The Deadly Affair Page #3

that your husband be cleared.

Cleared? Of what?

Your husband was a communist

when he was at Oxford.

His recent promotion at the Foreign Office

gave him access

to highly secret information.

Some busybody

wrote us an anonymous letter,

and we had no option but to follow it up.

I was only doing my duty.

- To whom, Mr Dobbs?

- We had to check.

Check.

Sounds like a game, doesn't it?

- It's not a game, Mrs Fennan.

- No?

You treat people like wooden pawns.

You plot their moves.

You write their names on papers,

and then you put the papers into files.

But sometime the names have

wives and children,

as well as records.

And generally

very ordinary human motives

to justify their sad little dossier

and their make-believe sins.

And when that happens,

I'm very sorry for you.

Yes, when that happens,

I'm very sorry for myself.

Then go back to Whitehall

and look for more spies

on your drawing board,

because you have no place

among real people.

You dropped a bomb from the sky,

but don't come down here

to look at the blood and hear the screaming.

Mrs Fennan, you've had a terrible loss.

You must be exhausted.

You can't have slept all night.

Thank you,

but I scarcely hoped to sleep today.

Anyway, sleep is not a luxury I enjoy.

I am conscious of my body 20 hours a day.

As for my loss...

- Are you married, Mr Dobbs?

- Yes.

Maybe you would describe your wife

as a precious possession?

I don't possess her. I love her.

You see, for six years in camps,

I had no possession,

except for a comb and a toothbrush,

and a comb was of no use

because my head was shaved those days.

I loved my husband.

But I have the experience

of suffering losses with discretion.

Mrs Fennan,

my interview with your husband

was almost a formality.

I'm sure that he enjoyed it.

We got along very well together.

Well, that's not the impression he gave me.

What?

No, he was terribly upset

when he came back home at 7:00 last night.

He said he couldn't face the theatre,

and made me go by myself.

He took a sedative tablet.

- Who's that now?

- It could be my chief.

He said that he might ring me down here.

- Would you like me to take it for you?

- Yeah.

- Walliston 294?

- Yes?

Good morning, sir. Exchange here.

Your 8:
30 wakeup call.

- My what?

- Your 8:
30 alarm call.

Oh, yes! Thank you very much.

Yes, it was for you.

It was your 8:
30 alarm call

from the exchange.

What?

Somebody who cannot sleep

and ask for an alarm call,

did that surprise you, Mr Dobbs?

- Yes, a little.

- It shouldn't.

You see, I have an appalling memory,

so the call was not to wake me,

but to remind me,

like a knot in a handkerchief.

What was it that you had to remember?

Rate this script:0.0 / 0 votes