As the car turned the corner, Diana, sitting in the back with Forbes-James, saw Bletchley Park for the first time. It was a late Victorian mish-mash of different styles – a rotunda, Dutch gabling with pineapple-shaped finials, black-and-white mock Tudor timber and crenellations. The architect, whoever he was, had obviously been told to lay it on with a trowel. On the right side of the house was a stableyard with a clock-tower, and on the left, a green painted, prefabricated wooden hut. There seemed to be an awful lot of building work going on – men in overalls and flat caps were everywhere, sawing planks on the lawn in front of the house before carting them off to a messy-looking site of half-erected structures on the far side of the brick outbuildings.
Diana had expected the car to be met by a soldier, and blinked in astonishment when she caught sight of Phyllis Garton-Smith, with whom she’d done the season, hurrying towards them. Phyllis was clad in civilian clothes – blouse, skirt and pearls – and behaved as if the pair of them had simply motored down for a weekend house party. ‘Wonderful to see you, darling! Admiral Candless is expecting you, sir,’ she told F-J. ‘I’ve been asked to show you around – or rather, not, because one isn’t allowed to see anything. I’ve no idea what’s going on over there,’ she waved an arm in the direction of the building work, ‘except that they keep demolishing perfectly nice flower beds and putting up these wretched huts.’
‘What are you doing here?’ asked Diana, when F-J had been escorted away by a WREN.
‘Filing clerk. It’s priceless. Uncle Tony got me the job. I haven’t the first clue what it’s all about. No-one has, really – at least, no-one I know. Isn’t it a hideous house?’ Linking her arm in Diana’s as they went into the entrance hall, she continued, ‘Jeanie’s here,
too – Sally Monkton’s sister, you remember – and Merope Wright, and …’ Diana listened with half an ear as she took in the decoration and the Italian marble pillars, and caught sight of elaborate panelling and ornate ceilings as they passed various once grand rooms, most of which were now partitioned at odd angles with boards. It wasn’t so much a house party, she decided, more like an Oxford College she’d once visited – if you ignored the teleprinter and the various women rushing about the place. Besides these, the house seemed to be full of slovenly middle-aged schoolboys, clad in tweeds and baggy flannels.
‘They’re all geniuses, or so I’m told,’ Phyllis murmured. ‘They seem quite mad to me, but one gets used to it. I saw one chap take his tea down there,’ she gestured out of the window towards a large duck pond, ‘and when he’d finished, he looked at the cup in amazement, as if he’d absolutely no idea how it got into his hand, and threw it into the water. Quite extraordinary. Anyway, how are you, darling? I hear you’ve been having a high old time in London, you lucky thing … Is that lovely man your boss?’
‘Yes,’ said Diana.
‘It’s all right, darling, I know I’m not supposed to ask questions. Even if I did, I don’t suppose I’d understand the answers, but they’re terrifically fierce about it. When I arrived, they told me I’d get sent to the tower if I ever breathed so much as a word. Anyway, it’s all frightfully important. I expect you’re gasping for a cup of tea, aren’t you?’
‘I am, rather.’
‘We can get one in the mess room. They don’t really like us in there, but they don’t ask too many questions.’ She led Diana into a room full of armchairs, where two men, one wearing a mackintosh, were playing ping-pong. Both were leaping about, scarlet in the face, and each time they hit the ball – which didn’t seem to be very often – they would shout a number (‘317,811!’ ‘514,229 – Prime!’ ‘832,040!’) that bore no relation whatsoever to the score. ‘Genius at play,’ whispered Phyllis, settling her in an armchair by the window. ‘Or they could be working, one can never really tell. Anyway, they’re quite harmless. Shan’t be long.’
Left alone, Diana tilted her face to the thin October sunshine. Listening to the faint chattering of the teleprinter and the clatter of the ping-pong ball on the table, she wondered how long F-J would
be closeted with Admiral Candless, and whether it would be one of the boffins now prancing in front of her who would be given the job of translating their coded message into something intelligible.
I should never have told Claude, thought Diana. She’d cursed herself afterwards for her weakness, but at the time … He’d been so kind, coming round to the flat with brandy, and calming her down. All the same, she thought, I should never have let him take me to bed. It must never, ever happen again. So far, she’d managed to avoid him, but they were bound to run into each other sooner or later, and then … Diana massaged her temples. It was all very well to make such a resolution while sitting here in a comfortable armchair and feeling reasonably at peace, but what would happen when she saw him again?
Reporting back to F-J, which she’d done first thing on the Saturday morning, had helped to improve matters, and so had his assurance that he’d arrange for her to be transferred to another department. Telling him about Apse, though, had been just as excruciating as she’d feared. He’d asked several times if she were sure about what she’d overheard, but hadn’t – thank goodness – pressed her for any details. As Claude had predicted, his attitude had been one of resignation. ‘The whole thing’s a bloody nuisance,’ was what he’d said. ‘Does anyone else know?’
‘No,’ Diana had replied. ‘At least, not to my knowledge.’ Fortunately, F-J had taken her obvious discomfort for embarrassment (which it was, partly), and not as evidence of lying. ‘You didn’t hear any mention of it at the Right Club? Anything that didn’t make sense at the time?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Unfortunately, it remains a possibility. The first thing to do is get some sense out of that message. You’re coming with me. Don’t worry, I’ll deal with Apse – I shall tell him I’m borrowing you to cope with a backlog of paperwork. That’ll solve the immediate problem.’
‘Here you are.’ Phyllis presented her with a cup of tea, ducking to avoid a wide shot from the ping-pong table. ‘Look out!’ Both men started violently, as if they’d just noticed that there were other people in the room, and the one in the mackintosh came over to retrieve the ball from behind Diana’s chair.
‘Your lovely boss should be out in a minute,’ Phyllis said. ‘The Admiral’s terribly brisk. He’s so used to bellowing orders at people on great big ships that he’s forgotten how to talk normally. The billeting officer’s found your Colonel a room at The Bull in Stony Stratford – he’ll be dining with the Admiral first, of course – and you’re coming with me. It’s just outside the gates – a hostel – but you meet the most wonderful people. There’s a girl in my corridor from the East End, and you’ll never guess …’
Diana drifted off again, staring out of the window and thinking about Apse. Perhaps his air of self-satisfaction wasn’t merely to do with who he was, but also because – thus far, at least – he’d successfully concealed not one, but two secrets from everybody. Although surely the strain of not being what you appeared to be would make you worried, not smug? It would me, she thought. I’d be terrified all the time. Unless, of course, one actually relished the danger, as she suspected Claude would if he really was a double-agent.
Phyllis nudged her arm, and she looked round and saw a WREN standing beside them. ‘Follow me, please.’
F-J and the Admiral were standing on the lawn, admiring the duck pond. After a few moments conversation, F-J told Diana to meet him at quarter to nine the following morning, and they departed. ‘You poor darling,’ said Phyllis, ‘you must be shattered. Come on. ‘There’ll be time for you to lie down before dinner if you like. We’re going to the Hartleys’ – old friends of Ma and Pa – terribly sweet. I go there for baths.’
The following morning Diana, feeling exhausted, presented herself at Bletchley Park. The Hartleys had indeed been terribly sweet, and the hot bath had been lovely, but they seemed to regard her as an authority on everything that was going on in London and wouldn’t stop asking questions, and then Phyllis had wanted to stay up half the night chattering.
She was taken to a large room filled with long tables covered in grey, army-issue blankets, where F-J was sitting with three others, one of whom was the mackintoshed table-tennis player from the previous day. Beside him was a little chap with a flat face that made her think of a barn owl, who blinked at her in surprise, and a younger man with protruding teeth. F-J made introductions.
‘Professor Upjohn’ (mac), ‘Professor Ingersoll’ (owl-man), ‘and Mr Matthews’ (teeth). ‘This is Mrs Calthrop.’
All three men leant forward as Diana put her copy of the coded document on the table in front of them. After studying it for a moment, Professor Upjohn said, ‘You’re not sure of the language of the plaintext?’
‘Plaintext?’ Diana looked at F-J for enlightenment.
‘The language of the concealed message.’
‘Oh, I see. English or German, I should think.’ Diana realised she didn’t actually know whether Apse spoke German, but had simply assumed it.
‘Those are the most likely,’ said F-J.
‘Can you be fairly sure it comes from this particular organisation? ’ asked Upjohn, as the other two pored over the paper.
‘I believe so,’ said F-J, who must, Diana thought, have explained about the Right Club before she arrived. ‘But not necessarily. It might have been obtained from another source.’
‘And you don’t know what that source might be?’
‘An embassy, perhaps. I’ve spoken to our chaps in London about it, and it doesn’t appear to be anything official. Not from us, anyway.’
‘Is there,’ Professor Upjohn asked Diana, ‘any particular key you think this Right Club lot might have used?’
‘Key?’
‘A word or phrase.’
‘Well …’ Diana remembered the horrible silver brooch Mrs Montague had given her. ‘PJ, perhaps. It stands for Perish Judah.’
‘That’s J—U—D—A—H?’
‘I suppose so. I’ve never seen it written down.’ Beside him, Professor Ingersoll began writing rapidly in a notebook.
‘Nothing else?’ said Upjohn. ‘Names, that sort of thing? Books? Poems?’
‘The founder, Peverell Montague, or Protocols of the Elders of Zion or something like that, you mean?’
‘Yes.’
‘Well …’ Diana considered. ‘There’s a rather nasty little verse that Montague wrote. I could write it down for you, if you like.’
‘Please.’ Upjohn pushed a piece of paper towards her, and Diana began writing: Land of dope and Jewry, Land that once was free, All the Jewboys praise thee, While they plunder thee.
She finished and handed it to Upjohn, who raised his eyebrows. ‘Sorry,’ she said, awkwardly. ‘It isn’t very nice, I know. There’s more, but I can’t remember it.’
‘It’ll do for the moment,’ said Upjohn. Beside him, Matthews stared into space, and Ingersoll carried on scribbling.
F-J and Diana left them to it and went to sit in the Mess. ‘If it is from somewhere else,’ said Diana, slowly, ‘I mean, if it’s from a foreign embassy, and it’s been stolen, the original could be anything, couldn’t it? Any language at all?’
‘Yes,’ said F-J. ‘That’s the problem. One makes codes by adding on letters – so A becomes D and so on – or substituting them. Adding is comparatively simple, but with substitutions, the possibilities are endless. They’ll start by looking for letter frequencies, common words … obviously that would be too straightforward for a military application – if that’s what this is, of course – but that’s the basic principle of the thing. But if anyone can crack it, this lot will. We’ll just have to wait and see.’
After lunch – dreadful food, including an extraordinarily bright pink sponge pudding, but surprisingly good coffee – F-J and Diana strolled across the lawn to the pond. They watched the ducks for a while, then F-J said, ‘A penny for your thoughts.’
Diana laughed. ‘I doubt they’re worth it. I was just thinking of something Jock Anderson said to me, about the hidden self – that’s what he called it. He said that it’s the part we don’t reveal, sometimes because we don’t dare to, and that the safest thing was to be exactly what one appeared to be.’
‘“To thine own self be true,”’ quoted F-J, ‘“and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.”’
‘Hamlet?’
F-J nodded. ‘Polonius.’
‘It didn’t do Ophelia much good, did it?’
‘Laertes. Ophelia got all the stuff about how Hamlet was only after one thing and not to believe a word he said.’
‘Oh.’ Diana, whose mind had leapt immediately to Claude, hoped she wasn’t looking as uncomfortable as she felt.
‘I’ve always thought that “to thine own self be true” was a singularly useless piece of advice,’ said F-J. ‘What do you think Jock meant?’
‘I suppose,’ said Diana, thoughtfully, ‘that certain areas of one’s life – inner life – have to be kept in separate compartments. Like clothes in a chest of drawers.’
‘Very feminine. I forgot to ask, how was Hampshire?’
Diana sighed. It had to come sooner or later. ‘Difficult. Evie – my mother-in-law – seems to have found out about my seeing Claude.’
She’d thought F-J might be angry, or at least allude to the fact that he’d warned her to be careful, but he merely said, ‘Oh, dear.’
‘She made me promise not to see him again, sir.’
‘I know it must be hard for you,’ said F-J, gently, ‘but it’s probably for the best.’
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Have you been keeping your promise?’
‘Yes,’ said Diana. After all, she thought, she had been keeping her promise – except after her disastrous visit to Apse’s flat, and she couldn’t tell F-J about that.
She felt as if she might be sick. She concentrated on breathing slowly, waiting for it to pass, horribly aware of F-J’s scrutiny.
‘I hope that’s true,’ he said. ‘It’s often tempting to think one is too sophisticated for these things to matter much, especially at times like this, but they do matter in the long run. The complications and their consequences can be disastrous, even fatal. One can live to regret a very great deal.’ He paused to light a cigarette. ‘You’re probably thinking I sound like Polonius,’ he said. ‘Pompous platitudes. I don’t mean to, but I am very fond of you, my dear, and I would hate to see you come to harm. It is always a possibility, now more than ever, but it would be a mistake to turn a possibility into a probability. In that event, I would be unable to help you.’ He took her hand. ‘Trust is important, my dear, and if you lie to me I cannot trust you …’
As Diana stared down at their linked fingers, the image of F-J staring down at his fly buttons came into her mind again, and with it, a desperate urge to snatch her hand away. Instead, she forced herself to look into his eyes as she said, ‘I understand, sir.’ Although F-J’s words had been delivered in the kindest of tones, she had heard the unmistakable suggestion of a threat, without – she thought – fully understanding how it was directed. At her behaviour with Claude, yes, but there was something greater – more personal – that she
couldn’t comprehend. And when F-J talked about ‘living to regret’, did he mean his own past behaviour? What had he said? The consequences can be disastrous, even fatal …
‘I hope you do,’ F-J let go of her hand. ‘Why don’t you stay down here for a while? I shan’t need you for a couple of hours – got a few people to speak to.’ He patted her on the shoulder and, turning, strolled back to the house.
It wasn’t a game, and she’d always known that, but … For all his puggish charm, and apparent fondness for her, Diana knew that F-J would not, ultimately, put her first. His loyalties would – must – lie elsewhere. And he hadn’t, she was sure, only been talking about loyalties within MI5. Dr Pyke, for instance. And Claude himself, who obviously knew a great deal more than he was letting on. Knowledge might be dangerous, but ignorance was dangerous, too. There’s something happening here, thought Diana. Something I can’t see. No-one will speak about it, but it’s there all right.
She turned round and, watching F-J walk through the door of the great house, felt very frightened indeed.