The Human Factor

by Graham Greene

  He dried his face, and he thought: I’ll ring up Emmanuel. Doctor Percival was the only real friend he had in the whole firm. He opened the bedroom door and looked in. The room was in darkness and he thought his wife was asleep until she spoke. ‘What’s keeping you, dear?’

  ‘I won’t be long. I just want to ring up Emmanuel.’

  ‘Has that man Muller gone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I don’t like him.’

  ‘Nor do I.’

  CHAPTER III

  1

  CASTLE woke and looked at his watch, though he believed that he carried time in his head – he knew it would be a few minutes to eight, giving him just long enough to go to his study and turn on the news without waking Sarah. He was surprised to see that his watch marked eight five – the inner clock had never failed him before, and he doubted his watch, but by the time he reached his room the important news was over – there were only the little scraps of parochial interest which the reader used to fill the slot: a bad accident on the M4, a brief interview with Mrs Whitehouse welcoming some new campaign against pornographic books, and, perhaps as an illustration of her talk, a trivial fact, that an obscure bookseller called Holliday – ‘I’m sorry, Halliday’ – had appeared before a magistrate in Newington Butts for selling a pornographic film to a boy of fourteen. He had been remanded for trial at the Central Criminal Court, and his bail had been set at two hundred pounds.

  So he was at liberty, Castle thought, with the copy of Muller’s notes in his pocket, presumably watched by the police. He might be afraid to pass them on at whatever drop they had given him, he might be afraid even to destroy them; what seemed his most likely choice was to keep them as a bargaining asset with the police. ‘I’m a more important man than you think: if this little affair can be arranged, I can show you things . . . let me talk to someone from the Special Branch.’ Castle could well imagine the kind of conversation which might be going on at that moment: the sceptical local police, Halliday exposing the first page of Muller’s notes as an inducement.

  Castle opened the door of the bedroom: Sarah was still asleep. He told himself that now the moment had arrived which he had always expected, when he must think clearly and act decisively. Hope was out of place just as much as despair. They were emotions which would confuse thought. He must assume Boris had gone, that the line was cut, and that he must act on his own.

  He went down to the sitting-room where Sarah wouldn’t hear him dial and rang a second time the number he had been given to use only for a final emergency. He had no idea in what room it was ringing – the exchange was somewhere in Kensington: he dialled three times with an interval of ten seconds between and he had the impression that his SOS was ringing out to an empty room, but he couldn’t tell . . . There was no other appeal for help which he could make, nothing left for him to do but clear the home ground. He sat by the telephone and made his plans, or rather went over them and confirmed them, for he had made them long ago. There was nothing important left to be destroyed, he was almost sure of that, no books he had once used for coding . . . he was convinced there were no papers waiting to be burned . . . he could leave the house safely, locked and empty . . . you couldn’t, of course, burn a dog . . . what was he to do with Buller? How absurd at this moment to be bothered by a dog, a dog he had never even liked, but his mother would never allow Sarah to introduce Buller into the Sussex house as a permanent lodger. He could leave him, he supposed, at a kennels, but he had no idea where . . . This was the one problem he had never worked out. He told himself that it was not an important one, as he went upstairs to wake Sarah.

  Why this morning was she so deeply asleep? He remembered, as he looked at her, with the tenderness one can feel even for an enemy who sleeps, how after making love he had fallen into the deepest nullity he had known for months, simply because they had talked frankly, because they had ceased to have secrets. He kissed her and she opened her eyes and he could tell she knew at once there was no time to be lost; she couldn’t, in her usual fashion, wake slowly, and stretch her arms and say, ‘I was dreaming . . .’

  He told her, ‘You must ring my mother now. It will seem more natural for you to do it if we’ve had a quarrel. Ask if you can stay a few days with Sam. You can lie a little. All the better if she thinks you are lying. It will make it easier, when you are there, to let the story out slowly. You can say that I’ve done something unforgivable . . . We talked about it all last night.’

  ‘But you said we had time . . .’

  ‘I was wrong.’

  ‘Something’s happened?’

  ‘Yes. You’ve got to get away with Sam right away.’

  ‘And you are staying here?’

  ‘Either they’ll help me to get out or the police will come for me. You mustn’t be here if that happens.’

  ‘Then it’s the end for us?’

  ‘Of course it’s not the end. As long as we are alive we’ll come together again. Somehow. Somewhere.’

  They hardly spoke to each other, dressing rapidly, like strangers on a journey who have been forced to share the same wagon lit. Only as she turned at the door on her way to wake up Sam she asked, ‘What about the school? I don’t suppose anyone will bother . . .’

  ‘Don’t worry now. Telephone on Monday and say he’s ill. I want you both out of the house as quickly as possible. In case the police come.’

  She returned five minutes later and said, ‘I spoke to your mother. She wasn’t exactly welcoming. She has someone for lunch. What about Buller?’

  ‘I’ll think of something.’

  At ten to nine she was ready to leave with Sam. A taxi was at the door. Castle felt a terrible sense of unreality. He said, ‘If nothing happens you can come back. We shall have made up our quarrel.’ Sam at least was happy. Castle watched him as he laughed with the driver.

  ‘If . . .’

  ‘You came to the Polana.’

  ‘Yes, but you said once things never happened twice the same way.’

  At the taxi they even forgot to kiss and then they clumsily remembered – a kiss which was meaningless, empty of everything except the sense that this going away couldn’t be true – it was something they were dreaming. They had always exchanged dreams – those private codes more unbreakable than Enigma.

  ‘Can I telephone?’

  ‘Better not. If all’s well, I’ll telephone you in a few days from a call box.’

  When the taxi drove away, he couldn’t even see the last of her because of the tinted glass in the rear window. He went indoors and began to pack a small bag, suitable for a prison or an escape. Pyjamas, washing things, a small towel – after hesitation he added his passport. Then he sat down and began to wait. He heard one neighbour drive away and then the silence of Saturday descended. He felt as though he were the only person left alive in King’s Road, except for the police at the corner. The door was pushed open and Buller came waddling in. He settled on his haunches and fixed Castle with bulging and hypnotic eyes. ‘Buller,’ Castle whispered, ‘Buller, what a bloody nuisance you’ve always been, Buller.’ Buller went on staring – it was the way to get a walk.

  Buller was still watching him a quarter of an hour later when the telephone rang. Castle let it ring. It rang over and over, like a child crying. This could not be the signal he hoped for – no control would have remained on the line so long – it was probably some friend of Sarah’s, Castle thought. It would not, in any case, be for him. He had no friends.

  2

  Doctor Percival sat waiting in the hall of the Reform, near the great wide staircase, which looked as though it had been built to stand the heavy weight of old Liberal statesmen, those bearded or whiskered men of perpetual integrity. Only one other member was visible when Hargreaves came in and he was small and insignificant and short-sighted – he was having difficulty in reading the ticker tape. Hargreaves said, ‘I know it’s my turn, Emmanuel, but the Travellers is closed. I hope you don’t mind my asking Daintry to join us here.’r />
  ‘Well, he’s not the gayest of companions,’ Doctor Percival said. ‘Security trouble?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I hoped you would have a little peace after Washington.’

  ‘One doesn’t expect peace for long in this job. I don’t suppose I’d enjoy it anyway, or why is it that I don’t retire?’

  ‘Don’t talk of retirement, John. God knows what Foreign Office type they might foist on us. What’s troubling you?’

  ‘Let me have a drink first.’ They moved up the staircase and took their seats at a table on the landing outside the restaurant. Hargreaves drank his Cutty Sark neat. He said, ‘Suppose you killed the wrong man, Emmanuel?’

  Doctor Percival’s eyes showed no surprise. He examined carefully the colour of his dry martini, smelt it, removed with a nail the nick of lemon peel as though he were making up his own prescription.

  ‘I’m confident I didn’t,’ he said.

  ‘Muller doesn’t share your confidence.’

  ‘Oh, Muller! What does Muller know about it?’

  ‘He knows nothing. But he has an intuition.’

  ‘If that’s all . . .’

  ‘You’ve never been in Africa, Emmanuel. You get to trust an intuition in Africa.’

  ‘Daintry will expect a great deal more than intuition. He wasn’t even satisfied with the facts about Davis.’

  ‘Facts?’

  ‘That business of the Zoo and the dentist – to take only one example. And Porton. Porton was decisive. What are you going to tell Daintry?’

  ‘My secretary tried to get Castle on the phone first thing this morning. There was no reply at all.’

  ‘He’s probably gone away with his family for the week-end.’

  ‘Yes. But I’ve had his safe opened – Muller’s notes aren’t there. I know what you’ll say. Anyone can be careless. But I thought if Daintry went down to Berkhamsted – well, if he found nobody there, it would be an opportunity to have the house looked over discreetly, and if he’s in . . . he’ll be surprised to see Daintry, and if he’s guilty . . . he’d be a bit on edge . . .’

  ‘Have you told 5?’

  ‘Yes, I’ve spoken to Philips. He’s having Castle’s phone monitored again. I hope to God nothing comes of all this. It would mean Davis was innocent.’

  ‘You shouldn’t worry so much about Davis. He’s no loss to the firm, John. He should never have been recruited. He was inefficient and careless and drank too much. He’d have been a problem sooner or later anyway. But if Muller should be right, Castle will be a serious headache. Aflatoxin can’t be used. Everyone knows he’s not a heavy drinker. It will have to be the law courts, John, unless we can think of something else. Counsel for the defence. Evidence in camera. How the journalists hate that. Sensational headlines. I suppose Daintry will be satisfied if no one else is. He’s a great stickler for doing things the legal way.’

  ‘And here he comes at last,’ Sir John Hargreaves said.

  Daintry came up the great staircase towards them, slowly. Perhaps he wished to test every tread in turn as though it were a circumstantial piece of evidence.

  ‘I wish I knew how to begin.’

  ‘Why not as you did with me – a little brutally?’

  ‘Ah, but he hasn’t your thick skin, Emmanuel.’

  3

  The hours seemed very long. Castle tried to read, but no book could relieve the tension. Between one paragraph and another he would be haunted by the thought that somewhere he had left in the house something which would incriminate him. He had looked at every book on every shelf – there was not one he had ever used for coding: War and Peace was safely destroyed. From his study he had taken every sheet of used carbon paper – however innocent – and burnt them: the list of telephone numbers on his desk contained nothing more secret than the butcher’s and the doctor’s, and yet he felt certain somewhere there must be a clue he had forgotten. He remembered the two men from Special Branch searching Davis’s flat; he remembered the lines which Davis had marked with a ‘c’ in his father’s Browning. There would be no traces of love in this house. He and Sarah had never exchanged love letters – love letters in South Africa would have been the proof of a crime.

  He had never spent so long and solitary a day. He wasn’t hungry, though only Sam had eaten any breakfast, but he told himself one could not tell what might happen before night or where he would eat his next meal. He sat down in the kitchen before a plate of cold ham, but he had only eaten one piece before he realized it was time to listen to the one o’clock news. He listened to the end – even to the last item of football news because one could never be sure – there might be an urgent postscript.

  But, of course, there was nothing which in the least concerned him. Not even a reference to young Halliday. It was unlikely there would be; his life from now on was totally in camera. For a man who had dealt for many years with what was called secret information he felt oddly out of touch. He was tempted to make again his urgent SOS, but it had been imprudent to make it even the second time from home. He had no idea where his signal rang, but those who monitored his telephone might well be able to trace the calls. The conviction he had felt the evening before that the line had been cut, that he was abandoned, grew with every hour.

  He gave what was left of the ham to Buller who rewarded him with a string of spittle on his trousers. He should long before this have taken him out, but he was unwilling to leave the four walls of the house, even to go into the garden. If the police came he wanted to be arrested in his home, and not in the open air with the neighbours’ wives peering through their windows. He had a revolver upstairs in a drawer beside his bed, a revolver which he had never admitted to Davis he possessed, a quite legal revolver dating from his days in South Africa. Nearly every white man there possessed a gun. At the time he bought it he had loaded one chamber, the second chamber to prevent a rash shot, and the charge had remained undisturbed for seven years. He thought: I could use it on myself if the police broke in, but he knew very well that suicide for him was out of the question. He had promised Sarah that one day they would be together again.

  He read, he put on the television, he read again. A crazy notion struck him – to catch a train to London and go to Halliday’s father and ask for news. But perhaps already they were watching his house and the station. At half-past four, between the dog and the wolf, as the grey evening gathered, the telephone rang a second time and this time illogically he answered the call. He half hoped to hear Boris’s voice, though he knew well enough that Boris would never take the risk of calling him at home.

  The stern voice of his mother came out at him as though she were in the same room. ‘Is that Maurice?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘I’m glad you’re there. Sarah seemed to think you might have gone away.’

  ‘No, I’m still here.’

  ‘What’s all this nonsense between you?’

  ‘It’s not nonsense, Mother.’

  ‘I told her she ought to leave Sam with me and go straight back.’

  ‘She’s not coming, is she?’ he asked with fear. A second parting seemed an impossible thing to bear.

  ‘She refuses to go. She says you wouldn’t let her in. That’s absurd, of course.’

  ‘It’s not absurd at all. If she came I should leave.’

  ‘What on earth has happened between you?’

  ‘You’ll know one day.’

  ‘Are you thinking of a divorce? It would be very bad for Sam.’

  ‘At present it’s only a question of a separation. Just let things rest for a while, Mother.’

  ‘I don’t understand. I hate things I don’t understand. Sam wants to know whether you’ve fed Buller.’

  ‘Tell him I have.’

  She rang off. He wondered whether a recorder somewhere was playing over their conversation. He needed a whisky, but the bottle was empty. He went down to what had once been a coal cellar where he kept his wine and spirits. The chute for the delivery of coal had
been turned into a sort of slanting window. He looked up and saw on the pavement the reflected light of a street lamp and the legs of someone who must be standing below it.

  The legs were not in uniform, but of course they might belong to a plain clothes officer from Special Branch. Whoever it was had placed himself rather crudely opposite the door, but of course the object of the watcher might be to frighten him into some imprudent action. Buller had followed him down the stairs; he too noticed the legs above and began to bark. He looked dangerous, sitting back on his haunches with his muzzle raised, but if the legs had been near enough, he would not have bitten them, he would have dribbled on them. As the two of them watched, the legs moved out of sight, and Buller grunted with disappointment – he had lost an opportunity of making a new friend. Castle found a bottle of J. & B. (it occurred to him that the colour of the whisky no longer had any importance) and went upstairs with it. He thought: If I hadn’t got rid of War and Peace I might now have the time to read some chapters for pleasure.

  Again restlessness drove him to the bedroom to rummage among Sarah’s things for old letters, though he couldn’t imagine how any letters he had ever written her could be incriminating, but then in the hands of Special Branch perhaps the most innocent reference could be twisted to prove her guilty knowledge. He didn’t trust them not to want that – there is always in such cases the ugly desire for revenge. He found nothing – when you love and you are together old letters are apt to lose their value. Someone rang the front door bell. He stood and listened and heard it ring again and then a third time. He told himself that this visitor was not to be put off by silence and it was foolish not to open the door. If the line after all hadn’t been cut there might be a message, an instruction . . . Without thinking why, he drew out of the drawer by his bed the revolver and put it with its single charge in his pocket.