For once C looked a little thrown. Hall was blinking furiously. ‘None of your damn business,’ he growled.
‘It is if you sent someone else out there — to Germany, I mean,’ Wolff replied hotly. ‘But you’d have told me. No, you’re into their codes? Then you don’t need me.’
‘Damned impertinent, Wolff.’ Blinker was bouncing with indignation on the balls of his feet. ‘You’re a naval officer.’
‘I wasn’t sure I’d be able to manage it, well, not after… anyway, I did. You said yourself it was good work…’
‘A job half done, Wolff, half done.’
Wolff closed his eyes and shook his head slowly; he didn’t want that lecture on duty from a bugger in a club armchair. For a few seconds no one spoke. Someone in the corridor was chuntering in a parade-ground voice.
‘Is that the time?’ said Hall, glancing at his watch. ‘I have an appointment at five. Don’t get up, Cumming… talk some sense into him.’
Abandoning the rug at last, he strutted to the door, right hand in his jacket pocket, then turned to glare menacingly at Wolff once more.
‘Isn’t over, not by a long chalk. Don’t care what you think of me, Wolff… can’t walk away from your duty. Don’t you know what’s happening out there?’
And with that he was gone. Wolff drew heavily on the last of his cigarette, and half rising, flicked the end in the grate. He could sense C watching him closely, perhaps expecting instant acquiescence now that Hall had left them, something like, ‘You’ve had your say, vented your spleen. Game over.’
‘I know what you’re thinking, Wolff,’ C said at last, a sly suggestion of sympathy in his voice. ‘You’re thinking “I’ve been out there again, risked my life, I can forget Turkey, forget what happened there. I can walk with a clear conscience.”’ C paused to let Wolff speak but he couldn’t. ‘Go home. Sleep. You’ll feel different in the morning. My car’s outside, I’ll drive you.’
‘Like that?’ Wolff asked, nodding at C’s sticks.
‘Damn cheek. I’m not a cripple,’ he replied irritably, ‘I’ll thank you not to treat me like one.’
They didn’t talk much in the car. C drove like a madman, careering along Park Lane, his hand hovering over the horn. Turning into Marylebone, they narrowly missed a cyclist, C wailing at him like a banshee, schoolboy glint in his eye again. Driving his Rolls always put him in a good humour. ‘Funniest thing, Wolff,’ he shouted as they swung left into Wimpole Street. ‘Got the fellows at University College to come up with the perfect invisible ink. Know what they say? Ha, ha, you won’t believe… semen.’ He was shaking with laughter. ‘Semen. They swear by it. Just think, no problem hiding it, fellow always has it on him… just so long… ha, ha… just so long as he’s careful not to overdo it.’ Tears were streaming down his cheeks and he took his hand off the wheel for a moment to reach for his handkerchief. It was a relief when a few minutes later they took another left into a mews lane and came to a halt a discreet distance from Wolff’s door.
‘I’ll say it again, fine work.’ He switched off the engine and shuffled about to face him. ‘Hard to go back, I know, but you can be proud of what you achieved for your country.’
‘Thank you for the lift, sir,’ he said, fumbling for the door.
‘Fitzgerald will call for you at ten tomorrow. Ramsgate train at eleven. He’ll brief you, he’s a good fellow…’
Wolff nodded.
‘One more thing.’ He frowned and his gaze slipped to an indeterminate point somewhere over Wolff’s right shoulder. ‘Your friend, Curtis — you won’t have heard — killed a few weeks ago… gas attack. Heard his widow was trying to reach you… thought you should know.’
‘Yes, thank you.’
Silence. Wolff couldn’t think of anything more to say. God, he hoped Reggie didn’t know.
‘Well, good luck,’ said C briskly. ‘And when you’re there, keep me informed, no reason why you can’t in America.’
He was disappointed to find that his apartment was just as he’d left it. He felt the same after every operation. The maid had left a few letters on his desk, two of them from his mother. It was six o’clock in the evening; he was hungry, tired and generally low. He had a little under seventeen hours in London, and no appetite for any sort of social gathering, even dinner in a restaurant. ‘All right,’ he sighed, and he walked to his drawing- room sideboard and poured a whisky.
After fifteen minutes, the operator put him through. His mother wasn’t surprised to hear his voice, although it was six months since they’d last spoken. She had never asked him where he was or what he was doing, even as a small boy home from the fen after dark, wet to the skin, late for supper. ‘Don’t you care?’ he’d shouted once. ‘God will guide your steps,’ she’d replied. No doubt she thought the same still, but in her quiet way she was pleased to hear from him, wanted to tell him of the farm — ‘your farm’ she called it, more in hope than expectation. She was worried there wouldn’t be young men for the harvest, she said, and everything was so dear; she was putting two of the fields to bulbs; one of the neighbouring farms had invested in a tractor, perhaps she should do the same. They didn’t speak for long because she struggled with the telephone, obliging him to repeat everything two, three times. ‘May the Lord keep you, Sebastian,’ she shouted in Dutch. ‘I pray for you always.’ She didn’t ask when he would visit. When she’d gone, he followed her in his imagination, from the dark farmhouse hall to the kitchen, the heavy ticking of the Black Forest clock, her spaniel in a basket in front of the range, a black shawl about her shoulders, a little bent now — she was almost seventy — busying herself with her embroidery or her supper, something without meat because it was Friday.
Wolff poured another, stiffer drink, then cranked the telephone for a second time.
‘Kensington, double six-three-five, please, operator.’
Yes, Mrs Curtis was at home; would he wait just a moment?
‘Violet, it’s me,’ he said, before she had a chance to ask. ‘I’m so sorry about Reggie. I’ve only just heard.’
The line crackled menacingly, for four, five, six seconds — more.
‘How are you managing?’ he asked at last. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t…’
‘You bastard.’ Her voice shook with quiet fury.
Silence again.
‘I’m sorry, Violet,’ he ventured again.
‘Bastard.’
‘I wish I could…’
‘Bastard.’
Another silence.
‘Perhaps I should…’
‘Bastard, bastard,’ louder this time.
‘All right…’
‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing, I…’
‘Then leave me alone,’ she shouted, tears in her voice.
‘Yes, of course, I’m…’
Clunk, the line went dead. Bloody stupid, he should have written to her. First-class bastard, she was right; left without a word of explanation or even a goodbye. He picked up one of the unopened letters on his desk, then tossed it back again. Poor old Reggie. God, he’d made a mess of things, but dammit, she was responsible too. After a long bath and another whisky he dressed in an old suit and walked round the corner to a restaurant. He ate a little, drank a lot and brooded for the best part of an hour. Then he ambled to the Langham and ordered another whisky. At eleven he reeled home, content at least that he didn’t have to keep looking over his shoulder. He hauled himself up the stairs by the banisters, then bounced along the corridor to his bedroom and was blearily considering removing his trousers when there was a sobering knock at the door.
