It’s near Leipzig, isn’t it?’
‘Yes, Mrs Severn,’ Dr Hasselbacher said, watching her bleakly, ‘it is near Leipzig.’
‘I hope the Russians left it undisturbed.’
The telephone in Dr Hasselbacher’s hall began to ring. He hesitated a moment. ‘Excuse me, Mrs Severn,’ he said. When he went into the hall he shut the door behind him. ‘East or west,’ Beatrice said, ‘home’s best.’ ‘I suppose you want to report that to London? But I’ve known him for fifteen years, he’s lived here for more than twenty. He’s a good old man, the best friend….’ The door opened and Dr Hasselbacher returned. He said, ‘I’m sorry. I don’t feel very well. Perhaps you will come and hear music some other evening.’ He sat heavily down, picked up his whisky, put it back again. There was sweat on his forehead, but after all it was a humid night. ‘Bad news?’ Wormold asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Can I help?’
‘You!’ Dr Hasselbacher said. ‘No. You can’t help. Or Mrs Severn.’ ‘A patient?’ Dr Hasselbacher shook his head. He took out his handkerchief and dried his forehead. He said, ‘Who is not a patient?’ ‘We’d better go.’
‘Yes, go. It is like I said. One ought to be able to cure people so that they can live longer.’
‘I don’t understand.’
‘Was there never such a thing as peace?’ Dr Hasselbacher asked. ‘I am sorry. A doctor is always supposed to get used to death. But I am not a good doctor.’
‘Who has died?’
‘There has been an accident,’ Dr Hasselbacher said. ‘Just an accident. Of course an accident. A car has crashed on the road near the airport. A young man….’ He said furiously, ‘There are always accidents, aren’t there, everywhere. And this must surely have been an accident. He was too fond of the glass.’
Beatrice said, ‘Was his name by any chance Raul?’
‘Yes,’ Dr Hasselbacher said. ‘That was his name.’
Wormold unlocked the door. The street-lamp over the way vaguely disclosed the vacuum cleaners standing around like tombs. He started for the stairs. Beatrice whispered, ‘Stop, stop. I thought I heard….’ They were the first words either of them had spoken since he had shut the door of Dr Hasselbacher’s apartment. ‘What’s the matter?’
She put out a hand and clutched some metallic part from the counter; she held it like a club and said, ‘I’m frightened.’
Not half as much as I am, he thought. Can we write human beings into existence? And what sort of existence? Had Shakespeare listened to the news of Duncan’s death in a tavern or heard the knocking on his own bedroom door after he had finished the writing of Macbeth? He stood in the shop and hummed a tune to keep his courage up.
‘They say the earth is round My madness offends.’
‘Quiet,’ Beatrice said. ‘Somebody’s moving upstairs.’
He thought he was afraid only of his own imaginary characters, not of a living person who could creak a board. He ran up and was stopped abruptly by a shadow. He was tempted to call out to all his creations at once and have done with the lot of them Teresa, the chief, the professor, the engineer. ‘How late you are,’ Milly’s voice said. It was only Milly standing there in the passage between the lavatory and her room.
‘We went for a walk.’
‘You brought her back?’ Milly asked. ‘Why?’
Beatrice cautiously climbed the stairs, holding her improvised club on guard.
‘Is Rudy awake?’
‘I don’t think so.’
Beatrice said, ‘If there’d been a message, he would have sat up for you.’
If one’s characters were alive enough to die, they were surely real enough to send messages. He opened the door of the office. Rudy stirred. ‘Any message, Rudy?’
‘No.’
Milly said, ‘You’ve missed all the excitement.’
‘What excitement?’
‘The police were dashing everywhere. You should have heard the sirens. I thought it was a revolution, so I rang up Captain Segura.’ ‘Yes?’
‘Someone tried to assassinate someone as he came out of the Ministry of the Interior. He must have thought it was the Minister, only it wasn’t. He shot out of a car-window and got clean away.’
‘Who was it?’
‘They haven’t caught him yet.’
‘I mean the assassinee.’
‘Nobody important. But he looked like the Minister. Where did you have supper?’
‘The Victoria.’
‘Did you have stuffed langouste?’
‘Yes.’
‘I’m so glad you don’t look like the President. Captain Segura said poor Dr Cifuentes was so scared he went and wet his trousers and then got drunk at the Country Club.’
‘Dr Cifuentes?’
‘You know the engineer.’
‘They shot at him?’
‘I told you it was a mistake.’
‘Let’s sit down,’ Beatrice said. She spoke for both of them.
He said, ‘The dining-room… ‘
‘I don’t want a hard chair. I want something soft. I may want to cry.’ ‘Well, if you don’t mind the bedroom,’ he said doubtfully, looking at Milly.
‘Did you know Dr Cifuentes?’ Milly asked Beatrice sympathetically.
‘No. I only know he has a ponch.’
‘What’s a ponch?’
‘Your father said it was a dialect word for a squint.’
‘He told you that? Poor Father,’ Milly said. ‘You are in deep waters.’ ‘Look, Milly, will you please go to bed? Beatrice and I have work to do.’
‘Work?’
‘Yes, work.’
‘It’s awfully late for work.’
‘He’s paying me overtime,’ Beatrice said.
‘Are you learning all about vacuum cleaners?’ Milly asked. ‘That thing you are holding is a sprayer.’
‘Is it? I just picked it up in case I had to hit someone.’
‘It’s not well suited for that,’ Milly said. ‘It has a telescopic tube.’
‘What if it has?’
‘It might telescope at the wrong moment.’
‘Milly, please…’ Wormold said. ‘It’s nearly two.’
‘Don’t worry. I’m off. And I shall pray for Dr Cifuentes. It’s no joke to be shot at. The bullet went right through a brick wall. Think of what it could have done to Dr Cifuentes.’
‘Pray for someone called Raul too,’ Beatrice said. ‘They got him.’ Wormold lay down flat on the bed and shut his eyes. ‘I don’t understand a thing,’ he said. ‘Not a thing. It’s a coincidence. It must be.’ ‘They’re getting rough -whoever they are.’
‘But why?’
‘Spying is a dangerous profession.’
‘But Cifuentes hadn’t really… I mean he wasn’t important.’ ‘Those constructions in Oriente are important. Your agents seem to have a habit of getting blown. I wonder how. I think you’ll have to warn Professor Sanchez and the girl.’
‘The girl?’
‘The nude dancer.’
‘But how?’ He couldn’t explain to her he had no agents, that he had never met Cifuentes or Dr Sanchez, that neither Teresa nor Raul even existed:
Raul had come alive only in order to be killed.
‘What did Milly call this?’
‘A sprayer.’
‘I’ve seen something like it before somewhere.’
‘I expect you have. Most vacuum cleaners have them.’ He took it away from her. He couldn’t remember whether he had included it in the drawings he had sent to Hawthorne.
‘What do I do now, Beatrice?’
‘I think your people should go into hiding for a while. Not here, of course. It would be too crowded and anyway not safe. What about that Chief Engineer of yours could he smuggle them on board?’ ‘He’s away at sea on the way to Cienfuegos.’
‘Anyway he’s probably blown too,’ she said thoughtfully. ‘I wonder why they’ve let you and me get back here.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘They could easily have shot us down on the front. Or perhaps they’re using us for bait. Of course you throw away the bait if it’s no good.’ ‘What a macabre woman you are.’
‘Oh no. We’re back into the Boy’s Own Paper world, that’s all. You can count yourself lucky.’