They were all silent, thinking about it; then King said slowly: “I don’t believe it. She wouldn’t.”
“How do you know she wouldn’t?”
“I know her. I’ve known her since way back.”
Lawrence said thoughtfully: “I wonder. Do we ever know anybody? Like really know them.”
“She wouldn’t,” King said; and he still was not looking round; it was as though he was afraid to meet their eyes.
Fletcher could see how it was: King did not want to believe that Leonora would betray them. And if it came to that, he himself did not want to believe it, either. But the logic was too strong; it all added up; and the more he thought about it, the more obvious it seemed. She could have been feeding information to the C.I.A. all along. She was an American, so what more likely? She might even be a C.I.A. agent herself.
“I was the one who invited her here,” King said. Which was true, but proved nothing. “So why would she do it?”
“People do a lotta things for money,” Lawrence said. “It’s got a strong, strong pull, that old money.”
“She doesn’t want money.”
“Ain’t nobody don’t want money,” Lawrence said.
“I don’t believe it. I just don’t believe it.”
“So why didn’t she come with us? Like last time when we went for the camera. She came then.”
“There was no need for her to come.”
“There was no need then, but she came.”
“It’s not proof.”
“Oh, sure it’s not proof. But you just think back a while. Who knew about that other boat coming from Cuba? Who knew about the pictures in Freedom? And other things; other times when the cops moved in.”
“She was never the only one who knew.”
“But she did know, and she knew about us today.”
Fletcher was silent. He wished he could have said something in the girl’s defence, but it would only have been an attempt to fool himself. He remembered what she had said to him when they had talked the thing over on Denning’s terrace. She had said: “Are you suggesting I might have been the informer?” He had denied it, but he had had his doubts even then. Now he knew. And he knew, too, that what really hurt was the realisation that she had been willing to betray him as well as the others. He remembered the way she had snuggled up to him in the back of the Ford and had gone to sleep with her head resting against his shoulder; and the way she had stood on the board-walk watching the boat move out that morning. He had begun to think she really had some feeling for him, the same as he had for her. And now this. It hurt; it hurt right down to the bone.
“Damn her!” King burst out suddenly. “Damn her! Damn her!” He beat his hand on the wheel as though it were the object of his anger; and Fletcher knew just how he was feeling. He knew that King also had accepted the bitter fact, and that it was the same with him, because he loved her too; you could bet your life he did.
“So what do we do about it?”
“We go back. She’ll be there.”
“And then?”
“We’ll see,” King said grimly. “We’ll see.”
It was a hard journey back to Denning’s place on foot. Lawrence was not in the best of condition for travelling; his arm was still giving him pain, and he was forced to stop and rest from time to time in order to recover his strength. At first there was not even a road, and when they did at last come to one it meandered tantalisingly, seldom taking them for long in exactly the right direction; rough and dusty, undulating as a switchback, and fiendishly hard on the feet.
They had one piece of good fortune: an ancient lorry overtook them and stopped a short distance ahead. When they came up with it they found a skinny bone-bag of a driver leaning out of the cab and grinning at them.
“Hey, you wanna lift?”
On the other side of him was a woman fat enough to have made two of him, who was probably his wife.
“Thanks,” King said. “It’d be better than walking.”
The man looked at Lawrence. “You had an accident?”
“That’s right,” Lawrence said. “An accident.”
“He broke his arm,” King said.
The woman leaned across, squeezing the man up against the door, so that she could get a view of Lawrence.
“Man, you look sick. Like you need a doctor.”
“I’m okay,” Lawrence said.
“Don’t look like you’re okay; not to me, it don’t. You bin bleedin’ some.”
It had taken no great powers of observation to discover that fact; the bandage on Lawrence’s arm was dark with blood that had soaked through. He was sweating heavily and there was a kind of scum round his mouth; his breathing sounded laboured.
“I’m okay,” he said again.
“Well, if you say so.” The woman was unconvinced, but she was not going to argue about it.
“Where you heading?” the driver asked.
“Your way,” King said.
The man nodded, his eyes keen and shrewd. “You bin in trouble mebbe?”
“A little. Does it bother you?”
The man shook his head, twisting the cords in the scraggy neck. “Don’t bother me none. Jest so long as you don’t bring none of that trouble with you.”
“It’s all behind us,” King said.
Fletcher thought it was an optimistic statement. There could be quite a bag of trouble lying ahead. The skinny driver seemed to think so too, and for a moment there was a flicker of doubt in his eye, as though he might have been about to change his mind and cancel the offer of a lift. But then he made a gesture with his hand towards the back of the lorry.
“Okay. Climb up.”
There were some crates and fruit trays and empty sacks in the back, which seemed to indicate that the man was making a return journey from an expedition to market in Jamestown or one of the seaside holiday resorts. King and Fletcher helped Lawrence climb on board and then followed him. The lorry had tall slatted sides which swayed crazily as it went over the pot-holes, and the engine hammered away relentlessly, complaining in a whining low gear on all the steeper gradients. They sat on the sacks with their legs stretched out and backs resting against the cab, watching the dust-clouds raised by the wheels like daylight phantoms which slowly disintegrated and vanished in the distance.
“You think she’ll go down to meet the boat?” King said; revealing the subject that was occupying his mind.
“She’ll have to go,” Fletcher said. “How would she explain it to Denning if she didn’t? But that doesn’t mean she’ll expect to see the boat come in.”
“How long do you think she’ll wait?”
“Long enough to make it look right. Then she’ll go back and report to Denning. No boat. She could be back already. It’s getting late.”
“He won’t like it. We’re his link-men, me and Lawrence. We keep him in touch. If he were to lose us it’d be hard for him to find replacements he could trust.”
“How long has it been going on?” Fletcher asked. “I mean this co-ordinating arrangement.”
“Three years. Maybe getting on for four.”
“Whose idea was it?”
“His.”
“And you trusted him?”
“Not at first. You don’t trust a man like that straight off. You wait until you find out if he’s to be trusted.”
“How long did that take?”
“A year maybe. Been going good ever since.”
“But there have been setbacks?”
“Oh, sure. Bound to be setbacks.”
“When did Leonora join you?”
“Could be twelve months back.”
“As long as that? Didn’t it ever strike you as strange that she should hang on all that time, occupying herself with your revolutionary activities? Didn’t you ever ask yourself why she took such an interest in something that didn’t really concern her?”
King looked slightly embarrassed. “Maybe I did.”