Enigma

reaction—at first, anyway. I mean, this is a standard, rear-echelon, low-priority target. This is workaday in the extreme. But there are several . . . complications.' She fished in her bag for a handkerchief and blew her nose. Again, Jericho observed the slight trembling of her fingers.
    After replacing the row volume it is the work of less than a minute to pull down the appropriate column book and make a note of the intercept serial numbers. When she comes out of the Index Room, Miles ('that's Miles Mermagen,' she adds in parenthesis, 'Control Room duty officer: a bear of very little brain')
    Miles is on the telephone, his back to the door, oiling up to someone in authority—'No, no, that's absolutely fine, Donald, a pleasure to be of service . . .'—which suits Hester beautifully for it means he never even notices her collect her coat and leave. She clicks on her blackout torch and steps out into the night.
    A gust of wind swirls down the alley between the huts and buffets her face. At the far end of Hut 8 the path forks: right will take her to the main gate and the warm bustle of the canteen, left leads into the blackness along the edge of the lake.
    She turns left.
    The moon is wrapped in a tissue of cloud but the pale light is just luminous enough to show her the way. Beyond the eastern perimeter fence lies a small wood which she can't see, but the sound of the wind moving through the invisible trees seems to pull her on. Past A-and B-Blocks, two hundred and fifty yards, and there it is, straight ahead, faintly outlined: the big, squat, bunkerlike building, only just completed, that now houses Bletchley's central Registry. As she comes closer her torch flashes on steel-shuttered windows, then finds the heavy door.
    Thou shalt not steal, she tells herself, reaching for the handle.
    No, no. Of course not.
    Thou shalt not, steal, thou wilt merely take a quick look, and then depart.
    And, in any case, don't 'the secret things belong unto the Lord our God' (Deuteronomy 29.xxix)?
    The rawness of the white neon is a shock after the gloom of the hut, and so is the calm, ruffled only by the distant clatter of the Hollerith punch-card machines. The workmen still haven't finished. Brushes and tools are stacked to one side of a reception area that is thick with the smell of building work—fresh concrete, wet paint, wood-shavings. The duty clerk, a corporal in the Women's Auxiliary Air Force, leans across the counter in a friendly way as if she is serving in a shop.
    'Cold night?'
    'Rather.' Hester manages to smile and nod. 'I've got some serials to check.'
    'Reference or loan?'
    'Reference.'
    'Section?'
    'Hut 6 Control.'
    'Pass?'
    The woman takes the list of numbers and disappears into a back room. Through the open door Hester can see stacks of metal shelving, infinite rows of cardboard files. A man strolls past the doorway and takes down one of the boxes. He stares at her. She looks away. On the whitewashed wall is a poster, a Bateman cartoon showing a woman sneezing, accompanied by some typical, fatuous Whitehall busybodying:
    THE MINISTRY OF HEALTH says:-
    Coughs and sneezes spread diseases
    Trap the germs by using your handkerchief
    Help to keep the Nation Fighting Fit
    There is nowhere to sit. Behind the counter is a large clock with 'RAF' stamped on its face—so large, in fact, that Hester can actually see the big hand moving. Four minutes pass. Five minutes. The Registry is unpleasantly hot. She can feel herself starting to sweat. The stench of paint is nauseating. Seven minutes. Eight minutes. She would like to flee, but the corporal has taken her identity card. Dear God, how could she have been so utterly stupid? What if the clerk is now on the phone to Hut 6, checking up on her? At any instant, Miles will come crashing into the Registry: 'What the hell d'you think you're doing, woman?' Nine minutes. Ten minutes. Try to focus on something else. Coughs and sneezes spread diseases . . .
    She's in such a state, she actually fails to hear the clerk come up behind her.
    'I'm sorry to have been so long, but I've never come across anything like this
    The girl, poor thing, is rather shaken.
    'Why?' asked Jericho.
    'The file,' said Hester. 'The file I'd asked her for? It was empty.'
    There was a loud metallic crack behind them and then a series of short scrapes as the church door was pushed open. Hester closed her eyes and dropped to her knees on one of the cassocks, tugging Jericho down beside her. She clasped her