Enigma

to the picture of the chapel, which, he was relieved to note, looked undisturbed. He closed the door.
    'See what you mean about the room,' said Wigram, cupping his hands to the glass to peer out of the window. 'The hell we have to go through, what? And a railway view thrown in. Bliss.' He closed the curtains and turned back to Jericho. He was cleaning his fingers on a handkerchief with almost feminine delicacy. 'We're rather worried.' His smile widened. 'We're rather worried about a girl called Claire Romilly.' He folded the blue silk square and thrust it back into his breast pocket. 'Mind if I sit down?'
    He shrugged off his overcoat and laid it on the bed, then hitched up his pinstriped trousers a fraction at the knees to avoid damaging the crease. He sat on the edge of the mattress and bounced up and down experimentally. His hair was blond; so were his eyebrows, his eyelashes, the hairs on the back of his neat white hands . . . Jericho felt his skin prickle with fear and disgust.
    Wigram patted the eiderdown beside him. 'Let's talk.' He didn't seem the least put out when Jericho stayed where he was. He merely folded his hands contentedly in his lap.
    'All right,' he said, 'we'll make a start, then, shall we? Claire Romilly. Twenty. Clerical grade staff. Officially missing for -' he looked at his watch '—twelve hours. Failed to show for her morning shift. Actually, when you start to check, not seen since midnight, Friday—dear oh dear, that's nearly two days ago now—when she left the Park after work. Alone. The girl she lives with swears she hasn't seen her since Thursday. Her father says he hasn't seen her since before Christmas. Nobody else—girls she works with, family, so forth—nobody seems to have the foggiest. Vanished.' Wigram snapped his fingers. 'Just like that.' For the first time he'd stopped smiling. 'Rather a good friend of yours, I gather?'
    'I haven't seen her since the beginning of February. Is this why there are police outside?'
    'But good enough? Good enough that you've tried to see her? Out to her cottage last night, according to our little Miss Wallace. Scurry, scurry. Questions, questions. Then, this morning, into Hut 3—questions, questions, again. Phone call to her father—oh, yes,' he said, noticing Jericho's surprise, 'he rang us straight away to say you'd called. You've never met Ed Romilly? Lovely bloke. Never achieved his full potential, so they say. Rather lost the plot after his wife died. Tell me, Mr Jericho, why the interest?'
    'I'd been away for a month. I hadn't seen her.'
    'But surely you've got plenty more important things to worry about, especially just now, than renewing one acquaintance?'
    His last words were almost lost in the roar of a passing express train. The room vibrated for fifteen seconds, which was the exact duration of his smile. When the noise was over, he said: 'Were you surprised to be brought back from Cambridge?'
    'Yes. I suppose I was. Look, Mr Wigram, who are you, exactly?'
    'Surprised when you were told why you were needed back?'
    'Not surprised. No.' He searched for the word. 'Shocked.'
    'Shocked. Ever talk to the girl about your work?'
    'Of course not.'
    'Of course not. Strike you as odd, though—possibly more than a coincidence, possibly even sinister—that one day the Germans black us out in the North Atlantic and two days later the girlfriend of a leading Hut 8 cryptanalyst goes missing? Actually on the same day he comes back?'
    Jericho's gaze flickered involuntarily to the print of the chapel. 'I told you. I never talked to Claire about my work. I hadn't seen her for a month. And she wasn't my girlfriend.'
    'No? What was she then?'
    What was she then? A. good question. 'I just wanted to see her,' he said lamely. 'I couldn't find her. I was concerned.'
    'Got a photo of her? Something recent?'
    'No. Actually, I don't have any pictures of her.'
    'Really? Now here's another funny thing. Pretty girl like that. But can we find a picture? We'll just have to use the ID copy from her Welfare file.'
    'Use it for what?'
    'Can you fire a gun, Mr Jericho?'
    'I couldn't hit a duck at a funfair.'
    'Now that's what I would have thought, though one shouldn't always judge a chap by his looks. Only the Bletchley Park Home Guard had a little burglary at their armoury on Friday night. Two items missing. A Smith and Wesson .38 revolver, manufactured in Springfield, Massachusetts, issued by the War Office last year. And a box containing thirty-six rounds of