“But my dear fellow,” Majendie objected, “it’s up to each one, after a certain age to look out for himself, assert his rights—”

“What had there been in your upbringing, Ivan, to give you to think that you might have rights? Did you think so—at that stage? Such mental agility as you were ever to possess developed late, and no wonder, when your mind and your youth were stunted by habit and fear. Besides, you found, quite early, an opiate. Who taught you to drown your sorrows? And how did you manage it? Perhaps you kept her in the dark about wage increases, which you must have had eventually, and spent the extra in the pub. In time, I suppose, the extra wasn’t enough. You drank and spent more, braving whatever she said to you, because your loneliness was getting unbearable and the rebuffs of childhood and the overlookings of the office had made you fight shy of approaching people, because your life offered no other pleasure, nothing, in fact, but squalor and boredom from which drink gave the easiest escape. In the end not even the pub could blind you to the enormous rift between other people’s lives and yours. But by then, although you may have wished to clear out of Bright’s Row, you couldn’t afford to. Oh, your wages went up and up, especially after the war, but so did your drinking. The more clearly you perceived your situation, and the longer you reflected on it, the more despair and frustration you had to drown. You knew you’d never command better money, you couldn’t keep what you had, and you’d no capital. I think you tried to get some—that Greyhound Express in your wardrobe, was that a sign of your attempts?—but you were unlucky. So your life was slipping away, eaten by routine—office by day, pub by night—when one afternoon, not so long ago you came home sick.”

Brett paused. There was still not the slightest response from Ivan; yet on the chance of his hearing and understanding, Brett was determined to go on. He glanced through the window, but could make out nothing. If they were heading for Richborough, he had to be quick; it wouldn’t be long, even allowing for their speed being reduced by snow, before they were there.

“I think that must have been the first time,” he went on, “that you were sent off duty, as opposed to taking sick leave for a whole day. If you’d been in the habit of arriving unexpectedly, she would always have locked the door, and in those days she didn’t. So you walked in. And the trunk was open.