‘No, but now read this note from Harbin to Kurtz – which we dictated. Look at the date. This is the result.’

He read them both through twice.

‘You see what I mean?’ If one watched a world come to an end, a plane dive from its course, I don’t suppose one would chatter, and a world for Martins had certainly come to an end, a world of easy friendship, hero-worship, confidence that had begun twenty years before in a school corridor. Every memory – afternoons in the long grass, the illegitimate shoots on Brickworth Common, the dreams, the walks, every shared experience – was simultaneously tainted, like the soil of an atomized town. One could not walk there with safety for a long while. While he sat there, looking at his hands and saying nothing, I fetched a precious bottle of whisky out of a cupboard and poured out two large doubles. ‘Go on,’ I said, ‘drink that,’ and he obeyed me as though I were his doctor. I poured him out another.

He said slowly, ‘Are you certain that he was the real boss?’

‘It’s as far back as we have got so far.’

‘You see, he was always apt to jump before he looked.’

I didn’t contradict him, though that wasn’t the impression he had before given of Lime. He was searching round for some comfort.

‘Suppose,’ he said, ‘someone had got a line on him, forced him into this racket, as you forced Harbin to double-cross …’

‘It’s possible.’

‘And they murdered him in case he talked when he was arrested.’

‘It’s not impossible.’

‘I’m glad they did,’ he said. ‘I wouldn’t have liked to hear Harry squeal.’ He made a curious little dusting movement with his hand on his knee as much as to say, ‘That’s that.’ He said, ‘I’ll be getting back to England.’

‘I’d rather you didn’t just yet. The Austrian police would make an issue if you tried to leave Vienna at the moment. You see, Cooler’s sense of duty made him call them up too.’

‘I see,’ he said hopelessly.

‘When we’ve found the third man …’ I said.

‘I’d like to hear him squeal,’ he said. ‘The bastard. The bloody bastard.’

Chapter 11

Chapter 11