Philby agreed with my reasoning. I told him nothing about the note written on soft yellowing paper which I had hidden in the inner pocket of my jacket. I didn"t want a posse of agents following me in search of la femme fatale la femme fatale.
I felt a sense of liberation: for the first time in the war (indeed since some time before it) I felt I had control over my destiny. Like most people with such feelings, I had overlooked the fact that my decision was driven by a mixture of pride and s.e.xual frustration, and that I had liberated no one, least of all myself.
The first sign that I wasn"t in control of the operation came the next day, when I visited the Doctor"s cell again to inform him of the arrangements. He nodded and thanked me, but gave no sign of the sort of childish excitement that Turing relates perhaps he knew it wouldn"t work with me. Instead he adopted a businesslike tone.
"Turing will have to come, you know," he said.
"Turing! I don"t think we"ll need "
"Yes, we will. He"s the expert on German codes. He has to translate for me."
"From German? I think my German"s probably better than "
"No, into your language."
I was confused. "Translate what, then?"
"Whatever I find out. It"s unlikely you"ll understand the primary concepts I"m not sure that they will be translatable, even by Turing, but at least there"s a chance "
"I don"t know what you"re talking about, Doctor. The idea"s ridiculous. Turing"s a first-cla.s.s security risk. You know he"s h.o.m.os.e.xual, don"t you?" I could have added that he was insensitive and immature, but I didn"t want to offend the Doctor. "Let him loose in Paris, knowing what he knows? I might as well parachute him into Berlin with a decoding machine strapped around his neck."
The Doctor, however, was determined. "We will need Turing," he said. "Take it from me. And the fact that he"s h.o.m.os.e.xual should have nothing to do with it. You have some extraordinary prejudices."
"Doctor, he could prejudice our security. He"s a weakness."
"He"s a person, and with a deeper sense of loyalty than yours, I suspect."
A child, I thought. A child in mathematician"s clothing.
We discussed it some more, but it was clear that the Doctor wasn"t about to go to Paris without Turing. It was a straightforward blackmail: either I went on my own, knowing what I now knew about Daria, or I agreed to his request. With any other man there would have been a way in, an appeal to his self-interest perhaps: but the Doctor, once he had decided, was not open to appeals of any kind. I gave in, but not only out of my self-interest. I wanted to see them compete, the Doctor and Daria. I wanted to know which one was the good angel and which the bad.
I should, of course, have known that there are no simple answers to questions like that.
Turing has described his feelings on those days in Paris as being like those of Alice in Wonderland. It"s not a bad description. What he doesn"t seem to have noticed is that I felt the same. It was a game where I couldn"t trust anyone, and in this it was like the ordinary run of Intelligence operations: what was different was the oddness of the players. Turing, for all his weaknesses, was a more or less known quant.i.ty, but the Doctor certainly wasn"t; neither was Daria, and our quarry the Dresden code makers also had an air of the unknowable about them. All were capable of miracles, and all were capable of killing.
Furthermore I was unsure about my new colleague, Colonel Elgar. When I saw him at the airstrip, I knew at once that there was something fake about him. It wasn"t anything that I could have proved by looking at his papers, or by asking Philby to check his record. It was his manner that gave it away. He didn"t look like other Resistance fighters, and I had spoken with several. He didn"t have the right kind of desperation, the twitchy sixth sense that a man has to develop if he lives under occupation, in continual fear of a knock on the door or the treachery of a friend. His manner was more that of an actor playing the part of a British undercover man in one of those second-rate propaganda movies where everything goes well, and if anyone "buys it" they are buried with such honour that their death can"t possibly matter.
Nonetheless I was forced to work with him. I was in the same dilemma as Turing: he was an accredited officer, and as such was in charge of the operation. I was an amateur who had already offered his resignation, a fact of which Elgar was aware.
Elgar was aware of altogether too much that was another worrying thing about him. On that first night whilst Turing was agonising about whether to allow the Doctor access to the code I was being interrogated about the Doctor by Elgar, as we drank together in my hotel room.
I stuck to the cover story, but Elgar snorted and said, "Are you sure that he"s a colonial? How can you be sure of a thing like that, without any papers? And this guff about loss of memory! We"re letting the man work with one of the most important code breakers we have."
"Bringing Turing was the Doctor"s idea, not mine."
"Precisely, old chap." Elgar"s eyes were cold, far colder than his words. I knew then that they were the eyes of a killer.
"In the Resistance, you must have taken people on trust sometimes."
"No. Never."
I was sure he was wrong about the Doctor, but couldn"t think of any more adequate argument. I felt disturbed by the easy hatred in him, and I wanted to get away. I made the drink my excuse, and told him that I needed to sleep.
As soon as he was gone, I went to reception and telephoned Daria. "I"m here."
"It"s the middle of the night!" But she didn"t sound sleepy. I thought she might have company, but when I told her where I was she said, "I"ll come over now."
I should have felt a surge of s.e.xual desire at this proposition, but all I felt was anxiety. The thought of her coming to my room, with Elgar in the next room on one side and the Doctor on the other, might in other circ.u.mstances have given me the added thrill of danger, but the Doctor"s insight into her nature had made me wary. Legends of the succubus tumbled around in my mind like worms. "We should meet outside," I said.
A hesitation, then, "Very well. That may be safer."
We agreed to meet in a cafe near the hotel. She kissed me, for the first time, and with a human urgency that should have been convincing. I, however, was uncertain enough to pull back.
She asked why. When I couldn"t come up with an answer, she frowned at me and asked, "Is it anything to do with the Doctor?"
I felt that wrench in my stomach that was far too familiar in Intelligence work. There was no way that Daria could know that the Doctor was with me, except through a spy. When I tasked her with this, she said simply, "I know Elgar."
Her eyes were dark and haunted across the cafe table, implying that the relationship was anything but straightforward. Despite this I could hardly fail to detect the conspiracy: her invitation, Elgar"s presence in Paris, her curiosity about the Doctor. How much did they know? Who were they? The Alice-inWonderland feeling that Turing describes so well came to me then, with the additional fear of betrayal and death.
I stood up. "You should meet the Doctor. He"ll still be up, probably. I"d like to see you two discuss " I was going to say "who you are", but then realised it was hard to say what they would discuss. Certainly it was not likely to be anything I would understand, or want to hear. Perhaps they would try to kill each other.
Daria stood up too. "I don"t know," she said. "I may need "
"Backup?"
She shrugged. "You are misunderstanding the situation, Graham. You are thinking in the cliches of the world in which you live. There is no need to feel threatened, because there is no threat."
I left the cafe. Despite her words, I was afraid. She followed me and caught my arm. Even through the thick cloth of my coat, her touch was cold and angular. I was now certain that I didn"t want her to come to the hotel not tonight, perhaps never.
"Perhaps we should wait until the morning," I suggested as we rounded the corner into the Rue du Parc.
"I will look from outside," she said. "I will speak to Elgar soon, but not tonight." Again, the hint that things were not easy between them which made her seem more human.
As we approached the hotel, she stopped and gave a small cry, then pulled me into a darkened doorway. I looked up and saw the Doctor with Turing on a balcony, lit from behind by the dim light from the room. I"m not surprised by Turing"s account of their conversation, for I will swear that Daria and the Doctor exchanged a glance of pure recognition before she strode away down the street, her heels clicking on the stone.
I don"t know whether it was the next day or the day after that when my uncertainty about Elgar precipitated into a knowledge that he was kin to the Doctor and Daria. I had begun, perhaps, to be sensitive to the nuances of wrongness in language, the overcooked logic, the lack of the usual human perceptions, which would occasionally show, like the crack in a mask that reveals the ancient flesh beneath.
There was only one person I could tell about my new insight. I found the Doctor in Turing"s room. Turing, fortunately, was out, taking his ideas for a walk. The Doctor was staring at one of the many newspaper-sized sheets of coding material, a pencil tucked behind one ear and a pen in each hand.
"I know," said the Doctor, when I told him about Elgar, with a look of wisdom and prescience that I found more than slightly irritating.
"Then you could have told me," I pointed out.
"I didn"t want to, or need to. You knew he was working with Daria."
"I thought he was sleeping sleeping with Daria." with Daria."
The Doctor laughed. "He might be. But that proves nothing about him, since you would also like to." He glanced up. "I don"t recommend it, by the way."
"You"ve tried?" I asked dryly.
"We I " He shrugged. "It"s not something that interests me."
"s.e.x?"
"Yes. It"s a missing piece in my life." He scribbled something on one of the sheets of paper, left-handed.
"A crack in the mask," I said, thinking of Elgar.
He made another note on the code sheets, this time with his right hand. "Whatever. Anyway, as I say, I don"t recommend it."
The Doctor"s rejection had the perverse effect of awakening a spark of interest in me. Perhaps he intended this, though I doubt he was that devious.
"Do you think I am human?" he asked.
There wasn"t an answer to this: I hedged with a generality. "My mind accepts the possible, Doctor. With room for a few miracles."
"Hmm. And not much in between." He was disappointed: I could tell from his voice. But how could I make a judgement on his humanity or otherwise? I wanted to leave, but he spoke again. "If you keep an open mind, and expand your definition of what is possible, eventually what you originally thought of as miracles will become part of the possible. Yes?"
I reviewed this one to make sure he was saying what I thought he was saying, then replied, "I prefer miracles to remain miracles, thank you, Doctor."
He wrote with both hands at once, furiously, for about half a minute.
"Maybe you"re right," he said, when he"d finished.
I turned to leave. "Thanks for the tip. I"ll be careful with Daria."
The Doctor didn"t reply, and I was halfway through the door when he said, "Do you believe in evil?"
I had been asked this question enough times to have a reply ready. "I"d be a fool if I didn"t."
"Do you believe that people can be evil? I mean, entirely evil?"
I shook my head. "Sorry, Doctor. I"d have to write a novel to answer that one."
"So Herr Hitler, for example "
"Is evil enough that he has to be stopped." I"d been asked that one a good many times, too.
"By killing him?"
"If necessary, yes."
"Would you do it?"
He had stopped looking at the code sheets, and was staring up at me, solemn, troubled. I looked him in the eyes. "Would you?"
He nodded, then shook his head, a very human gesture of confusion. "I"ve had to be absolved " He shrugged, looked back to the code sheets. I noticed there was a clock in the room, elaborate ormolu, ticking quietly. It looked original, and expensive. Surely it wasn"t a standard hotel fitting.
The Doctor wasn"t working at all now: he was just staring at the sheets of paper. The light from the window caught his jacket and the fall of his long curls: he could have been a statue.
"Can I help?" I asked after a while.
"With this? No. But there is a favour you could do for me."
"Yes?"
"You could take this " he gestured at something that looked like a wind-up gramophone, with the old type of bra.s.s speaker horn "and put it in Elgar"s room for me. I want to monitor his movements."
"What on Earth for? And anyway he"s going to notice that."
"Hmm. Yes, you"re right." The Doctor had, to all appearances, not appreciated this point: he lifted up the machine, shook it, muttered, "Maybe we could take the horn off "
"What is it for? It looks like a gramophone to me."
"Looks like. That"s why I thought maybe " He shrugged. "Not contemporary?"
"Not exactly. Where did you get it? A junk shop?"
"Sort of. I think so." He grinned. "Oh, well. Perhaps this instead." He lifted the arm and needle from the gramophone. They came away at the mount with a click rather too like that of the safety catch on a gun. He handed the detached arm to me. "Behind a curtain?"
I took the strange, curved tube. The metal was cold, and the needle glittered. Detached from the turntable it seemed a different, more alien, object.
"How does it work?" I asked. I knew that I wouldn"t understand the answer, and I didn"t. The Doctor talked about statistics, and quantum interference patterns. Turing would have understood, perhaps.
Understanding nothing, I placed the object in Elgar"s room at the next opportunity. I played the spy very well, considering how little practice I"d had at being an agent, rather than merely controlling other men. I found it was like the difference between writing about a life and living it. I went in with the strange object under my jacket, horribly obvious and bulky. I felt Elgar"s eyes on me, felt that he must see that I was guilty, burdened, suddenly a double agent. I sat down on the big honeymooners" bed with its thick pink velveteen counterpane, and talked to Elgar about the Doctor"s (imaginary) report on his progress with the code. I waited until Elgar"s back was turned, then placed the object on the floor behind the draped-down cover, with as much finesse as a schoolboy stealing apples. I was very proud of myself when Elgar didn"t notice.
Chapter Fourteen.
Later that evening, Daria called at the hotel reception desk and asked for me. I came down to find her leaning on the polished marble, as elegant as a film star, with a long cigarette in a holder in her mouth. She was s.e.xy very much so. So much so that I was ready to forget everything I knew about her when she said, "Come with me to Elgar"s room."
"Elgar"s room?" I repeated, with the inanity of a s.e.x-stunned teenager.
"He won"t be there." She smiled. "There is a kind of loneliness, you know..."