“You both deserve great credit,” Leclerc said, nodding gratefully at Haldane and Avery. “You too, Johnson. From now on there’s nothing any of us can do: it’s up to Mayfly.” A special smile for Avery: “How about you, John; you’ve been keeping very quiet. Do you think you’ve profited from the experience?” He added with a laugh, appealing to the other two, “I do hope we shan’t have a divorce on our hands; we must get you home to your wife.”
He was sitting at the edge of the table, his small hands folded tidily on his knees. When Avery said nothing he declared brightly, “I had a ticking off from Carol, you know, Adrian; breaking up the young home.”
Haldane smiled as if it were an amusing notion. “I’m sure there’s no danger of that,” he said.
“He made a great hit with Smiley, too: we must see they don’t poach him away!”
Nineteen
When the train reached Kalkstadt, Leiser waited until the other passengers had left the platform. An elderly guard collected the tickets. He seemed a kindly man.
“I’m looking for a friend,” Leiser said. “A man called Fritsche. He used to work here.”
The guard frowned.
“Fritsche?”
“Yes.”
“What was his first name?”
“I don’t know.”
“How old then; how old about?”
He guessed: “Forty.”
“Fritsche, here, at this station?”
“Yes. He had a small house down by the river; a single man.”
“A whole house? And worked at this station?”
“Yes.”
The guard shook his head. “Never heard of him.” He peered at Leiser. “Are you sure?” he said.
“That’s what he told me.” Something seemed to come back to him. “He wrote to me in November … he complained that Vopos had closed the station.”
“You’re mad,” the guard said. “Good night.”
“Good night,” Leiser replied; as he walked away he was conscious all the time of the man’s gaze upon his back.
There was an inn in the main street called the Old Bell. He waited at the desk in the hall and nobody came. He opened a door and found himself in a big room, dark at the further end. A girl sat at a table in front of an old phonograph. She was slumped forward, her head buried in her arms, listening to the music. A single light burned above her. When the record stopped she played it again, moving the arm of the record player without lifting her head.
“I’m looking for a room,” Leiser said. “I’ve just arrived from Langdorn.”
There were stuffed birds around the room: herons, pheasants and a kingfisher. “I’m looking for a room,” he repeated. It was dance music, very old.
“Ask at the desk.”
“There’s no one there.”
“They have nothing, anyway. They’re not allowed to take you. There’s a hostel near the church. You have to stay there.”
“Where’s the church?”
With an exaggerated sigh she stopped the record, and Leiser knew she was glad to have someone to talk to.
“It was bombed,” she declared. “We just talk about it still. There’s only the tower left.”
Finally he said, “Surely they’ve got a bed here. It’s a big place.” He put his rucksack in a corner and sat at the table next to her. He ran a hand through his thick dry hair.
“You look all in,” the girl said.
His blue trousers were still caked with mud from the border. “I’ve been on the road all day. Takes a lot out of you.”
She stood up self-consciously and went to the end of the room where a wooden staircase led upward toward a glimmer of light. She called out but no one came.
“Steinhager?” she asked him from the dark.
“Yes.”
She returned with a bottle and a glass. She was wearing a mackintosh, an old brown one of military cut with epaulets and square shoulders.
“Where are you from?” she asked.
“Magdeburg. I’m making north. Got a job in Rostock.” How many more times would he say it? “This hostel; do I get a room to myself?”
“If you want one.”
The light was so poor that at first he could scarcely make her out. Gradually she came alive. She was about eighteen and heavily built; quite a pretty face but bad skin. The same age as the boy; older perhaps.