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those laughing faces on the wall.
    ‘They died every day then, the pilots. We did reconnaissance, you know, as well as special operations … I’m ashamed sometimes: I can’t even remember their names. They were so young, some of them.’
    There passed across Avery’s mind a tragic procession of horror-struck faces; mothers and fathers, girl friends and wives, and he tried to visualize Leclerc standing among them, naïve yet footsure, like a politician at the scene of a disaster.
    They stood at the top of a rise. It was a wretched place. The road led downward into a line of dingy, eyeless houses; above them rose a single block of flats: Roxburgh Gardens. A string of lights shone on to the glazed tiles, dividing and redividing the whole structure into cells. It was a large building, very ugly in its way, the beginning of a new world, and at its feet lay the black rubble of the old: crumbling, oily houses, haunted by sad faces which moved through the rain like driftwood in a forgotten harbour.
    Leclerc’s frail fists were clenched; he stood very still.
    ‘There?’ he said. ‘Taylor lived there?’
    ‘What’s wrong? It’s part of a scheme, redevelopment …’ Then Avery understood. Leclerc was ashamed. Taylor had disgracefully deceived him. This was not the society they protected, these slums with their Babel’s Tower: they had no place in Leclerc’s scheme of things. To think that a member of Leclerc’s staff should daily trudge from the breath and stink of such a place to the sanctuary of the Department: had he no money, no pension? Had he not a little bit beside, as we all have, just a hundred or two, to buy himself out of this squalor?
    ‘It’s no worse than Blackfriars Road,’ Avery said involuntarily; it was meant to comfort him.
    ‘Everyone knows we used to be in Baker Street,’ Leclerc retorted.
    They made their way quickly to the base of the block, past shop windows filled with old clothes and rusted electric fires, all the sad muddle of useless things which only the poor will buy. There was a chandler; his candles were yellow and dusty like fragments of a tomb.
    ‘What number?’ Leclerc asked.
    ‘You said thirty-four.’
    They passed between heavy pillars crudely ornamented with mosaics, followed plastic arrows marked with pink numbers; they squeezed between lines of aged, empty cars, until finally they came to a concrete entrance with cartons of milk on the step. There was no door, but a flight of rubberized steps which squeaked as they trod. The air smelt of food and that liquid soap they give in railway lavatories. On the heavy stucco wall a hand-painted notice discouraged noise. Somewhere a wireless played. They continued up two flights, and stopped before a green door, half glazed. Mounted on it in letters of white Bakelite was the number thirty-four. Leclerc took off his hat and wiped the sweat from his temples. He might have been entering church. It had been raining more than they realised; their coats were quite wet. He pressed the bell. Avery was suddenly very frightened; he glanced at Leclerc and thought: this is your show; you tell her.
    The music seemed louder. They strained their ears to catch some other sound, but there was none.
    ‘Why did you call him Malherbe?’ Avery asked suddenly.
    Leclerc pressed the bell again; and then they heard it, both of them, a whimper midway between the sob of a child and the whine of a cat, a throttled, metallic sigh. While Leclerc stepped back, Avery seized the bronze knocker on the letter box and banged it violently. The echo died away and they heard from inside the flat a light, reluctant tread; a bolt was slid from its housing, a spring lock disengaged. Then they heard again, much louder and more distinctly, the same plaintive monotone. The door opened a few inches and Avery saw a child, a frail, pallid rag of a girl not above ten years old. She wore steel-rimmed spectacles, the kind Anthony wore. In her arms, its pink limbs splayed stupidly