A Small Town In Germany Read online

  'Five years back. In the night club. Someone worked him over; he was in hospital for six weeks. They managed to hush it up.'

  'That was before my time.'

  'Did he drink a lot?'

  'Not to my knowledge.'

  'Speak Russian? Take lessons?'

  'No.'

  'What did he do with his leave?'

  'He seldom claimed any. If he did, I understand he stayed at his home in Königswinter. He took a certain interest in his garden, I believe.'

  For a long time Turner frankly searched Bradfield's face for something he could not find.

  'He didn't screw around,' he said. 'He wasn't queer. He'd no friends, but he wasn't a recluse. He wasn't vetted and you've no record of him. He was a political innocent but he managed to get his hands on the one file that really matters to you. He never stole money, he played the organ in Chapel, took a certain interest in his garden and loved his neighbour as himself. Is that it? He wasn't any bloody thing, positive or negative. What was he then, for Christ's sake? The Embassy eunuch? Haven't you any opinion at all' - Turner persisted in mock supplicaton - 'to help a poor bloody investigator in his lonely task?'

  A watch chain hung across Bradfield's waistcoat, no more than a thread of gold, a tiny devotional token of ordered society.

  'You seem deliberately to be wasting time on matters which are not at issue. I have neither the time nor the interest to play your devious games. Insignificant though Harting was, obscure though his motive may be, for the last three months he unfortunately had a considerable access to secret infor­mation. He obtained that access by stealth, and I suggest that instead of speculating on his sexual proclivities, you give some attention to what he has stolen.'

  'Stolen?' Turner repeated softly. 'That's a funny word,' and he wrote it out with deliberate clumsiness in tall capital letters along the top of one page of the notebook. The Bonn climate had already made its mark upon him: dark dabs of sweat had appeared on the thin fabric of his disgraceful suit.

  'All right,' he said with sudden fierceness, 'I'm wasting your bloody time. Now let's start at the beginning and find out why you love him so.'

  Bradfield examined his fountain pen. You could be queer, Turner's expression said, if you didn't love honour more.

  'Will you put that into English?'

  'Tell me about him from your own point of view. What his work was, what he was like.'

  'His sole task when I first arrived was handling German civilian claims against Rhine Army. Tank damage to crops; stray shells from the range; cattle and sheep killed on manoeuvres. Ever since the end of the war that's been quite an industry in Germany. By the time I took over Chancery two and a half years ago, he had made a corner of it.'

  'You mean he was an expert.'

  'As you like.'

  'It's just the emotive terms, you see. They put me off. I can't help liking him when you talk that way.'

  'Claims was his métier then, if you prefer. They got him into the Embassy in the first place; he knew the job inside out; he's done it for many years in many different capacities. First for the Control Commission, then for the Army.'

  'What did he do before that? He came out in forty-five.'

  'He came out in uniform, of course. A sergeant or some­thing of the sort. His status was then altered to that of civilian assistant. I've no idea what his work was. I imagine the War Office could tell you.'

  'They can't. I also tried the old Control Commission archive. It's mothballs for posterity. They'll take weeks to dig out his file.'

  'In any event, he had chosen well. As long as British units were stationed in Germany, there would be manoeuvres; and German civilians would claim reparations. One might say that his job, though specialised, was at least secured by our military presence in Europe.'

  'Christ, there's not many would give you a mortgage on that,' said Turner with a sudden, infectious smile, but Bradfield ignored him.

  'He acquitted himself perfectly adequately. More than adequately; he was good at it. He had a smattering of law from somewhere. German as well as military. He was naturally acquisitive.'

  'A thief,' Turner suggested, watching him.

  'When he was in doubt, he could call upon the Legal Attaché. It wasn't everybody's cup of tea, acting as a broker between the German farmers and the British Army, smoothing their feathers, keeping things away from the press. It required a certain instinct. He possessed that,' Bradfield observed, once more with undisguised contempt. 'On his own level, he was a competent negotiator.'

  'But that wasn't your level, was it?'

  'It was no one's,' Bradfield replied, choosing to avoid the innuendo. 'Professionally, he was a solitary. My predecessors had found it best to leave him alone and when I took over I saw no reason to change the practice. He was attached to Chancery so that we could exert a certain disciplinary control; no more. He came to morning meetings, he was punctual, he made no trouble. He was liked up to a point but not, I suppose, trusted. His English was never perfect. He was socially ener­getic at a certain level; mainly in the less discriminating Embassies. They say he got on well with the South Americans.'

  'Did he travel for his work?'

  'Frequently and widely. All over Germany.'

  'Alone?'

  'Yes.'

  'And he knew the Army inside out: he'd get the manoeuvre reports; he knew their dispositions, strengths, he knew the lot, right?'

  'He knew far more than that; he heard the mess gossip up and down the country; many of the manoeuvres were inter-­allied affairs. Some involved the experimental use of new weapons. Since they also caused damage, he was obliged to know the extent of it. There is a great deal of loose infor­mation he could have acquired.'

  'Nato stuff?'

  'Mainly.'

  'How long's he been doing that work?'

  'Since nineteen forty-eight or nine, I suppose. I cannot say, without reference to the files, when the British first paid com­pensatlon.'

  'Say twenty-one years, give or take a bit.'

  'That is my own calculation.'

  'Not a bad run for a temporary.'

  'Shall I go on?'

  'Do. Sure. Go on,' Turner said hospitably, and thought: if I was you I'd throw me out for that.

  'That was the situation when I took over. He was a contract man; his employment was subject to annual revision. Each December his contract came up for renewal, each December renewal was recommended. That was how matters stood until eighteen months ago.'

  'When Rhine Army pulled out.'

  'We prefer to say here that Rhine Army has been added to our strategic reserve in the United Kingdom. You must remember the Germans are still paying support costs.'

  'I'll remember.'

  'In any event, only a skeleton force remained in Germany. The withdrawal occurred quite suddenly; I imagine it took us all by surprise. There had been disputes about offset agree­ments, there were riots in Minden. The Movement was just getting under way; the students in particular were becoming extremely noisy; the troops were becoming a provocation. The decision was taken at the highest level; the Ambassador was not even consulted. The order came; and Rhine Army had gone in a month. We had been making a great number of cuts around that time. It's all the rage in London these days. They throw things away and call it economy.' Once more Turner glimpsed that inner bitterness in Bradfield, a family shame to which no guest alluded.

  'And Harting was left high and dry.'

  'For some time, no doubt, he had seen which way the wind was blowing. That doesn't lessen the shock.'

  'He was still a temporary?'

  'Of course. Indeed his chances of establishment, if they ever seriously existed, were diminishing rapidly. The moment it became apparent that Rhine Army must withdraw, the writing was on the wall. For that reason alone, I felt that it would have been quite mistaken to make any permanent arrangement for him.'

  'Yes,' said Turner, 'I see that.'

  'It is easily argued that he was unjustly tre
ated,' Bradfield retorted. 'It could equally be argued that he had a damn good run for his money.' The conviction came through like a stain, suppress it as he might.

  'You said he handled official cash.' Turner thought: this is what doctors do. They probe until they can diagnose.

  'Occasionally he passed on cheques for the Army. He was a postbox, that was all. A middle man. The Army drew the money, Harting handed it over and obtained a receipt. I checked his accounts regularly. The Army Auditors, as you know, are notoriously suspicious. There were no irregularities. The system was watertight.'

  'Even for Harting?'

  'That's not what I said. Besides, he always seemed quite comfortably off. I don't think he's an avaricious person; I don't have that impression.'

  'Did he live above his means?'

  'How should I know what means he has? If he lived on what he got here, I suppose he lived up to them. His house in Königswinter was quite large; certainly it was above his grade. I gather he maintained a certain standard there.'

  'I see.'

  'Last night I made a point of examining his cash drawings for the last three months preceding his departure. On Friday, after Chancery meeting, he drew seventy-one pounds and four pence.'

  'That's a bloody odd sum.'

  'On the contrary, it's a very logical sum. Friday was the tenth of the month. He had drawn exactly one third of his monthly entitlement of pay and allowances, less tax, insurance, stop­pages for dilapidation and personal telephone calls.' He paused. 'That is an aspect of him which perhaps I have not emphasised: he was a very self-sufficient person.'

  'You mean he is.'

  'I have never yet caught him in a lie. Having decided to leave, he seems to have taken what was owing to him and no more.'

  'Some people would call that honourable.'

  'Not to steal? I would call that a negative achievement. He might also know, from his knowledge of the law, that an act of theft would have justified an approach to the German police.'

  'Christ,' said Turner, watching him, 'you won't even give him marks for conduct.'

  Miss Peate, Bradfield's personal assistant, brought coffee. She was a middle-aged, under-decorated woman, stitched taut and full of disapproval. She seemed to know already where Turner came from, for she cast him a look of sovereign con­tempt. It was his shoes, he noticed to his pleasure, that she most objected to; and he thought: bloody good, that's what shoes are for.

  Bradfield continued: 'Rhine Army withdrew at short notice and he was left without ajob. That was the nub of it.'

  'And without access to Nato military intelligence? That's what you're telling me.'

  'That is my hypothesis.'

  'Ah,' said Turner, affecting enlightenment, and wrote laboriously in his notebook hypothesis as if the very word were an addition to his vocabulary.

  'On the day Rhine Army left, Harting came to see me. That was eighteen months ago, near enough.'

  He fell silent, struck by his own recollection.

  'He is so trivial,' he said at last, in a moment of quite uncharacteristic softness. 'Can't you understand that? So utterly lightweight.' It seemed to surprise him still. 'It's easy to lose sight of now: the sheer insignificance of him.'

  'He never will be again,' Turner said carelessly. 'You might as well get used to it.'

  'He walked in; he looked pale, that was all; otherwise quite unchanged. He sat down in that chair over there. That is his cushion, by the way.' He permitted himself a small, unloving smile. 'The cushion was a territorial claim. He was the only member of the Chancery who reserved his seat.'

  'And the only one who might lose it. Who embroidered it?'

  'I really have no idea.'

  'Did he have a housekeeper?'

  'Not to my knowledge.'

  'All right.'

  'He didn't say anything at all about his altered situation. They were actually listening to the radio broadcast in Registry, I remember. The regiments were being piped on to the trains.'

  'Quite a moment for him, that.'

  'I suppose it was. I asked him what I could do for him. Well, he said, he wanted to be useful. It was all very low-key, all very delicate. He'd noticed Miles Gaveston was under strain, what with the Berlin disturbances and the Hanover students and various other pressures: might he not help out? I pointed out to him he was not qualified to handle internal matters; they were the preserve of regular members of Chancery. No, he said, that wasn't what he meant at all. He wouldn't for a minute presume to trespass upon our major effort. But he had been thinking: Gaveston had one or two little jobs; could he not take them over? He had in mind for instance the Anglo-German Society, which was pretty well dormant by then but still entailed a certain amount of low-level correspon­dence. Then there was Missing Persons: might he not take over a few things of that kind in order to disencumber the busier Chancery Officers? It made some sense, I had to admit.'

  'So you said yes.'

  'I agreed to it. On a purely provisional basis, of course. An interim arrangement. I assumed we would give him notice in December when his contract ran out; until then, he could fill in his time with whatever small jobs he could find. That was the thin end of the wedge. I was no doubt foolish to listen to him.'

  'I didn't say that.'

  'You don't have to. I gave him an inch; he took the rest. Within a month he had gathered them all in; all the end-­clippings of Chancery work, all the dross a big Embassy attracts: Missing Persons, Petitions to the Queen, Unan­nounced Visitors, Official Tours, the Anglo-German Society, letters of abuse, threats, all the things that should never have come to Chancery in the first place. By the same token, he spread his talents across the social field as well. Chapel, the choir, the Catering Committee, the Sports Committee. He even started up a National Savings group. At some point he asked to be allowed to use the title "Consular" and I consented. We have no Consular duties here, you understand; that all goes up to Cologne.' He shrugged. 'By December he had made himself useful. His contract was brought forward' - he had taken up his fountain pen and was again staring at the nib - 'and I renewed it. I gave him another year.'

  'You treated him well,' Turner said, his eyes all the time upon Bradfield. 'You were quite kind to him really.'

  'He had no standing here, no security. He was already on the doorstep and he knew it. I suppose that plays a part. We are more inclined to care for the people we can easily get rid of.'

  'You were sorry for him. Why won't you admit it? It's a fair enough reason, for God's sake.'

  'Yes. Yes I suppose I was. That first time, I was actually sorry for him.' He was smiling, but only at his own stupidity.

  'Did he do the work well?'

  'He was unorthodox, but not ineffectual. He preferred the telephone to the written word, but that was only natural; he had had no proper instruction in drafting. English was not his native language.' He shrugged. 'I gave him another year,' he said again.

  'Which expired last December. Like a licence really. A licence to work; to be one of us.' He continued to watch Bradfield. 'A licence to spy. And you renewed it a second time.'

  'Yes.'

  'Why?'

  Once more Turner was aware of that hesitation which seemed to signify concealment.

  'You weren't sorry for him, were you? Not this time?'

  'My feelings are irrelevant.' He put down the pen with a snap. 'The reasons for keeping him on were totally objective.'

  'I didn't say they weren't. But you can still be sorry for him.'

  'We were understaffed and overworked. The Inspectors had already reduced us by two against my most strenuous advice. The allowances had been halved. Not just Europe was in flux. There were no constants anywhere any more. Rhodesia, Hong Kong, Cyprus... British troops were running from one to the other trying to stamp out a forest fire. We were half-way into Europe and half-way out again. There was talk of a Nordic Federation; God knows what fool gave birth to that idea!' Bradfield declared with utter contempt. 'We were putting out feelers in W
arsaw, Copenhagen and Moscow. One minute we were conspiring against the French, the next we were conspir­ing with them. While that was going on we found the energy to scrap three-quarters of the Navy and nine-tenths of our independent deterrent. It was our worst time; our most humili­ating time, and our busiest. To crown everything, Karfeld had just taken over the Movement.'

  'So Harting took you through the act again.'

  'Not the same act.'

  'What do you mean?'

  A pause.

  'It had more purpose. It had more urgency. I felt it and I did nothing about it. I blame myself. I was conscious of a new mood in him and I did not pursue it.' He continued: 'At the time I put it down to the general state of intensity in which we were all living. I realise now that he was playing his biggest card.'

  'Well?'

  'He began by saying he still didn't feel he was pulling his weight. He had had a good year, but he felt he could do more. These were bad days; he would like to feel he was really helping to get things on an even keel. I asked him what he had in mind; I thought he'd just about swept the board by then. He said, well, it was December - that was the nearest he ever came to referring to his contract - and he had naturally been wondering about the Personalities Survey.'

  'The what?'

  'Biographies of prominent figures in German life. Our own confidential Who's Who. We prepare it every year, each of us takes a hand and contributes something on the German personalities with whom he deals. The Commercial people write about their commercial contacts, the Economists about the economists, the Attachés, Press, Information, they all add their bit. Much of the material is highly unflattering; some of it is derived from secret sources.'

  'And Chancery edits?'

  'Yes. Once again he had chosen very accurately. It was another of those chores which interfered with our proper duties. It was already overdue. De Lisle, who should have compiled it, was in Berlin; it was becoming a confounded nuisance.'

  'So you gave him the job.'

  'On a provisional basis, yes.'

  'Until the next December, for instance?'

  'For instance. It is easy now to think of reasons why he wanted that particular job. The survey provided him with a laissez-passer to any part of the Embassy. It runs across the board; it covers the whole range of Federal affairs: industrial, military, administrative. Once charged with the survey, he could call on whomever he liked without questions being asked. He could draw files from any other Registry: Commer­cial, Economic, Naval, Military, Defence - they all opened their doors to him.'