The Human Factor (32 page)

He discovered under the television set a refrigerator containing miniature bottles of whisky and gin and brandy, tonic water and soda, two kinds of beer and quarter bottles of champagne. He chose a J. & B. from habit and sat down to wait. ‘There'll be a lot of waiting,' Mr Halliday had said, when he gave him the Trollope, and he began to read for want of anything else to do: ‘Let the reader be introduced to Lady Carbury, upon whose character and doings much will depend of whatever interest these pages may have, as she sits at her writing-table in her own room in her own house in Welbeck Street.' He found it was not a book which could distract him from the way he lived now.

He went to the window. The black waiter passed below him, and then he saw Blit come out and gaze around. Surely half an hour couldn't possibly have gone by: he reassured himself – ten minutes. Blit would not have really missed him yet. He turned the lights out in his room, so that Blit, if he looked up, would not see him. Blit sat himself down by the circular bar: he gave his order. Yes, it was a Planter's Punch. The waiter was putting in the slice of orange and the cherry. Blit had taken off his jacket and he was wearing a shirt with short sleeves, which added to the illusion of the palm trees and the pool and the starry night. Castle watched him use the telephone in the bar and he rang a number. Was it only in Castle's imagination that Blit seemed to raise his eyes towards the window of room 423 while he talked? Reporting what? To whom?

He heard the door open behind him and the lights went on. Turning quickly, he saw an image flash across the looking-glass of the wardrobe door like someone who didn't want to be seen – the image of a small man with a black moustache wearing a dark suit carrying a black attaché case. ‘I was delayed by the circulation,' the man said in precise but rather incorrect English.

‘You've come for me?'

‘Time is a little lacking for us. There is a necessity for you to catch the next autobus to the airport.' He began to unpack the attaché case on the desk: first an air ticket, then a passport, a bottle which looked as if it might contain gum, a bulging plastic bag, a hairbrush and comb, a razor.

‘I have with me everything I need,' Castle said, catching the precise tone.

The man ignored him. He said, ‘You will find your ticket is to Paris only. That is something I will explain to you.'

‘Surely they'll be watching all the planes wherever they go.'

‘They will be watching in particular the one to Prague which is due to leave at the same time as the one to Moscow which has been delayed due to trouble with the engines. An unusual occurrence. Perhaps Aeroflot await an important passenger. The police will be very attentive to Prague and Moscow.'

‘The watch will be set earlier – at the immigration desks. They won't wait at the gates.'

‘That will be taken care of. You must approach the desks – let me see your watch – in about fifty minutes. The bus will leave in thirty minutes. This is your passport.'

‘What do I do in Paris if I get that far?'

‘You will be met as you leave the airport, and you will be given another ticket. You will have just time to catch another plane.'

‘Where to?'

‘I have no idea. You will learn all that in Paris.'

‘Interpol will have warned the police there by this time.'

‘No. Interpol never act in a political case. It is against the rules.' Castle opened the passport. ‘Partridge,' he said, ‘you've chosen a good name. The shooting season isn't over.' Then he looked at the photograph. ‘But this photo will never do. It's not like me.'

‘That is true. But now we shall make you more like the photograph.'

He carried the tools of his trade into the bathroom. Between the toothglasses he propped an enlarged photograph of the one in the passport.

‘Sit on this chair, please.' He began to trim Castle's eyebrows and then began on his hair – the man of the passport had a crewcut. Castle watched the scissors move in the mirror – he was surprised to see how a crewcut changed the whole face, enlarging the forehead; it seemed to change even the expression of the eyes. ‘You've taken ten years off my age,' Castle said.

‘Sit still, please.'

The man then began to attach the hairs of a thin moustache – the moustache of a timid man who lacked confidence. He said, ‘A beard or a heavy moustache is always an object of suspicion.' It was a stranger who looked back at Castle from the mirror. ‘There. Finished. I think it is good enough.' He went to his briefcase and took from it a white rod which he telescoped into a walking stick. He said, ‘You are blind. An object of sympathy, Mr Partridge. An Air France hostess has been asked to meet the autobus from the hotel and she will lead you through immigration to your plane. In Paris at Rissy when you depart from the airport you will be driven to Orly – another plane there with engine trouble. Perhaps you will no longer be Mr Partridge, another make-up in the car, another passport. The human visage is infinitely adaptable. That is a good argument against the importance of heredity. We are born with much the same face – think of a baby – but environment changes it.'

‘It seems easy,' Castle said, ‘but will it work?'

‘We think it will work,' the little man said as he packed his case. ‘Go out now, and remember to use your stick. Please do not move your eyes, move your whole head if someone speaks to you. Try to keep the eyes blank.'

Without thinking Castle picked up
The Way We Live Now
.

‘No, no, Mr Partridge. A blind man is not likely to possess a book. And you must leave that sack behind.'

‘It only holds a spare shirt, a razor . . .'

‘A spare shirt has the mark of a laundry.'

‘Won't it seem odd if I have no luggage?'

‘That is not known to the immigration officer unless he asks to see your ticket.'

‘He probably will.'

‘Never mind, you are only going home. You live in Paris. The address is in your passport.'

‘What profession am I?'

‘Retired.'

‘That at least is true,' Castle said.

He came out of the lift and began to tap his way towards the entrance where the bus waited. As he passed the doors which led to the bar and the pool he saw Blit. Blit was looking at his watch with an air of impatience. An elderly woman took Castle's arm and said, ‘Are you catching the bus?'

‘Yes.'

‘I am too. Let me help you.'

He heard a voice calling after him. ‘Maurice!' He had to walk slowly because the woman walked slowly. ‘Hi! Maurice.'

‘I think someone's calling you,' the woman said.

‘A mistake.'

He heard footsteps behind them. He took his arm away from the woman and turned his head as he had been instructed to do and stared blankly a little to the side of Blit. Blit looked at him with surprise. He said, ‘I'm sorry. I thought . . .'

The woman said, ‘The driver's signalling to us. We must hurry.'

When they were seated together in the bus she looked through the window. She said, ‘You sure must be very like his friend. He's still standing there staring.'

‘Everybody in the world, so they say, has a double,' Castle replied.

PART SIX

CHAPTER I

1

S
HE
had turned to look back through the window of the taxi and seen nothing through the smoke-grey glass: it was as though Maurice had deliberately drowned himself, without so much as a cry, in the waters of a steely lake. She was robbed, without hope of recovery, of the only sight and sound she wanted, and she resented all that was charitably thrust on her like the poor substitute a butcher offers for the good cut which he has kept for a better customer.

Lunch in the house among the laurels was an ordeal. Her mother-in-law had a guest she couldn't cancel – a clergyman with the unattractive name of Bottomley – she called him Ezra – who had come home from a mission field in Africa. Sarah felt like an exhibit at one of the lantern lectures he probably gave. Mrs Castle didn't introduce her. She simply said, ‘This is Sarah,' as though she had come out of an orphanage, as indeed she had. Mr Bottomley was unbearably kind to Sam and treated her like a member of his coloured congregation with calculated interest. Tinker Bell, who had fled at the first sight of them, fearing Buller, was now too friendly and scratched at her skirts.

‘Tell me what it's really like in a place like Soweto,' Mr Bottomley said. ‘My field, you know, was Rhodesia. The English papers exaggerated there too. We are not as black as we are painted,' he added and then blushed at his mistake. Mrs Castle poured him another glass of water. ‘I mean,' he said, ‘can you bring up a little fellow properly there?' and his bright gaze picked Sam out like a spot-light in a night club.

‘How would Sarah know, Ezra?' Mrs Castle said. She explained with reluctance, ‘Sarah is my daughter-in-law.'

Mr Bottomley's blush increased. ‘Ah, then you are over here on a visit?' he asked.

‘Sarah is living with me,' Mrs Castle said. ‘For the time being. My son has never lived in Soweto. He was in the Embassy.'

‘It must be nice for the boy,' Mr Bottomley said, ‘to come and see Granny.'

Sarah thought: Is this what life is to be from now on?

After Mr Bottomley had departed Mrs Castle told her that they must have a serious conversation. ‘I rang up Maurice,' she said, ‘he was in a most unreasonable mood.' She turned to Sam, ‘Go into the garden, dear, and have a game.'

‘It's raining,' Sam said.

‘I'd forgotten, dear. Go upstairs and play with Tinker Bell.'

‘I'll go upstairs,' Sam said, ‘but I won't play with your cat. Buller is my friend. He knows what to do with cats.'

When they were alone Mrs Castle said, ‘Maurice told me if you returned home he would leave the house. What
have
you done, Sarah?'

‘I'd rather not talk about it. Maurice told me to come here, so I've come.'

‘Which of you is – well, what they call the guilty party?'

‘Does there always have to be a guilty party?'

‘I'm going to ring him again.'

‘I can't stop you, but it won't be any use.'

Mrs Castle dialled the number, and Sarah prayed to God whom she didn't believe in that she might at least hear Maurice's voice, but ‘There's no reply,' Mrs Castle said.

‘He's probably at the office.'

‘On a Saturday afternoon?'

‘Times are irregular in his job.'

‘I thought the Foreign Office was better organized.'

Sarah waited until the evening, after she had put Sam to bed, then walked down into the town. She went to the Crown and gave herself a J. & B. She made it a double in memory of Maurice and then went to the telephone box. She knew Maurice had told her not to contact him. If he were still at home, and his telephone was tapped, he would have to pretend anger, continue a quarrel which didn't exist, but at least she would know he was there in the house and not in a police cell or on his way across a Europe she had never seen. She let the telephone ring a long time before she put down the receiver – she was aware she was making it easy for Them to trace the call, but she didn't care. If They came to see her at least she would have news of him. She left the box and drank her J. & B. at the bar and walked back to Mrs Castle's house. Mrs Castle said ‘Sam's been calling for you.' She went upstairs.

‘What is it, Sam?'

‘Do you think Buller's all right?'

‘Of course he's all right. What could be wrong?'

‘I had a dream.'

‘What did you dream?'

‘I don't remember. Buller will miss me. I wish we could have him here.'

‘We can't. You know that. Sooner or later he'd be sure to kill Tinker Bell.'

‘I wouldn't mind that.'

She went reluctantly downstairs. Mrs Castle was watching television.

‘Anything interesting on the news?' Sarah asked.

‘I seldom listen to the news,' Mrs Castle said. ‘I like to read the news in
The Times
.' But next morning there was no news which could possibly interest her in the Sunday papers. Sunday – he never had to work on Sunday. At midday she went back to the Crown and rang the house again, and again she held on for a long while – he might be in the garden with Buller, but at last she had to give up even that hope. She comforted herself with the thought that he
had
escaped, but then she reminded herself that They had the power to hold him – wasn't it for three days? – without a charge.

Mrs Castle had lunch – a joint of roast beef – served very punctually at one. ‘Shall we listen to the news?' Sarah asked.

‘Don't play with your napkin ring, Sam dear,' Mrs Castle said. ‘Just take out your napkin and put the ring down by your plate.' Sarah found Radio 3. Mrs Castle said, ‘There's never news worth listening to on Sundays,' and she was right, of course.

Never had a Sunday passed more slowly. The rain stopped and the feeble sun tried to find a gap through the clouds. Sarah took Sam for a walk across what was called – she didn't know why – a forest. There were no trees – only low bushes and scrub (one area had been cleared for a golf course). Sam said, ‘I like Ashridge better,' and a little later, ‘A walk's not a walk without Buller.' Sarah wondered: How long will life be like this? They cut across a corner of the golf course to get home and a golfer who had obviously had too good a lunch shouted to them to get off the fairway. When Sarah didn't respond quickly enough he called, ‘Hi! You! I'm talking to you, Topsy!' Sarah seemed to remember that Topsy had been a black girl in some book the Methodists had given her to read when she was a child.