Enigma

to stare out of the window at the ugly houses sliding by. She's much younger than he thought at first. Her face in profile is not conventionally pretty, but striking—angular, strong—he supposes 'handsome' is the word for it. She has very blonde hair, tied back. When he tries to move, his elbow brushes the side of her breast and he thinks he might die of embarrassment. He apologies profusely but she doesn't seem to notice. She has a copy of The Times, folded up very small so that she can hold it in one hand.
    The compartment is packed. Servicemen lie on the floor and jam the corridor outside. An RAF corporal has fallen asleep in the luggage rack and cradles his kit bag like a lover. Someone begins to snore. The air smells strongly of cheap cigarettes and unwashed bodies. But gradually, for Jericho, all this begins to disappear. There are just the two of them, rocking with the train. Where they touch his skin is burning. His calf muscles ache with the strain of neither moving too close nor drawing apart.
    He wonders how far she's going. Each time they stop at one of the little stations he fears she might get off. But no: she continues to stare down at her square of newsprint. The dreary hinterland of northern London gives way to a dreary countryside, monochrome in the darkening December afternoon—frosted fields barren of livestock, bare trees and the straggling dark lines of hedgerows, empty lanes, little villages with smoking chimneys that stand out like smudges of soot in the white landscape.
    An hour passes. They're clear of Leighton Buzzard and within five minutes of Bletchley when she suddenly says: 'German town partly in French disagreement with Hamelin.'
    He isn't sure he's heard her properly, or even if the remark is addressed to him.
    'I'm sorry?'
    'German town partly in French disagreement with Hamelin.' She repeats it, as if he's stupid. 'Seven down. Eight letters.'
    'Ah yes,' he says. 'Ratisbon.'
    'How do you get that? I don't think I've even heard of it. 'She turns her face to him. He has an impression of large features—a sharp nose, a wide mouth—but it is the eyes that hold him. Grey eyes—a cold grey, with no hint of blue. They're not dove-grey, he decides later, or pearl-grey. They're the grey of snow clouds waiting to break.
    'It's a cathedral city. On the Danube, I believe. Partly in French—well, bon, obviously. Disagreement with Hamelin. That's easy. Hamelin—Pied Piper—rats. Rat wbon. Rat is good. Not the view in Hamelin.'
    He starts to laugh then stops himself. Just hark at yourself, he thinks, you 're babbling like an idiot.
    'Fill up ten. Nine letters.'
    'That's an anagram,' he says immediately. 'Plentiful.'
    'Morning snack as far as it goes. Five letters.'
    'Ambit.'
    She shakes her heard, filling in the answers. 'How do you get it so quickly?'
    'It's not hard. You learn to know the way they think. Morning—that's a.m., obviously. Snack as far as it goes—bit with the e missing. As far as it goes—well, within one's ambit. One's limit. May I?'
    He reaches over and takes the paper and pencil. Half his brain studies the puzzle, the other half studies her—how she takes a cigarette from her handbag and lights it, how she watches him, her head resting slightly to one side. Aster, tasso, loveage, landau . . . It's the first and only time in their relationship he's ever fully in control, and by the time he's completed the thirty clues and given her back the paper they 're pulling through the outskirts of a small town, crawling past narrow gardens and tall chimneys. Behind her head he sees the familiar lines of washing, the air raid shelters, the vegetable plots, the little red-brick houses coated black by the passing trains. The compartment darkens as they pass beneath the iron canopy of the station. 'Bletchley,' calls the guard. 'Bletchley station!'
    He says, 'I'm afraid this is my stop.'
    'Yes.' She looks thoughtfully at the finished crossword, then turns and smiles at him. 'Yes. D'you know, I rather guessed it might be.'
    'Mr Jericho!' someone calls. 'Mr Jericho!'
    'Mr Jericho!'
    He opened his eyes. For a moment he was disoriented. The wardrobe loomed over him like a thief in the dim light.
    'Yes.' He sat up in the strange bed. 'I'm sorry. Mrs Armstrong?'
    'It's a quarter past six, Mr Jericho.' She was shouting to him from halfway up the stairs. 'Will you be wanting supper?'
    A quarter past six? The room was almost dark. He pulled his watch out from beneath his pillow and flicked