Free A Small Town in Germany by John le Carré

occasionally... reinterpret... our Nato commitments; when the guns sound, we may even bury our heads under the blankets; our leaders may be as futile as theirs.'
    What was it Turner discerned in Bradfield's voice at that moment? Self-disgust? A ruthless sense of his own decline? He spoke like a man who had tried all remedies, and would have no more of doctors. For a moment the gap between them had closed, and Turner heard his own voice speaking through the Bonn mist.
    'For all that, in terms of popular psychology, it is the one great unspoken strength we have: that when the Barbarians come from the East, the Germans may count on our support. That Rhine Army will hastily gather on the Kentish hills and the British independent nuclear deterrent will be hustled into service. Now do you see what Harting could mean in the hands of a man like Karfeld?'
    Turner had taken the black notebook from his inside pocket. It crackled sharply as he opened it. 'No. I don't. Not yet. You don't want him found, you want him lost. If you had your way you wouldn't have sent for me.' He nodded his large head in reluctant admiration. 'Well, I'll say this for you: no one's ever warned me off this early. Christ, I've hardly sat down. I hardly know his full names. We've not heard of him in London, did you know that? He's not even had any access, not in our book. Not even one bloody military manual. He may have been abducted. He may have gone under a bus, run off with a bird for all we know. But you; Christ! You've really gone the bank, haven't you? He's all the spies we've ever had rolled into one. So what has he pinched? What do you know that I don't?' Bradfield tried to interrupt but Turner rode him down implacably. 'Or maybe I shouldn't ask? I mean I don't want to upset anyone.'
    They were glaring at one another across centuries of suspicion: Turner clever, predatory and vulgar, with the hard eye of the upstart; Bradfield disadvantaged but not put down, drawn in upon himself, picking his language as if it had been made for him.
    'Our most secret file has disappeared. It vanished on the same day that Harting left. It covers the whole spectrum of our most delicate conversations with the Germans, formal and informal, over the last six months. For reasons which do not concern you, its publication would ruin us in Brussels.'
    He thought at first that it was the roar of the aeroplane engines still ringing in his ears, but the traffic in Bonn is as constant as the mist. Gazing out of the window he was suddenly assailed by the feeling that from now on he would neither see nor hear with clarity; that his senses were being embraced and submerged by the cloying heat and the disembodied sound. 'Listen.' He indicated his canvas bag. 'I'm the abortionist. You don't want me but you've got to have me. A neat job with no aftermath, that's what you're paying for. All right; I'll do my best. But before we all go over the wall, let's do a bit of counting on our fingers, shall we?'
    The catechism began.

    'He was unmarried?'
    'Yes.'
    'Always has been?'
    'Yes.'
    'Lived alone?'
    'So far as I know.'
    'Last seen?'
    'On Friday morning, at the Chancery meeting. In here.'
    'Not afterwards?'
    'I happen to know the pay clerk saw him, but I'm limited in whom I can ask.'
    'Anyone else missing at all?'
    'No one.'
    'Had a full count have you? No little long-legged bird from Registry?'
    'People are constantly on leave; no one is unaccountably absent.'
    'Then why didn't Harting take leave? They usually do, you know. Defect in comfort, that's my advice.'
    'I have no idea.'
    'You weren't close to him?'
    'Certainly not.'
    'What about his friends? What do they say?'
    'He has no friends worth speaking of.'
    'Any not worth speaking of?'
    'So far as I know, he has no close friends in the community. Few of us have. We have acquaintances, but few friends. That is the way of Embassies. With such an intensive social life, one learns to value privacy.'
    'How about Germans?'
    'I have no idea. He was