Don’t say anything, he wishes, but of course Stein says: ‘But it looks as if you wanted me to do it, whatever I’m like.’

Stig nods his head. He has scant defence. He has abused his authority. ‘Yes,’ he agrees, ‘I let them send for you. There are some matters that…’

‘So I don’t think what you’re saying is very important,’ says Stein morosely. ‘What matters for me now is to be on top of the job. If not, it’ll be botched. I need to see it in whatever way suits me, let me tell you.’

‘One needs to see it in the right light,’ says Stig. ‘If not, it won’t be carried out as the order expects.’

Stein’s face takes on a scornful expression.

‘Oh, as long as it’s the right result I don’t suppose many questions are going to be asked about the rest of it. And the result’s the same whatever I’m thinking while I’m on the job.’

Stig replies emphatically, afraid, ‘No! It’s not the same. If that were true, everything we’re doing would disgrace us. It would be criminal. And in the long run we couldn’t stomach it. We’d simply refuse. I’m afraid of having dealings with types like you who do it for fun.’

‘But then you’re getting out of it, you and Peter and…’

Stig gets it slap in the face. That sneering tone.

‘Yes, I ought not to have done it.’

‘But you preach all the same.’

‘Because we must never lose sight of this. If we do it’s all up with us and the cause.’

‘But do you think what you say carries any weight, when you let me have the job all the same, unworthy as I am?’

‘I ought never to have done it!’ says Stig, tortured.

‘So you’d better let me get on with it in my own way. Thanks for your confidence in me,’ he adds.

Stig stands speechless, forced to take it.

Stein nods a contemptuous farewell. But he cannot resist adding: ‘I hope we shall meet again.’ As if praying that all will go well.

‘I hope so too,’ says Stig, picking up the work that has had to wait. The matter worries him and he is wishing with all his heart that it was undone. That he himself, or the one on whom the lot had fallen, had gone ahead. That’s what they expect when they send the order: an effort to carry out everything with clean hands.

Stein goes quickly past Peter and Henry and John, gripping his heavy case firmly. The three of them close the door behind him, as he goes up the steps and out into the arrow-bedecked, bewitched house.

They continue working steadily and diligently. Henry is given a heavy bundle of broadsheets to deliver. One has this job, another that – the grey, daily round, seemingly so trivial. Now this contemptuous, reckless Stein is busy on a quite different errand. Something that leaps like a glinting arc and is abruptly and blackly extinguished. Speed and the avalanche within it, and then it is over. Here everything proceeds smoothly and gradually and straightforwardly as if following a long, grey road. Here much more faith is needed in order to hold out.