Free A Small Town in Germany by John le Carré Page B

wind. In vain. 'You don't even bother to explain him, not to me, not to yourself. Nothing. You're just... blank about him. As if you'd sentenced him to death. You don't mind my being personal, do you? Only I'm sure you've not much time: that's the next thing you're going to tell me.'
    'I was not aware,' Bradfield said, ice-cold, 'that I was expected to do your job. Nor you mine.'
    'Capri. How about that? He's got a bird. The Embassy's in chaos, he pinches some files, flogs them to the Czechs and bolts with her.'
    'He has no girl.'
    'Aickman. He's dug her up. Gone off with Praschko, two on a bird. Bride, best man and groom.'
    'I told you, he has no girl.'
    'Oh. So you do know that? I mean there are some things you are sure of. He's a traitor and he's got no bird.'
    'So far as anyone knows, he has no woman. Does that satisfy you?'
    'Perhaps he's queer.'
    'I'm sure he's nothing of the sort.'
    'It's broken out in him. We're all a bit mad, aren't we, round about our age? The male menopause, how about that?'
    'That is an absurd suggestion.'
    'Is it?'
    'To the best of my knowledge, yes.' Bradfield's voice was trembling with anger; Turner's barely rose above a murmur.
    'We never know though, do we? Not till it's too late. Did he handle money at all?'
    'Yes. But there's none missing.'
    Turner swung on him. 'Jesus,' he said, his eyes bright with triumph. 'You checked. You have got a dirty mind.'

    'Perhaps he's just walked into the river,' Turner suggested comfortingly, his eyes still upon Bradfield. 'No sex. Nothing to live for. How's that?'
    'Ridiculous, since you ask.'
    'Important to a bloke like Harting, though, sex. I mean if you're alone, it's the only thing. I mean I don't know how some of these chaps manage, do you? I know I couldn't. About a couple of weeks is as long as I can go, me. It's the only reality, if you live alone. Or that's what I reckon. Apart from politics of course.'
    'Politics? Harting? I shouldn't think he read a newspaper from one year to the next. He was a child in such matters. A complete innocent.'
    'They often are,' said Turner. 'That's the remarkable thing.' Sitting down again, Turner folded one leg over the other and leaned back in the chair like a man about to reminisce. 'I knew a man once who sold his birthright because he couldn't get a seat on the Underground. I reckon there's more of that kind go wrong than was ever converted to it by the Good Book. Perhaps that was his problem? Not right for dinner parties; no room on the train. After all, he was a temporary, wasn't he?'
    Bradfield did not reply.
    'And he'd been here a long time. Permanent staff, sort of thing. Not fashionable, that isn't, not in an Embassy. They go native if they're around too long. But then he was native, wasn't he? Half. Half a Hun, as de Lisle would say. He never talked politics?'
    'Never.'
    'You sensed it in him, a political spin?'
    'No.'
    'No crack-up? No tension?'
    'No.'
    'What about that fight in Cologne?'
    'What fight?'
    '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