[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]
.In a little while, Toulmin began to recover.He was plump, bordering on fat, less than middle-height, roman nosed, heavy cheeked, and it was as if he pulled it all back into customary shape now, like reassembling a torn-up photograph.During the bad moments, his head had slumped forward.He put that right.‘Also, they may have taken a receipt for the chair,’ he said.‘I don’t understand why.’‘No, I lifted that.It seemed special, somehow.Cherishable.You can have it back.’‘Yes, special,’ Toulmin said.‘They look so good, the four chairs.Exactly right; a proper complement.’‘Olga said the same.’‘The way chairs are placed gives a room its character.’‘Her opinion, too.’There was something half barmy and obsessive about the way these chairs had taken on such importance, but Mount thought he could see how it happened.A spy had no binding connection with anything or anybody in the country where he or she operated.Maybe this deep falseness and professional lack of true involvement could lead in some cases to a need for a bit of token reality.It might be subconscious.Had Mount given that kind of status to the chair, chairs? The spy came and went.That’s what spies were for.I spy with my little eye.My little eye, and only my little eye, established any join with this or that domain.The stay might be long, but that did not affect the non-rootedness.The spy was trained and paid to watch and efficiently pretend to belong, but never to belong, only to watch and collect and reveal.Perhaps the donated chair, and the recent general history of armchairs in this apartment, had acquired a sort of totem significance for Mount.The furniture symbolized so much that was good and spiritually refreshing; particularly, of course, the chair Toulmin and the girls had thoughtfully bought to replace the one he and Olga co-shattered during a very good frenzy.They’d ruined it, but absolutely unintentionally, as anyone observing could testify, such as Mount and Inge.Mount considered it moot - or, in fact, a damn bit less than moot - whether the chair should have been able to cope with the double, active load.What kind of stress tests were applied by manufacturers? These chairs had a modernistic look and might therefore be bought by young, healthy, vigorous people.Had the makers taken due account of this and of the demands, and gorgeous sudden, hop-aboard urges, of sex? What point laminating if the essential structure of the chair was faulty? That would be like polishing up the exterior of a car when the engine’s big end had gone.Anyway, in his eyes, the other three of the set now possessed some of that gifted chair’s fine, communal aura.And, even if they weren’t so brilliantly symbolic, Mount might have been put off dismantling them by the amount of sheer work involved.Four chairs were a lot to tear apart.After that would come the extremely awkward task of disposal.Things had altered.He felt he couldn’t do a secret share-out around the bins again.His neighbour might become badly depressed and nervy if it all restarted, and with more pieces than before.He wanted to avoid cruelty.It would be grossly heartless to play dumb again if meeting her accidentally.‘More pieces, you say? Oh, dear, dear’ No, impossible.This meant the river, and two, possibly three, taxi journeys with the items in a suitcase.And he could hardly have asked a taxi to wait.The driver, looking on, was sure to wonder why someone took a trip, or trips, to chuck chair fragments from a suitcase into the Spree.Mount would have had to pay him off, then try to find another cab to take him home, or trek to an U-Bahn station; and subsequently, perhaps, repeat the chore more than once.This kind of rigmarole didn’t seem necessary, did it? Necessary? It didn’t even seem sane.And, obviously, it wouldn’t be possible at all if he was being watched.For God’s sake - he had a First in literae humaniores from one of the world’s finest universities and was here to gauge the likelihood of a second world war involving Germany, Britain, Russia, France, Italy and a clutch of smaller countries, plus, possibly, the United States: say just over half the world.He’d been asked to spot signs of Armageddon.Carting laminated chair pieces about because some woman went paranoid couldn’t be appropriate or worthwhile for him.Plus, Mount felt it would be a disgrace and a kind of betrayal to watch the wooden pieces float away towards the Baltic in the dark river, while the metal parts, fiung far out, sank.But he did mean to stay keyed up for any sign of police activity in the building over the next days and weeks, and, if it came to the push, he’d quickly move the four chairs into the bedrooms and close the doors.Most likely the police wouldn’t have a search warrant - not for such a weird inquiry.A look at the living room should be enough to prove the chair fragments didn’t come from there, although they did.That is, if it was only ordinary police, not more powerful and dangerous people.Each bedroom had a straight backed chair for hanging clothes on or for sitting in front of the dressing-table mirror.He’d bring them out as replacements into the living room.It might look under-furnished, but he was a sole occupant, and the room did have a settee, normally, as well as the armchairs, the drinks sideboard, plus a large mahogany table and the tall radiogram.‘Knecht will have resident people in London,’ Mount said.‘Their Passport Controller at the embassy is probably a spy.He or she will almost certainly be able to brief Valk and the other two about Lionel Paterin and, probably, the woman.There’ll be the beginnings of a dossier on Paterin already, or more
[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]