Enigma

SWILL'.
    When he was halfway to the door he was suddenly overcome with remorse at his rudeness. Was this the behaviour of a good colleague, what Skynner would call 'a team player'? But then, when he turned and looked back, he saw that nobody had missed him. Atwood was still talking, waving his fork in mid-air, Pinker was shaking his head, the others were listening.
    Jericho turned once more for the door and the salvation of the fresh air.
    Thirty seconds later he was out on the pavement, picking his way carefully in the darkness towards the guard post, thinking about Shark.
    He could hear the click click of a woman's heels hurrying about twenty paces in front of him. There was no one else around. It was between sittings: everyone was either working or eating. The rapid footsteps stopped at the barrier and a moment later the sentry shone his torch directly in the woman's face. She glanced away with a murmur of annoyance, and Jericho saw her then, for an instant, spot-lit in the blackout, looking straight in his direction.
    It was Claire.
    For a fraction of a second, he thought she must have seen him. But he was in the shadows and reeling backwards in panic, four or five steps backwards, and she was dazzled by the light. With what seemed like infinite slowness she brought her hand up to shield her eyes. Her blonde hair gleamed white.
    He couldn't hear what was said but very quickly the torch was quenched and everything was dark again. And then he heard her moving off down the path on the other side of the barrier, click click click, obviously in a rush about something, fading into the night.
    He had to catch her up. He stumbled quickly to the guard post, searching for his wallet, searching for his pass, nearly tripping off the kerbstone, but he couldn't find the damned thing. The torch came on, blinding him—'evening sir', 'evening corporal'—and his fingers were useless, he couldn't make them work, and the pass wasn't in his wallet, wasn't in his overcoat pockets, wasn't in his jacket pockets, breast pocket—he couldn't hear her footsteps now, just the sentry's boot tapping impatiently—and, yes, it was in his breast pocket, 'here you are', 'thank you sir', 'thank you corporal', 'night sir', 'night corporal', night, night, night. . .
    She was gone.
    The sentry's light had robbed him of what little vision he had. When he closed his eyes there was only the imprint of the torch and when he opened them the darkness was absolute. He found the edge of the road with his foot and followed its curve. It took him once again past the mansion and brought him out close to the huts. Far away, on the opposite bank of the lake, someone—perhaps another sentry—started to whistle 'We'll Gather Lilacs in the Spring Again', then stopped.
    It was so quiet, he could hear the wind moving in the trees.
    While he was hesitating, wondering what to do, a dot of light appeared along the footpath to his right, and then another. For some reason Jericho drew back into the shadows of Hut 8 as the torches bobbed towards him. He heard voices he didn't recognise—a man's and a woman's—whispered but emphatic. When they were almost level with him, the man threw his cigarette into the water. A cascade of red points ended in a hiss. The woman said: 'It's just a week, darling,' and went to embrace him. The fireflies danced and separated and moved on.
    He stepped out onto the path again. His night vision was coming back. He looked at his watch. It was 4.30. Another ninety minutes and it would start to get light.
    On impulse he walked down the side of Hut 8, keeping close to the blastproof wall. This brought him to the edge of Hut 6, where the ciphers of the German Army and Luftwaffe were broken. Straight ahead was a narrow alleyway of rough grass separating Hut 6 from the end wall of the Naval Section. And at the end of that, crouched low in the darkness, just about visible, was the side of another hut—Hut 3—to which the decrypted ciphers from Hut 6 were sent for translation and dispatch.
    Hut 3 was where Claire worked.
    He glanced around. There was no one in sight.
    He left the path and started to stumble down the passage. The ground was slippery and uneven and several times something grabbed at his ankle—ivy, maybe, or a tendril of discarded cable—and almost sent him sprawling. It took him about a minute to reach Hut 3.
    Here, too, was a concrete wall, designed, optimistically, to shield the flimsy wooden structure from an exploding bomb.