The Looking Glass War Part 3

They breakfasted somewhere. LeClerc refused to go into the Cadena and they walked interminably until they found another cafe, worse than the Cadena and more expensive.

"I can't remember him," LeClerc said. "That's the absurd thing. He's a trained radio operator apparently. Or was in those days."

Avery thought he was talking about Taylor. "How old did you say he was?"

"Forty, something over. That's a good age. A Danzig Pole. They speak German, you know. Not as mad as the pure Slav. After the war he drifted for a couple of years, pulled himself together and bought a garage. He must have made a nice bit."

"Then I don't suppose he'll-"

"Nonsense. He'll be grateful, or should be."

LeClerc paid the bill and kept it. As they left the restaurant he said something about subsistence, and putting in a bill to Accounts. "You can claim for night duty as well, you know. Or time in lieu." They walked down the road. "Your air ticket is booked. Carol did it from her flat. We'd better give you an advance for expenses. There'll be the business of having his body sent and that kind of thing. I understand it can be very costly. You'd better have him flown. We'll do a post-mortem privately over here."

"I've never seen a dead man before," Avery said.

They were standing on a street corner in Kennington, looking for a taxi; a gasworks on one side of the road, nothing on the other: the sort of place they could wait all day.

"John, you've to keep very quiet about that side of it; about putting a man in. No one's to know, not even in the Department, no one at all. I thought we'd call him Mayfly. Leiser, I mean. We'll call him Mayfly."

"All right."

"It's very delicate; a question of timing. I've no doubt there'll be opposition, within the Department as well as outside."

"What about my cover and that kind of thing?" Avery asked. "I'm not quite ..." A taxi with its flag up pa.s.sed them without stopping.

"b.l.o.o.d.y man," LeClerc snapped. "Why didn't he pick us up?"

"He lives out here, I expect. He's making for the West End. About cover," he prompted.

"You're travelling under your own name. I don't see that there's any problem. You can use your own address. Call yourself a publisher. After all you were one. The Consul will show you the ropes. What are you worried about?"

"Well-just the details."

LeClerc, coming out of his reverie, smiled. "I'll tell you something about cover; something you'll learn for yourself. Never volunteer information. People don't expect you to explain yourself. After all, what is there to explain? The ground's prepared; the Consul will have our teleprint. Show your pa.s.sport and play the rest by ear."

"I'll try," said Avery.

"You'll succeed," LeClerc rejoined with feeling, and they both grinned shyly.

"How far is it to the town?" Avery said. "From the airport."

"About three miles. It feeds the main ski resorts. Heaven knows what the Consul does all day."

"And to Helsinki?"

"I told you. A hundred miles. Perhaps more."

Avery proposed they take a bus but LeClerc wouldn't queue so they remained standing at the corner. He began talking about official cars again. "It's utterly absurd," he said. "In the old days we had a pool of our own, now we have two vans and the Treasury won't let us pay the drivers overtime. How can I run the Department under those conditions?"

In the end they walked. LeClerc had the address in his head; he made a point of remembering such things. It was awkward for Avery to walk beside him for long, because LeClerc adjusted his pace to that of the taller man. Avery tried to keep himself in check, but sometimes he forgot and LeClerc would stretch uncomfortably beside him, thrusting upward with each stride. A fine rain was falling. It was still very cold.

There were times when Avery felt for LeClerc a deep, protective love. LeClerc had that indefinable quality of arousing guilt, as if his companion but poorly replaced a departed friend. Somebody had been there, and gone; perhaps a whole world, a generation; somebody had made him and disowned him, so that while at one moment Avery could hate him for his transparent manipulation, detest his prinking gestures as a child detests the affectations of a parent, at the next he ran to protect him, responsible and deeply caring. Beyond all the vicissitudes of their relations.h.i.+p, he was somehow grateful that LeClerc had engendered him; and thus they created that strong love which only exists between the weak; each became the stage to which the other related his actions.

"It would be a good thing," LeClerc said suddenly, "if you shared the handling of Mayfly."

"I'd like to."

"When you get back."

They had found the address on the map. Thirty-four Roxburgh Gardens; it was off Kennington High Street. The road soon became dingier, the houses more crowded. Gaslights burned yellow and flat like paper moons.

"In the war they gave us a hostel for the staff."

"Perhaps they will again," Avery suggested.

"It's twenty years since I did an errand like this."

"Did you go alone then?" Avery asked, and wished at once that he had not. It was so easy to inflict pain on LeClerc.

"It was simpler in those days. We could say they'd died for their country. We didn't have to tell them the details; they didn't expect that." So it was we, thought Avery. Some other boy, one of those laughing faces on the wall.

"They died every day then, the pilots. We did reconnaissance, you know, as well as special operation. ... I'm ashamed sometimes: I can't even remember their names. They were so young, some of them."

There pa.s.sed across Avery's mind a tragic procession of horror-struck faces: mothers and fathers, girl friends and wives, and he tried to visualize LeClerc standing among them, naive yet footsure, like a politician at the scene of a disaster.

They stood at the top of a rise. It was a wretched place. The road led downward into a line of dingy, eyeless houses; above them rose a single block of flats-Roxburgh Gardens. A string of lights shone on the glazed tiles, dividing and redividing the whole structure into cells. It was a large building, very ugly in its way, the beginning of a new world, and at its feet lay the black rubble of the old: crumbling, oily houses haunted by sad faces which moved through the rain like driftwood in a forgotten harbour LeClerc's frail fists were clenched; he stood very still.

"There?" he said. "Taylor lived there?"

"What's wrong? It's part of a scheme, redevelopment..."

Then Avery understood. LeClerc was ashamed. Taylor had disgracefully deceived him. This was not the society they protected, these slums with their Babel's Tower: they had no place in LeClerc's scheme of things. To think that a member of LeClerc's staff should daily trudge from the breath and stink of such a place to the sanctuary of the Department: had he no money, no pension? Had he not a little bit beside, as we all have, just a hundred or two, to buy himself out of this squalor?

"It's no worse than Blackfriars Road," Avery said involuntarily; it was meant to comfort him.

"Everyone knows we used to be in Baker Street," LeClerc retorted.

They made their way quickly to the base of the block, past shop windows filled with old clothes and rusted electric heaters, all the sad muddle of useless things which only the poor will buy. There was a chandler; his candles were yellow and dusty like fragments of a tomb.

"What number?" LeClerc asked.

"You said thirty-four."

They pa.s.sed between heavy pillars crudely ornamented with mosaics, followed plastic arrows marked with pink numbers; they squeezed between lines of aged, empty cars, until finally they came to a concrete entrance with cartons of milk on the step. There was no door, but a flight of rubberized steps which squeaked as they trod. The air smelled of food and that liquid soap they dispense in railway lavatories. On the heavy stucco wall a hand-painted notice discouraged noise. Somewhere a wireless played. They continued up two flights and stopped before a green door, half-glazed. Mounted on it in letters of white Bakelite was the number 34. LeClerc took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his temples. He might have been entering church. It had been raining more than they realized; their coats were quite wet. He pressed the bell. Avery was suddenly very frightened. He glanced at LeClerc and thought, This is your show; you tell her.

The music seemed louder. They strained their ears to catch some other sound, but there was none.

"Why did you call him Malherbe?" Avery asked suddenly.

LeClerc pressed the bell again; and then they heard it, both of them, a whimper midway between the sob of a child and the whine of a cat, a throttled, metallic sigh. While LeClerc stepped back, Avery seized the bronze knocker on the letter box and banged it violently. The echo died away and they heard from inside the flat a light, reluctant tread; a bolt was slid from its housing, a spring lock disengaged. Then they heard again, much louder and more distinctly, the same plaintive monotone. The door opened a few inches and Avery saw a child, a frail, pallid rag of a girl not above ten years old. She wore steel-rimmed spectacles, the kind Anthony wore. In her arms, its pink limbs splayed stupidly about it, its painted eyes staring from between fringes of ragged cotton, was a doll. Its daubed mouth was lolling open, its head hung sideways as if it were broken or dead. It is called a talking doll, but no living thing uttered such a sound.

"Where is your mother?" asked LeClerc. His voice was aggressive, frightened.

The child shook her head. "Gone to work."

"Who looks after you, then?"

She spoke slowly as if she were thinking of something else. "Mum comes back teatimes. I'm not to open the door."

"Where is she? Where does she go?"

"Work."

"Who gives you lunch?" LeClerc insisted.

"What?"

"Who gives you dinner?" Avery said quickly.

"Mrs. Bradley. After school."

Then Avery asked, "Where's your father?" and she smiled and put a finger to her lips.

"He's gone on an airplane," she said. "To get money. But I'm not to say. It's a secret."

Neither of them spoke. "He's bringing me a present," she added.

"Where from?" said Avery.

"From the North Pole, but it's a secret." She still had her hand on the doork.n.o.b. "Where Father Christmas comes from."

"Tell your mother some men were here," Avery said. "From your dad's office. We'll come again teatime."

"It's important," said LeClerc.

She seemed to relax when she heard they knew her father.

"He's on an airplane," she repeated.

Avery felt in his pocket and gave her two half crowns, the change from Sarah's ten s.h.i.+llings. She closed the door, leaving them on that d.a.m.ned staircase with the wireless playing dreamy music.

Four.

They stood in the street not looking at one another. LeClerc said, "Why did you ask that question, the question about her father?"

Avery offered no reply; LeClerc did not seem to expect one.

Sometimes LeClerc seemed neither to hear, nor to feel; he drifted away, listening for a sound, like a man who having learned the steps had been deprived of the music. This mood read like a deep sadness, like the bewilderment of a man betrayed.

"I'm afraid I shan't be able to come back here with you this afternoon," Avery said gently. "Perhaps Bruce Woodford would be preferred . . ."

"Bruce is no good." He added: "You'll be at the meeting: at ten forty-five?"

"I may have to leave before the end to get to the Circus and collect my things. Sarah hasn't been well. I'll stay at the office as long as I can. I'm sorry I asked that question, I really am."

"I don't want anyone to know. I must speak to her mother first. There may be some explanation. Taylor's an old hand. He knew the rules."

"I shan't mention it, I promise I shan't. Nor Mayfly."

"I must tell Haldane about Mayfly. He'll object of course. Yes, that's what we'll call it... the whole operation. We'll call it Mayfly." The thought consoled him.

They hurried to the office, not to work but for refuge; for anonymity, a quality they had come to need.

His room was one along from LeClerc's. It had a label on the door saying a.s.sISTANT TO THE DIRECTOR. Two years ago LeClerc had been invited to America, and the expression dated from his return. Within the Department, staff were referred to by the function they fulfilled. Hence Avery was known simply as Private Office; though LeClerc might alter the t.i.tle every week, he could not alter the vernacular.

At a quarter to eleven Woodford came into his room. Avery guessed he would: a little chat before the meeting began, a quiet word about some matter not strictly on the agenda.

"What's it all about, John?" He lit his pipe, tilted back his large head and extinguished the match with long, swinging movements of his hand. He had once been a schoolmaster; an athletic man.

"You tell me."

"Poor Taylor."

"Precisely."

"I don't want to jump the gun," he said, and settled himself on the edge of the desk, still absorbed in his pipe. "I don't want to jump the gun, John," he repeated, "but there's another matter we ought to look at, tragic as Taylor's death is." He stowed the tobacco tin in the pocket of his green suit and said, "Registry."

"That's Haldane's parish. Research."

"I've got nothing against old Adrian. He's a good scout. We've been working together for over twenty years." And therefore you're a good scout too, thought Avery.

Woodford had a way of coming close when he spoke; riding his heavy shoulder against you like a horse rubbing itself against a gate. He leaned forward and looked at Avery earnestly: a plain man perplexed, he was saying, a decent man choosing between friends.h.i.+p and duty. His suit was hairy, too thick to crease, forming rolls like a blanket; rough-cut b.u.t.tons of brown bone.

"John, Registry's all to the devil; we both know that. Papers aren't being entered, files aren't brought up on the right dates." He shook his head in despair. "We've been missing a policy file on marine freight since mid-October. Just vanished into thin air."

"Adrian Haldane put out a search notice," Avery said. "We were all involved, not just Adrian. Files do get lost-this is the first time since April, Bruce. I don't think that's bad, considering the amount we handle. I thought Registry was one of our best things. The files are immaculate. I understand our Research index is unique. That's all Adrian's doing, isn't it? Still, if you're worried, why not speak to Adrian about it?"

"No, no. It's not that important."

Carol came in with the tea. Woodford had his in a pottery jumbo-cup with his initials drawn large, embossed like icing. As Carol put it down, she remarked, "Wilf Taylor's dead."

"I've been here since one," Avery lied, "coping with it. We've been working all night."