All Clear (22 page)

“Not half as dangerous as this place,” he said.

Elspeth laughed, but not Mavis. She was looking curiously at him. “Why were you at Dunkirk? Aren’t you an American?”

Oh, Jesus, worse and worse
. He hadn’t even been thinking what he was saying, he’d been so upset about nearly killing Turing, and now he’d just blown his cover. “Yes,” he admitted.

“I
knew
it,” Mavis said smugly, and Elspeth added, “Oh, good, we
adore
Americans. But what were you doing at Dunkirk?”

You can’t say you’re a reporter
. “A friend of mine had a boat. We thought we’d go over and see if we could lend a hand.”

“Oh, how thrilling!” Elspeth said. “You’ve no idea how exciting it is to meet someone who’s actually doing something
important
in the war.”

“You must stay to tea and tell us all about it,” Mavis said. “I’ll go put the kettle on.”

“No, don’t.” He stood up. “I’m sure you’re busy, and I’m interrupting—”

“No, you’re not,” Elspeth said. “We’re off duty tonight.”

“But it’s getting late, and I have to find a place to stay. I don’t suppose you know of any rooms that are available?”

“In
Bletchley
?” Elspeth said, as if he’d asked for an apartment on the moon.

“I’m afraid everything’s filled up for miles around,” Mavis said. “We’re three to a room here.”

“Did I hear someone say we’re getting a new roommate?” a female voice called down from upstairs. “Tell her there’s no room.” A young woman came running down the stairs. She was very buxom and very blonde. “We’re crammed in like pilchards as it is—oh, hullo,” she said, coming over to meet Mike. “Are you going to be billeted here? How lovely!”

“He’s
not
billeted here, Joan,” Mavis said. “Even if we weren’t full up, Mrs. Braithewaite only lets to girls,” she explained to Mike. “She says it saves complications.”

I can imagine
, Mike thought, looking at Joan.

“Have you been to the billeting office yet?” Elspeth asked.

Billeting office
? “No,” he said. “I just arrived.”

“Well, when you go,” Elspeth said, “tell them it’s essential you live close in, or they’ll put you up in Glasgow.”

“And you must insist on seeing your billet first,” Mavis added. “Some of them are dreadful.”

He was still thinking about what they’d said about a billeting office. He should have thought of that. Of course the administration at Bletchley Park would be in charge of assigning lodgings. He’d been thinking he could rent a room and hint to his landlady that he worked out at the Park, but if everyone who worked there got lodgings through the billeting office—

“He might try the Empire Hotel,” Joan said to Mavis.

“It’s full up,” Mavis said, and to Mike, “
Everything’s
full up. Even closets. Our friend Wendy’s sleeping in the pantry at her billet, in among the bottled peaches.”

“The billeting office isn’t open on a Sunday,” Joan said. “We could sneak him upstairs for tonight.”

“No,” the other two said in unison.

“What about the Bell?” Elspeth asked.

Mavis shook her head.

“Well, maybe they’ll let me sleep in the lobby,” Mike said, and went to the door.

“You’re certain you can’t stay a bit longer?” Joan asked.

“Afraid not. Thanks for all your help. Do any of you happen to know—” But before he could ask whether they knew a Gerald Phipps, they began giving him directions to the Bell. “And if it hasn’t any rooms, the Milton’s two streets down—”

“Watch out for Turing on your way there,” Joan cut in.

“And for Dilly,” Elspeth said. “He’s even worse about not watching where he’s going, and he has a car! Whenever he comes to a crossing, he speeds
up.
”

“Dilly?” Mike said hoarsely.

“Captain Knox,” Mavis said. “We work for him. He has some sort of mathematical theory that by going faster he’ll hit fewer people, because of being in the crossing a shorter time.”

My God, First Alan Turing and now Dilly’s girls
. He was smack in the middle of Ultra, and he’d only been in Bletchley half an hour. “I refuse to accept lifts from him anymore,” Elspeth was saying. “He forgets he’s driving and takes both hands off the—are you all right? You’re pale as a ghost.”

“Turing
did
injure you,” Mavis said. “Come sit down while we phone for the doctor. Elspeth, go put the kettle—”

“No!” he said. “No. I’m fine. Really.” And he left before they could protest. Or Dilly Knox showed up.

“But we don’t even know your name!” Mavis called after him.

Thank God for that at least
, he thought, pretending he hadn’t heard her. And thank God he hadn’t asked about Phipps. He hurried off toward the Bell. What next? Would there be an Enigma machine in his room?

If you can find a room
, he thought. But surely they’d have saved a hotel room or two for people passing through, billeting or no billeting.

Wrong. The desk clerk hooted when he asked.

“You don’t know of anywhere?” Mike asked.

“In
Bletchley
?” the clerk said, and turned to the young man who’d just come up to the counter. “Yes, Mr. Welchman?”

Gordon Welchman? Who’d headed up the team which had broken the German Army and Air Force Enigma codes? Christ
, he thought, retreating hastily. At this rate he’d have met all the key players by morning. He headed for the Milton, wondering if he should go back to the station right now and catch the first train going anywhere.

No, with his luck, Alan Ross would be on it with Menzies sound asleep in the luggage rack. But it didn’t look as if he could stay here either. Neither the Milton nor the Empire had a room, and going back to the Bell was out of the question. “You might try one of the boardinghouses on Albion Street,” the clerk at the Empire said, “but I doubt you’ll find anything.”

He was right. Every house had a No Rooms Available or No Vacancy placard in its front window.
Maybe the reason the Germans never found out
about Ultra was because their spies couldn’t find anywhere to stay
, Mike thought, crossing the street—after first looking carefully in all directions—and starting down the other side, peering through the dark at the signs:
No Rooms, Full Up, Room to Let
.

Room to Let
. It took a moment for that to sink in, and then he was up the steps and pounding on the door. A plump, rosy-cheeked old lady opened the door a sliver, smiling. “Yes?”

“I saw that you have a room. Is it still available?”

She stopped smiling and folded her arms belligerently across her stomach. “Did the billeting office send you?”

If he said yes, he might have to produce some sort of official form, and if he said no, she was likely to tell him all her rooms had already been co-opted. “I saw your notice,” he said, pointing at it. The smile came back, and she motioned him to come in.

“I’m Mrs. Jolsom,” she said. “I didn’t think you looked like one of them.”

Polly and Eileen won’t be happy about that after all their efforts
, he thought, wondering what was wrong with his appearance.

“I don’t let rooms to that lot at the Park. Unreliable. Coming and going at all hours, scattering papers everywhere, and when you try to tidy up after them, shouting at you not to touch anything, like it was something valuable instead of a lot of papers covered with numbers. Ten and four.”

For a moment he thought she was talking about the numbers on the papers, then realized she meant the price of the room. “Paid by the week. In advance,” she said, leading him upstairs. “Room only, no board—the rationing, you know. I ask two weeks’ notice if you’re leaving,” she said, leading him up a second flight, “so the room won’t stand empty.”

She apparently hasn’t heard about Wendy having to sleep in the pantry
, Mike thought, following her down a hall. The room was the size of a closet, but it was a room and in Bletchley. “I’ll take it,” he said.

“I’ve had them go off without a word,” she said indignantly. “Or not come when they said they would. And after I’d saved the room for them. ‘There must have been a miscommunication,’ the billeting officer said. ‘Miscommunication!’ I said. ‘What about this letter? And what about my four weeks’ rent?’ ”

Mike finally stopped her by handing her the week’s rent and asking if she had a telephone. “No, but there’s one at the pub two streets over,” she said. “Claimed he hadn’t sent the letter, he did. ‘Well, then, that’s the last one you billet here,’ I told him. ‘What about your patriotic duty?’ he
says. ‘What about
their
patriotic duty?’ I says, ‘lazing about here messing with multiplication tables like a lot of schoolboys when they ought to be in the Army?’ ” She looked at Mike suspiciously. “Why aren’t
you
in the Army?”

He wasn’t about to blow it now, when this was the only room for miles,
and
in the one house where he wouldn’t have to worry about running into a famous cryptanalyst on the way to the bathroom. “I was injured at Dunkirk.” He pointed at his foot. “Dive-bomber.”

“Oh, my,” Mrs. Jolsom said, pressing a hand to her bosom. “Only just think, a hero here under my own roof.” She bustled off to make him tea and a soft-boiled egg. He’d have felt ashamed of himself for passing himself off as a war hero if he hadn’t still been spooked by his encounters with Turing, Dilly’s girls, and Welchman.

You didn’t do any damage
, he told himself. Turing wasn’t hurt, and all he’d done to Dilly’s girls was talk to them.
And blow your cover
, he thought. But they hadn’t thought there was anything odd about an American being in Bletchley. And if Dilly’s girls and Turing were this easy to find, then Gerald Phipps should be a snap. And
you have a room, and since Mrs. Jolsom’s making you supper, you don’t have to go out, so you can’t get into any more trouble tonight
. But he’d have to go out tomorrow to look for Phipps, which meant being in places where he was likely to run into BPers.

Or maybe not. Instead, he could pretend to be looking for a room to rent. Nobody could be suspicious of that, given the housing situation, and after they’d turned him down, he could say casually, “Oh, by the way, you don’t have a boarder named Gerald Phipps, do you? Sandy-haired guy with spectacles?” And he wouldn’t have to go anywhere near Bletchley Park.

His plan worked like a charm—except that he didn’t find Phipps. And if he’d really been looking for a room, he wouldn’t have found that either. He’d apparently got the last one in Bletchley. After four days of knocking on doors and asking at every hotel and inn, he was certain Phipps wasn’t living anywhere in the town.

Which meant he was billeted in one of the surrounding villages, but according to Dilly’s girls, BPers were scattered all over the area. It would take him forever to find Phipps that way. Looking out at Bletchley Park would be much more efficient.

If he could find it. He doubted if Mrs. Jolsom would tell him, given her enmity against the Park, and he didn’t dare ask a passerby. With his luck it would turn out to be Angus Wilson. Or Winston Churchill.

But the Park turned out not to be that hard to find. All he had to do was follow the stream of naval officers and professors and pretty girls out of town, along a paved road clogged with bicycles ridden by people who didn’t pay any more attention to where they were going than Turing had.

Polly’d been right. He didn’t need to get into Bletchley Park to see who worked there. He could watch them all from the cinder-covered driveway that led up to the guarded gate. Beyond it lay long gray-green buildings and a gabled red-brick Victorian mansion. He limped a few feet up the drive and then stopped and knelt, pretending to tie his shoe, though nobody was taking any notice of him. The pretty girls were chattering to one another, and the professors were in another world. The guard paid no attention either. He checked off names on a roster and glanced cursorily at the identity cards people held out to him. Mike had the feeling he could hold out his press pass and get in.

He finished tying his shoe and stood up. Several men were standing around smoking and apparently waiting for someone.
I need to buy some cigarettes
, he thought. No, a pipe. He could spend a long time filling it, trying to light it, patting his pockets for matches. For now, he glanced impatiently at his watch and scanned the people coming out. He didn’t see Phipps, though there were several sandy-haired, spectacled, tweed-clad men, and he caught a glimpse of two more inside the grounds.

Let’s hope I don’t have to sneak inside to find him
, Mike thought, though if he did, at least it wouldn’t be hard. There was a fence but no barbed wire, and the gate’s bar wasn’t even lowered. It didn’t look at all like a military installation, let alone the site of the most closely guarded secret of the war. It looked like Balliol in midterm. The young women walking between the buildings, file folders clasped to their breasts, could be students; the men playing a game on the lawn could be the cricket team.

He could imagine what the regimented, spit-and-polish Germans would make of this place and its inhabitants. Maybe that was why they’d never figured out that the British had cracked the Enigma code. It wouldn’t have occurred to them that these giggling young women and disheveled daydreamers could be a threat. The Nazis would have had nothing but contempt for Dilly’s girls and the stammering Turing.

Which was why they’d been defeated. They shouldn’t have underestimated them. And he’d better not underestimate them either. For all he knew, the scruffy professor smoking over by the gate or the blonde dabbing powder on her nose worked for British Intelligence and would shortly knock on his landlady’s door to “ask him a few questions.” In which case he’d better get out of here before he attracted their attention.

He waited till a staff car pulled up to the gate and the guard leaned in the window to talk to the driver and then casually joined the stream of people walking back to town. Once there, he bought a pipe, tobacco, and a newspaper, went to the lobby of the Milton, looked around to make sure Wilson or Menzies wasn’t there, and sat down in a chair by the window to wait for the four o’clock shift change and look for Gerald.