Enigma

in his great-grandfather's day there would have been some illumination—the gleam of a gaslight or a carriage lantern, the bluish glow of a night watchman's paraffin lamp—but not any more. As the light faded, so did Bletchley. It seemed to sink into a black lake. He could have been anywhere.
    He was aware, now, of a certain paranoia, and the night magnified his fears. He passed an urban pub close to the railway bridge, an elaborate Victorian mausoleum with FINE WHISKYS, PORTS AND STOUTS inlaid in gold on the black masonry like an epitaph. He could hear a badly tuned piano playing 'The Londonderry Air' and for a moment he was tempted to go in, buy a drink, find someone to talk to. But then he imagined the conversation -
    'So, what's your line then, pal?'
    'Just government work.'
    'Civil service?'
    'Communications. Nothing much. Look, I say, can I get you another drink?'
    'Local are you?'
    'Not exactly . . .'
    —and he thought: no, better to keep clear of strangers; best, really, not to drink at all. As he was turning into Albion Street he heard the scrape of a footstep behind him and spun round. The pub door had opened, there was a moment of colour and music, then it closed and the road was dark again.
    The guesthouse was about half way down Albion Street, on the right and he had almost reached it when he noticed, on the left, a car. He slowed his pace. He couldn't be sure it was the same one that had behaved so oddly at the Park, although it looked quite similar. But then, when he was almost level with it, one of the occupants struck a match. As the driver leaned over to cup his hand to the light, Jericho saw on his sleeve the three white stripes of a police sergeant.
    He let himself into the guesthouse and prayed he could make the stairs before Mrs Armstrong rose like a night fighter to intercept him in the hall. But he was too late. She must have been waiting for the sound of his key in the latch. She appeared from the kitchen through a cloud of steam that smelled of cabbage and offal. In the dining room, somebody made a retching noise and there was a shout of laughter.
    Jericho said weakly, 'I don't think I'm very hungry, Mrs Armstrong, thanks all the same.'
    She dried her hands on her apron and nodded towards a closed door. 'You've got a visitor.'
    He had just planted his foot defiantly on the first stair. 'Is it the police?'
    'Why, Mr Jericho, whatever would the police be doing here? It's a very nice-looking young gentleman. I've put him,' she added, with heavy significance, 'in the parlour.'
    The parlour! Open nightly to any resident from eight till ten on weekdays, and from teatime onwards, Saturday and Sunday: as formal as a ducal drawing room, with its matching three-piece suite and antimacassars (made by the proprietress herself), its mahogany standard lamp with tasselled shade, its row of grinning Toby jugs, precisely lined above its freezing hearth. Who had come to see him, wondered Jericho, who warranted admission to the parlour?
    At first he didn't recognise him. Golden hair, a pale and freckled face, pale blue eyes, a practised smile. Advancing across the room to meet him, right hand outstretched, left hand holding an Anthony Eden hat, fifty guineas' worth of Savile Row coat draped over manly shoulders. A blur of breeding, charm and menace.
    'Wigram. Douglas Wigram. Foreign Office. We met yesterday but weren't introduced properly.'
    He took Jericho's hand lightly and oddly, a finger crooked back into his palm, and it took Jericho a moment to realise he had just been the recipient of a masonic handshake.
    'Digs all right? Super room, this. Super. Mind if we go somewhere else? Whereabouts are you based? Upstairs?'
    Mrs Armstrong was still in the hall, fluffing up her hair in front of the oval mirror.
    'Mr Jericho suggests we might have our little chat upstairs in his room, if that's OK with you, Mrs A?' He didn't wait for a reply. 'Let's go then, shall we?'
    He held out his arm, still smiling, and Jericho found himself being ushered up the stairs. He felt as though he had been tricked or robbed but he couldn't work out how. On the landing he rallied sufficiently to turn and say, 'It's very small, you know, there's barely room to sit.'
    'That's perfectly all right, my dear chap. As long as it's private. Onwards and upwards.'
    Jericho switched on the dim light and stood back to let Wigram go in first. There was a faint whiff of eau de cologne and cigars as he brushed past. Jericho's eyes went straight