “Sorry. I’m still half asleep,” Avery said. They began again, finding the thread.
Leclerc spoke up. “You took a time, John. Something go wrong at home?” He was not born to authority.
“I couldn’t get a cab. I phoned the rank at Clapham but they didn’t answer. Nor Albert Bridge; nothing there either.” He hated to disappoint Leclerc.
“You can charge for it,” Leclerc said distantly. “And the phone calls, you realize. Your wife all right?”
“I told you: there was no reply. She’s fine.”
“She didn’t mind?”
“Of course not.”
They never talked about Sarah. It was as if they shared a single relationship to Avery’s wife, like children who are able to share a toy they no longer care for. Leclerc said, “Well, she’s got that son of yours to keep her company.”
“Yes, rather.”
Leclerc was proud of knowing it was a son and not a daughter.
He took a cigarette from the silver box on his desk. He had told Avery once: the box was a gift, a gift from the war. The man who gave it to him was dead, the occasion for giving it was past; there was no inscription on the lid. Even now, he would say, he was not entirely certain whose side the man had been on, and Avery would laugh to make him happy.
Taking the file from his desk, Leclerc now held it directly under the light as if there were something in it which he must study very closely.
“John.”
Avery went to him, trying not to touch his shoulder.
“What do you make of a face like that?”
“I don’t know. It’s hard to tell from photographs.”
It was the head of a boy, round and blank, with long, fair hair swept back.
“Leiser. He looks all right, doesn’t he? That was twenty years ago, of course,” Leclerc said. “We gave him a very high rating.” Reluctantly he put it down, struck his lighter and held it to the cigarette. “Well,” he said briskly, “we seem to be up against something. I’ve no idea what happened to Taylor. We have a routine consular report, that’s all. A car accident apparently. A few details, nothing informative. The sort of thing that goes out to next of kin. The Foreign Office sent us the teleprint as it came over the wire. They knew it was one of our passports.” He pushed a sheet of flimsy paper across the desk. He loved to make you read things while he waited. Avery glanced at it: