The Human Factor Part 8

'Rita Rolls,' Castle suggested.

'Give yourself another White Walker.'

Castle hadn't time to pour it out before Davis called to him. It's Sarah, Castle.'

The hour was nearly half-past two and fear touched him. Were there complications which a child might get so late in quarantine as this?

'Sarah?' he asked. 'What is it? Is it Sam?'

'Darling, I'm sorry. You weren't in bed, were you?'

'No. What's the matter?'

'I'm scared.'

'Sam?'

'No, it's not Sam. But the telephone's rung twice since midnight, and no one answers.'

'The wrong number,' he said with relief. 'It's always happening.'

'Somebody knows you're not in the house. I'm frightened, Maurice.'

'What could possibly happen in King's Road? Why, there's a police station two hundred yards away. And Buller? Buller's there, isn't he?'

'He's fast asleep, snoring.'

'I'd come back if I could, but there are no trains. And no taxi would take me at this hour.'

'I'll drive you down,' Davis said.

'No, no, of course not.'

'Not what?' Sarah said.

'I was talking to Davis. He said he'd drive me down.'

'Oh no, I don't want that. I feel better now I've talked to you. I'll wake Buller up.'

'Sam's all right?'

'He's fine.'

'You've got the police number. They'd be with you in two minutes.'

'I'm a fool, aren't I? Just a fool.'

'A beloved fool.'

'Say sorry to Davis. Have a good drink.'

'Goodnight, darling.'

'Goodnight, Maurice.'

The use of his name was a sign of love when they were together it was an invitation to love. Endearments dear and darling were everyday currency to be employed in company, but a name was strictly private, never to be betrayed to a stranger outside the tribe. At the height of love she would cry aloud his secret tribal name. He heard her ring off, but he stayed a moment with the receiver pressed against his ear.

'Nothing really wrong?' Davis asked.

'Not with Sarah, no.'

He came back into the sitting-room and poured himself a whisky. He said, 'I think your telephone's tapped.'

'How do you know?'

'I don't. I have an instinct, that's all. I'm trying to remember what gave me the idea.'

'We aren't in the Stone Age. n.o.body can tell nowadays when a phone's tapped.'

'Unless they're careless. Or unless they want you to know.'

'Why should they want me to know?'

'To scare you perhaps. Who can tell?'

'Anyway, why tap me?'

'A question of security. They don't trust anyone. Especially people in our position. We are the most dangerous. We are supposed to know those d.a.m.ned Top Secrets.'

'I don't feel dangerous.'

'Put on the gramophone,' Castle said.

Davis had a collection of pop music which was kept more carefully than anything else in the apartment. It was catalogued as meticulously as the British Museum library, and the top of the pops for any given year came as readily to Davis's memory as a Derby winner. He said, 'You like something really old-fashioned and cla.s.sical, don't you?' and put on A Hard Day's Night.

'Turn it louder.'

'It shouldn't be louder.'

'Turn it up all the same.'

'It's awful this way.'

'I feel more private,' Castle said.

'You think they hug us too?'

'I wouldn't be surprised.'

'You certainly have caught the disease,' Davis said.

'Percival's conversation with you-it worries me I simply can't believe it... it smells to heaven. I think they are on to a leak and are trying to check up.'

'OK by me. It's their duty, isn't it? But it doesn't seem very clever if one can spot the dodge so easily.'

'Yes-but Percival's story might he true just the same. True and already blown. An agent, whatever he suspected, would feel bound to pa.s.s it on in case...'

'And you think they think we are the leaks?'

'Yes. One of us or perhaps both.'

'But as we aren't who cares?' Davis said.

'It's long past bedtime, Castle. If there's a mike under the pillow, they'll only hear my snores.' He turned the music off.

'We aren't the stuff of double agents, you and me.'

Castle undressed and put out the light. It was stuffy in the small disordered room. He tried to raise the window, but the sash cord was broken. He stared down into the early morning street. No one went by: not even a policeman. Only a single taxi remained on a rank a little way down Davies Street in the direction of Claridge's. A burglar alarm sent up a futile ringing from somewhere in the Bond Street area, and a light rain had begun to fall. It gave a black glitter to the pavement like a policeman's raincoat. He drew the curtains close and got into bed, but he didn't sleep. A question mark kept him awake for a long while: had there always been a taxi rank so close to Davis's flat? Surely once he had to walk to the other side of Claridge's to find one? Before he fell asleep another question troubled him. Could they possibly, he wondered, be using Davis to watch him? Or were they using an innocent Davis to pa.s.s him on a marked hank note? fie had small belief in Doctor Percival's story of Porton, and yet, as he had told Davis, it might be true.

Chapter IV.

I.

Castle had begun to be really worried about Davis. True, Davis made a joke of his own melancholy, but all the same the melancholy was deeply there, and it seemed a bad sign to Castle that Davis no longer chaffed Cynthia. His spoken thoughts too were becoming increasingly irrelevant to any work they had in hand. Once when Castle asked him, '69300/4, who's that?' Davis said, 'A double room at the Polana looking out to sea.'

All the same there could be nothing seriously wrong with his health-he had been given his check-up recently by Doctor Percival.

'As usual we are waiting for a cable from Zaire,' Davis said. '59800 never thinks of us, as he sits there on a hot evening swilling his sundowners without a care in the world.'

'We'd better send him a reminder,' Castle said. He wrote out on a slip of paper 'Our 185 no repeat no answer received,' and put it in a tray for Cynthia to fetch.

Davis today had a regatta air. A new scarlet silk handkerchief with yellow dice dangled from his pocket like a flag on a still day, and his tie was bottle-green with a scarlet pattern. Even the handkerchief he kept for use which protruded from his sleeve looked new-a peac.o.c.k blue. He had certainly dressed ship.

'Had a good week-end?' Castle asked.

'Yes, oh yes. In a way. Very quiet. The pollution boys were away smelling factory smoke in Gloucester: A gum factory.'

A girl called Patricia (who had always refused to be known as Pat) came in from the secretaries' pool and collected their one cable. Like Cynthia she was army offspring, the niece of Brigadier Tomlinson: to employ close relations of men already in the department was considered good for security, and perhaps it eased the work of tracing, since many contacts would naturally be duplicated.

'Is this all?' the girl asked as though she were accustomed to work for more important sections than 6A.

'I'm afraid that's all we can manage, Pat,' Castle told her, and she slammed the door behind her.

'You shouldn't have angered her,' Davis said. 'She may speak to Watson and we'll all be kept in after school writing telegrams.'

'Where's Cynthia?'

'It's her day off.'

Davis cleared his throat explosively like a signal for the regatta to begin-and ran up a Red Ensign all over his face.

'I was going to ask you... would you mind if I slipped away at eleven? I'll be back at one, I promise, and there's nothing doing. If anyone wants me just say that I've gone to the dentist.'

'You ought to be wearing black,' Castle said, 'to convince Daintry. Those glad rags of yours don't go with dentists.'

'Of course I'm not really going to the dentist. The fact of the matter is Cynthia said she'd meet me at the Zoo to see the giant pandas. Do you think she's beginning to weaken?'

'You really are in love, aren't you, Davis?'

'All I want, Castle, is a serious adventure. An adventure indefinite in length. A month, a year, a decade. I'm tired of one-night stands. Home from the King's Road after a party at four with a b.l.o.o.d.y hangover. Next morning-I think oh, that was fine, the girl was wonderful, I wish I'd done better though, if only I hadn't mixed the drinks... and then I think how it would have been with Cynthia in Lourenco Marques. I could really talk to Cynthia. It helps John Thomas when you can talk a bit about your work. Those Chelsea birds, directly the fun's over, they want to find out things. What do I do? Where's my office? I used to pretend I was still at Aldermaston, but everyone now knows the b.l.o.o.d.y place is closed down. What am I to say?'

'Something in the City?'

'No glamour in that and these birds compare notes.' He began arranging his things. He shut and locked his file of cards. There were two typed pages on his desk and he put them in his pocket.

'Taking things out of the office?' Castle said. 'Be careful of Daintry. He's found you out once.'

'He's finished with our section. 7 are catching it now. Anyway this is only the usual hit of nonsense: For your information only. Destroy after reading. Meaning d.a.m.n all. I'll "commit it to memory" while I'm waiting for Cynthia. She's certain to be late.'

'Remember Dreyfus. Don't leave it in a rubbish bin for the cleaner to find.'

'I'll burn it as an offering in front of Cynthia.' He went out and then came quickly back. I wish you'd wish me luck, Castle.'

'Of course. With all my heart.'

The hackneyed phrase came warm and unintended to Castle's tongue. It surprised him, as though, in penetrating a familiar cave, on some holiday at the sea, he had observed on a familiar rock the primeval painting of a human face which he had always mistaken before for a chance pattern of fungi.

Half an hour later the telephone rang. A girl's voice said, 'J.W. wants to speak to A.D.'

'Too bad,' Castle said. 'A.D. can't speak to J.W.'

'Who's that?' the voice asked with suspicion. 'Someone called M.C.'

'Hold on a moment, please.' A kind of high yapping came back to him over the phone. Then Watson's voice emerged unmistakably from the canine background, ' I say, is that Castle?'

'Yes.'

'I must speak to Davis.'

'He's not here.'

'Where is he?'