Enigma

He's gone.'
    Weitzman gazed at the card for a moment, then slipped it back among the rest and closed the drawer. 'So. Why are you asking me questions to which you already know the answers?' His hair was white, his small brown eyes overshadowed by a jutting forehead.
    Wrinkles at their edges suggested a face that had once creased readily into laughter. But Weitzman didn't laugh much any more. He was rumoured to have left most of his family behind in Germany.
    'I'm looking for a woman called Claire Romilly. Do you know her?'
    'Of course. The beautiful Claire. Everyone knows her.'
    'Where does she work?'
    'She works here.'
    'I know here. Here where?'
    '“Inter-hut communication, unless otherwise authorised, must be conducted by telephone or written memorandum. Standard procedure.'” Weitzman clicked his heels. 'Heil Hitler!'
    'Bugger standard procedure.'
    One of the translators turned round, irritably. 'I say, you two, put a sock in it, will you?'
    'Sorry.' Weitzman took Jericho by the arm and led him away. 'Do you know, Tom,' he whispered, 'in three years, this is the first time I have heard you swear?'
    'Walter. Please. It's important.'
    'And it can't wait until the end of the shift?' He gave Jericho a careful look. 'Obviously not. Well, well again. Which way did Coker go?'
    'Back towards the entrance.'
    'Good. Follow me.'
    Weitzman led Jericho almost to the other end of the hut, past the translators, through two long narrow rooms where scores of women were labouring over a pair of giant card indexes, around a corner and through a room lined with teleprinters. The din here was
    terrific. Weitzman put his hands to his ears, looked over his shoulder and grinned. The noise pursued them down a short length of passage, at the end of which was a closed door. Next to it was a sign, in a schoolgirl's best handwriting: GERMAN BOOK ROOM.
    Weitzman knocked on the door, opened it and went inside. Jericho followed. His eye registered a large room. Shelves stacked with ledgers and files. Half dozen trestle tables pushed together to form one big working area. Women, mostly with their backs to him. Six, perhaps, or seven? Two typing, very fast, the others moving back and forth arranging sheaves of papers into piles.
    Before he could take in any more, a plump, harassed-looking woman in a tweed jacket and skirt advanced to meet them. Weitzman was beaming now, exuding charm, for all the world as if he were still in the tearoom of Heidelberg's Europaischer Hof. He took her hand and bowed to kiss it.
    'Guten Morgen, mein liebes Fraulein Monk. Wie geht's?'
    'Gut, danke, Herr Doktor. Und dir?'
    'Danke, sehr gut.'
    It was clearly a familiar routine between them. Her shiny complexion flushed pink with pleasure. 'And what can I do for you?'
    'My colleague and I, my dear Miss Monk—' Weitzman patted her hand, then released it and gestured towards Jericho '—are looking for the delightful Miss Romilly.'
    At the mention of Claire's name, Miss Monk's flirtatious smile evaporated. 'In that case you must join the queue, Dr Weitzman. Join the queue.'
    'I am sorry. The queue?'
    'We are all trying to find Claire Romilly. Perhaps you, or your colleague, have an idea where we might start?'
    To say that the world stands still is a solipsism, and Jericho knew it even as it seemed to happen—knew that it isn't ever the world that slows down, but rather the individual, confronted by an unexpected danger, who receives a charge of adrenaline and speeds up. Nevertheless, for him, for an instant, everything did freeze. Weitzman's expression became a mask of bafflement, the woman's of indignation. As his brain tried to compute the implications, he could hear his own voice, far away, begin to babble: 'But I thought ... I was told—assured—yesterday—she was supposed to be on duty at eight this morning ..."
    'Quite right,' Miss Monk was saying. 'It really is most thoughtless of her. And terribly inconvenient.'
    Weitzman gave Jericho a peculiar look, as if to say, What have you got me into? 'Perhaps she's ill?' he suggested.
    'Then surely a note would have been considerate? A message? Before I let the entire night-shift go? We can barely cope when there are eight of us. When we're down to seven ...'
    She started to prattle on to Weitzman about '3A' and '3M' and all the staffing memos she'd written and how no one appreciated her difficulties. As if to prove her point, at that moment the door opened and a woman came in with a stack of files so high she had