convinced. She said: âThese were inspectors I had not seen before. But that has no significance. Quite often the people are different from those who have come before.â
â Two inspectors!â queried Charlie. âDoes it always take two inspectors?â
The womanâs colour began to rise. Again there was a hesitation. âNo,â she said. âItâs not usually two.â
âThey carried identification, of course?â
âThey telephoned several days in advance. Thatâs the normal procedure. Told me they were coming and why. And they quoted your motherâs National Insurance number, the one thatâs on her pension book. No one else has access to details like that except people from the Ministry.â
Was he overreacting, Charlie asked himself. Possibly. But Charlie frequently responded to the antennae of instinct and he thought there was a message here somewhere. He said: âWhere do such inspectors come from when they carry out these checks? Towns, I mean?â
âIt varies,â said the woman. âSalisbury, Andover, Winchesterâ¦all overâ¦â
âFrom what office did the two men come to see my mother?â
The subsiding colour grew again. âThey didnât say.â
âNo number? Nowhere you could contact them?â
âThey said when they left that she didnât qualify. That thereâd be no need to talk about it again.â
âSo that looks like the end of it,â said Charlie with attempted finality.
âDid they upset her?â asked the woman. âThey said theyâd like to see her, and she was so much better I thought it would be a treat for her. Visitors. Itâs important to them, visitors. I knew they were wasting their time: of course I did. It was your mother I was thinking about, not them.â
Poor woman, thought Charlie: poor innocent, compassionate, unknowing woman. He said: âIâm sure she enjoyed it.â He didnât think heâd get into cake with nuts. He added: âDid she sign anything?â
âOh no!â insisted the woman. âYour mother was on the verandah, just like today. And I was outside all the time they were with her. I would have seen.â
âLike I said,â repeated Charlie. âIâm sure itâs all perfectly proper.â
âI know it is,â insisted the woman.
From his Vauxhall apartment, not from Westminster Bridge Road, Charlie contacted every regional and local pensions office remotely likely to have organized the visit to his mother. None had. He extended the check to the main department building in London and was once more assured there was neither interest in nor consideration of awarding his mother any supplementary pension allowance.
There was the beginning of fury â but only briefly, because Charlie didnât allow it. Fear had its benefits; released adrenaline and heightened senses. But not anger or fury. Neither. That sort of emotion was positively counter-productive: obscured the proper reasoning and the correct balances. This time, anyway, his feelings catapulted far beyond fury. Charlie was engulfed by an implacable, vindictive coldness. Heâd chosen an existence of constant deceit and constant suspicion, a sinister shape to every shadow, a dangerous meaning to every word. Thatâs what he gave and thatâs what he expected back. A fragile old lady with skin like paper wasnât any part of that; a fragile old lady in whose twilight life long-ago lovers stayed on as names with indistinct faces, William who became John and who might not have been a real person at all. But theyâd made her part of it: sullied her with it. His own people; he was convinced of it being his own people, directed by Harkness. Wrong to move prematurely, though: he had to establish it absolutely. And there was a way: a required, procedural way that would protect him if he were wrong â if he were the