Restless

10. Meeting Lucas Romer

I STOOD IN FRONT of David Bomberg's portrait of Lucas Romer for a good twenty minutes, searching for clues, I suppose, and also trying to identify the man my mother had met in 1939 in order to distinguish him from the man I was about to meet in 1976.

The portrait was virtually life-size – a head and shoulders on a canvas of about 12 inches by 18. The simple broad black wooden frame made the small painting look more imposing but it was still, none the less, stuck away in a corridor on an upper floor of the National Portrait Gallery. The artist in this case was more important than the sitter: the notes on the wall were all about David Bomberg – the sitter was identified simply as 'Lucas Romer, a friend' – and its date was given as '1936(?)' – three years before Romer had met Eva Delectorskaya.

The picture was clearly a sketch, notable for its fluent impasto surface – perhaps a study that might have been worked up later to something more polished had there been more sittings. It seemed to me a good painting – a good portrait – the sitter's character emerged from it powerfully, though I had no idea if it were a good likeness. Lucas Romer stared out of the canvas at the viewer – making emphatic eye contact – his eyes a pale grey-blue, and his mouth was set, not relaxed, almost slightly pushed to one side, betokening reluctance, impatience at the posing procedure, the time spent being still. His hair was thinning at the front, as my mother had described, and he was wearing a white shirt, a blue jacket almost the same colour as his eyes and what looked like a nondescript greenish-beige tie. Only the knot of the tie was in the frame.

Bomberg had outlined the head with a thick band of black that had the effect of concentrating your eye on the painted surface within that boundary. The style was bold: blue, verdigris, chartreuse, raw pinks, browns and charcoal combined to render the flesh tones and the incipient heavy beard. The brush strokes were broad, impetuous, confident, loaded with pigment. I had an instant sense of a personality – a strong one, perhaps an arrogant one – and I didn't think I was bringing any privileged knowledge to that assessment. Big hooded eyes, a conspicuous nose – perhaps the only sign of weakness was in the mouth: full, rather slack lips, pursed in their temporary tolerance. A bully? An over-confident intellectual? A complex neurotic artist? Perhaps you needed all these qualities to be a spymaster and run your own team of spies.

I wandered down to the gallery lobby and decided to walk to Brydges'. But first I went to the ladies' lavatory and considered myself in the mirror. What did this portrait say of the sitter? My hair was down, thick and long and freshly washed, I was wearing a pale pink lipstick and my usual dark eyeshadow. I had on a newish black trouser suit with ostentatious white stitching on the seams and the patch pockets – and I had my platforms on under the trousers. I was tall – I wanted to be tall today – and I thought I looked pretty damn good. The worn leather briefcase I was carrying added a nice incongruous touch to the picture, I felt.

I walked across Trafalgar Square towards Pall Mall and then cut up through St James's Square to the network of small streets between the square and Jermyn Street, where I would find Brydges'. The door was discreet, glossy black – no nameplate, just a number – with a fanlight with elaborate tracery, all curlicues and ogees. I rang the brass doorbell and was admitted suspiciously by a porter in a navy-blue frock coat with red lapels. I said I had an appointment with Lord Mansfield and he retreated into a kind of glass phone box to consult a ledger.

'Ruth Gilmartin,' I said. 'Six o'clock.'

'This way, Miss.'

I followed the man up a wide swerving staircase, already aware that the modest entrance concealed a building of capacious and elegant Georgian proportions. On the first floor we passed a reading-room – deep sofas, dark portraits, a few old men reading periodicals and newspapers – then a bar – a few old men drinking – then a dining-room being set up for dinner by young girls in black skirts and crisp white blouses. I sensed it was very unusual ever to have a female in this building who wasn't a servant of some kind. We then turned another corner to go down a corridor past a cloakroom and a gentleman's toilet (a smell of disinfectant mingled with hair oil, the sound of urinals discreetly flushing) from which an old man with a walking-stick emerged and, on seeing me, gave a start of almost cartoon-like incredulity.

'Evening,' I said to him, becoming at once both calmer and angrier. Angry because I knew what was obviously, crassly, going on here; calmer because I knew that Romer could have no idea that it would not only not work, but that it would be counter-productive as well. We turned another corner and arrived at a door that had written on it: 'Ladies' Drawing Room'.

'Lord Mansfield will see you here,' the porter said, opening the door.

'How can you be sure I'm a lady?' I said.

'Beg pardon, Miss?'

'Oh, forget it.'

I pushed past him and went into the Ladies' Drawing Room. It was poky and cheaply furnished and smelt of carpet shampoo and polish – everything about its decor signalled disuse. There were chintz curtains and puce shades with saffron fringes on the wall sconces; a selection of unread 'ladies' magazines' – House amp; Garden, Woman's Journal, the Lady itself – was fanned out on the coffee table; a spider plant was dying of thirst on the mantelpiece above the unlaid fire.

The porter left and I moved the largest armchair over a few feet so that the solitary window was behind it; I wanted to be backlit, my face in shadow, so that the summer evening light would fall on Romer. I opened my briefcase and took out my clipboard and pen.

I waited fifteen minutes, twenty, twenty-five. Again I knew this was deliberate but I was glad of the wait because it made me confront the fact that, unusually for me, I was actually rather nervous about meeting this man – this man who had made love to my mother, who had recruited her, who had 'run' her, as the parlance went, and to whom she had declared her love, one chilly day in Manhattan in 1941. Eva Delectorskaya, I felt for perhaps the first time, was becoming real. But the longer Lucas Romer kept me waiting, the more he tried to intimidate me in this bastion of aged establishment masculinity, the more pissed off I became – and therefore the less insecure.

Eventually the porter opened the door: a figure loomed behind him.

'Miss Gilmartin, your lordship,' the porter said and melted away.

Romer slipped in, a smile on his lean, seamed face.

'So sorry to have kept you waiting,' he said, his voice gravelly and slightly hoarse as if his larynx were choked with polyps. 'Tiresome phone calls. Lucas Romer.' He extended his hand.

'Ruth Gilmartin,' I said, standing up, tall as he was, and gave him one of my firmest handshakes, trying not to stare, trying not to gawp, though I would have loved a good few minutes' scrutiny of him through a one-way mirror.

He was wearing a perfectly cut, single-breasted midnight-blue suit with a cream shirt and a dark maroon knitted tie. His smile was as white and immaculate as my mother had described, though there was now, in the recesses of his mouth, the gold gleam of expensive bridgework. He was bald, his longish oiled hair above his ears combed into two grey sleek wings. Though he was slim he was a little stooped but the handsome man he had been lingered in this 77-year-old like a ghostly memory: in certain lights it would have been hard to guess his age – he was, I suppose, still a good-looking older man. I sat down in my positioned armchair before he could claim it or wave me into any other seat. He chose to sit as far away from me as possible and asked if I wanted tea.

'I wouldn't mind an alcoholic drink,' I said, 'if such things are served in a Ladies' Drawing Room.'

'Oh, indeed,' he said. 'We're very broad-minded in Brydges'.' He reached for and pressed a wired bell push that sat on the edge of the coffee table and almost immediately a white-jacketed waiter was in the room with a silver tray under his arm.

'What will you have, Miss Martin?'

'Gilmartin.'

'Forgive me – an old man's imbecility – Miss Gilmartin. What is your pleasure?'

'A large whisky and soda please.'

'All whiskies are served large, here.' He turned to the waiter. 'A tomato juice for me, Boris. A touch of celery salt, no Worcestershire.' He turned back to me. 'We only have J amp;B or Bell 's as blends.'

'A Bell 's, in that case.' I had no idea what a J amp;B was.

'Yes, your lordship,' the waiter said and left.

'I must say I've been looking forward to this meeting,' Romer said with patent insincerity. 'At my age one feels wholly forgotten. Then all of a sudden a newspaper rings up wanting to interview one. A surprise, but gratifying, I suppose. The Observer, wasn't it?'

'The Telegraph.'

'Splendid. Who's your editor, by the way? Do you know Toby Litton-Fry?'

'No. I'm working with Robert York,' I said, quickly and calmly.

'Robert York… I'll ring Toby about him.' He smiled. 'I'd like to know who'll be correcting your copy.'

Our drinks arrived. Boris served them on paper coasters with a supplementary saucer of salted peanuts.

'You can take those away, Boris,' Romer said. 'Whisky and peanuts – no, no, no.' He chuckled. 'Will they ever learn?'

When Boris left the mood changed suddenly. I couldn't analyse precisely how, but Romer's false charm and suavity seemed to have quit the room with Boris and the peanuts. The smile was still there but the pretence was absent: the gaze was direct, curious, faintly hostile.

'I want to ask you a question, if you don't mind, Miss Gilmartin, before we begin our fascinating interview.'

'Fire away.'

'You mentioned something to my secretary about AAS Ltd.'

'Yes.'

'Where did you come across that name?'

'From an archive source.'

'I don't believe you.'

'I'm sorry you should think that,' I said, suddenly on my guard. His eyes were on me, very cold, fixed. I held his gaze and continued. 'You can have no idea what's become available to scholars and historians in the last few years since the whole Ultra secret came out. Enigma, Bletchley Park – the lid has been well and truly lifted: everybody wants to tell their story now. And a lot of the material is – what shall I say? – informal, personal.'

He thought about this.

'A printed source, you say?'

'Yes.'

'Have you seen it?'

'No, not personally.' I was playing for time now, suddenly a little more worried. Even though my mother had warned me that there would be particular curiosity about AAS Ltd. 'I was given the information by an Oxford don who is writing a history of the British Secret Service,' I said quickly.

'Is he really?' Romer sighed and his sigh said: what a complete and utter waste of time. 'What's this don's name?'

'Timothy Thoms.'

Romer slipped a small, leather-encased notepad from his jacket pocket and then a fountain pen and wrote the name down. I had to admire the bluff, the bravado.

'Dr T.C.L. Thoms. T,h,o,m,s. He's at All Souls,' I added.

'Good…' He wrote all this down and looked up. 'What exactly is this article about, that you're writing?'

'It's about the British Security Coordination. And what they were doing in America before Pearl Harbor.' This was what my mother had told me to say: a large catch-all subject.

'Why on earth would anyone be interested in all that? Why are you so intrigued by BSC?'

'I thought I was meant to be interviewing you, Lord Mansfield.'

'I just want to clarify a few things before we begin.'

The waiter knocked on the door and came in.

'Telephone, Lord Mansfield,' he said. 'Line one.'

Romer raised himself to his feet and walked a little stiffly to the telephone on the small writing-desk in the corner. He picked up the receiver.

'Yes?'

He listened to whatever was being said and I picked up my whisky, took a large sip, and took my chance to study him a little more closely. He stood in profile to me, the receiver in his left hand and I could see the glint of the signet ring on his little finger against the black bakelite. With the heel of his right hand he smoothed the wing of hair above his ear.

'No, I'm not concerned,' he said. 'Not remotely.' He hung up and stood for a moment looking at the telephone, thinking. The two wings of his hair met at the back of his head in a small turbulence of curls. It didn't look well groomed but of course it was. His shoes were brilliantly polished as if by an army batman. He turned back to me, his eyes widening for a moment, as if suddenly remembering I was in the room.

'So, Miss Gilmartin, you were telling me about your interest in BSC,' he said, sitting down again.

'My uncle was involved in BSC

'Really, what was his name?'

My mother had told me to watch him very closely at this juncture.

'Morris Devereux,' I said.

Romer reflected, repeated the name a couple of times. 'Don't think I know him. No.'

'So you do admit you were part of BSC.'

'I admit nothing, Miss Gilmartin,' he said, smiling at me. He was smiling at me a lot, was Romer, but none of his smiles were genuine or friendly. 'Do you know,' he said, 'I'm sorry to be a bore, but I've decided not to grant this interview.' He stood up again, moved to the door and opened it.

'May I ask why?'

'Because I don't believe a word you've told me.'

'I'm sorry,' I said. 'What can I say? I've been completely honest with you.'

'Then let's say I've changed my mind.'

'Your privilege.' I took my time: I had another sip of whisky and then put my clipboard and my pen away in my briefcase, stood up and walked through the door ahead of him. My mother had warned me that it would probably end like this. He would have had to see me, of course, after the AAS Ltd revelation, and he would try to determine what my agenda was and the moment he sensed it was unthreatening – simple journalistic curiosity, in other words – he would have nothing more to do with me.

'I can find my own way out,' I said.

'Alas, you're not allowed to.'

We moved past the dining-room, now with a few male diners, past the bar – fuller than when I arrived, with a low susurrus of conversation within – past the reading-room, where there was one old man sleeping, and then down the grand curving staircase to the simple black door with its elaborate fanlight.

The porter opened the door for us. Romer didn't offer his hand.

'I hope I haven't wasted too much of your time,' he said, signalling beyond me to a sleek, heavy car – a Bentley, I thought – that started up and pulled over to the Brydges' side of the road.

'I'll still be writing my article,' I said.

'Of course you will, Miss Gilmartin, but be very careful you don't write anything libellous. I have an excellent lawyer – he happens to be a member here.'

'Is that a threat?'

'It's a fact.'

I looked at him squarely in the eye, hoping that my gaze was saying: I don't like you and I don't like your disgusting club and I'm not remotely frightened of you.

'Goodbye,' I said, and I turned and walked away, past the Bentley, from which a uniformed chauffeur had appeared and was opening the passenger's door.

As I walked away from Brydges' I felt an odd mixture of emotions uncoiling inside me: I felt pleased – pleased that I'd met this man who had played such a key role in my mother's life and that I hadn't been cowed by him. And I also felt a little angry with myself – suspecting and worried that I hadn't handled the encounter well enough, hadn't extracted enough from it, had allowed Romer to dictate its course and tenor. I had been reacting too much to him, rather than the other way round – for some reason I had wanted to rattle him more. But my mother had been very insistent: don't go too far, don't reveal anything that you know – only mention AAS Ltd, Devereux and BSC – that'll be enough to set him thinking, enough to spoil his beauty sleep, she'd said with some glee. I hoped I'd done enough for her.

I was home in Oxford by nine o'clock and picked up Jochen from Veronica's.

'Why did you go to London?' he said, as we climbed the back stairs towards the kitchen door.

'I went to see an old friend of Granny's.'

'Granny says she hasn't got any friends.'

'This is someone she knew a long time ago,' I said, moving to the phone in the hall. 'Go and put your pyjamas on.' I dialled my mother's number. There was no reply so I hung up and dialled again, using her stupid code and she still didn't pick up. I put the phone down.

'Shall we go on a little adventure?' I said, trying to keep my voice light-hearted. 'Let's drive out to Granny's and give her a surprise.'

'She won't be pleased,' Jochen said. 'She hates surprises.'

When we reached Middle Ashton I saw at once that the cottage was dark and there was no sign of her car. I went to the third flower pot on the left of the front door, suddenly very worried for some reason, found the key and let myself in.

'What's happening, Mummy?' Jochen said. 'Is this some kind of a game?'

'Sort of

Everything in the cottage seemed in order: the kitchen was tidy, the dishes were washed, clothes hung drying on the clothes-horse in the boiler room. I climbed the stairs to her bedroom, Jochen following, and looked around. The bed was made and on her desk was a brown envelope with 'Ruth' written on it. I was about to pick it up when Jochen said, 'Look, there's a car coming.'

It was my mother in her old white Allegro. I felt both stupid and relieved. I ran downstairs, opened the front door and called to her as she stepped out of the car.

'Sal! It's us. We came out to see you.'

'What a lovely surprise,' she said, her voice heavy with irony, bending down to kiss Jochen. 'I didn't remember leaving the lights on. Somebody's up very late.'

'You told me to call you the minute, the second, I got back,' I said, more accusingly and more annoyed than I intended. 'When you didn't reply what was I meant to think?'

'I must have forgotten I'd asked you,' she said, breezily, moving past me into the house. 'Anyone like a cup of tea?'

'I saw Romer,' I said, following her. 'I spoke to him. I thought you'd be interested. But it didn't go well. In fact, I would say he was thoroughly unpleasant.'

'I'm sure you were more than a match for him,' she said. 'I thought you both looked a bit frosty when you said goodbye.'

I stopped. 'What do you mean?' I said.

'I was outside: I saw you both leave the club,' she said, her face utterly open, guileless, as if this were the most natural thing in the world. 'Then I followed him home and now I know where he lives: 29 Walton Crescent, Knightsbridge. Great big white stucco place. It'll be much easier getting to him the next time.'

New York, 1941

EVA CALLED TRANSOCEANIC FROM a pay phone on the street outside her safe house in Brooklyn. Five days had gone by since the events in Las Cruces, during which she had made her way slowly back to New York, taking advantage of all the means of transport available – plane, train, bus and automobile. The first day in New York she had staked out her own safe house. When she was sure no one was watching she moved in and laid low. Finally, when she assumed they'd be growing increasingly worried by her silence, she telephoned.

'Eve!' Morris Devereux almost shouted, forgetting procedure. 'Thank God. Where are you?'

'Somewhere on the eastern seaboard,' she said. 'Morris: I'm not coming in.'

'You have to come in,' he said. 'We have to see you. Circumstances have changed.'

'You don't know what happened down there,' she said with some venom. 'I'm lucky to be alive. I want to speak to Romer. Is he back?'

'Yes.'

'Tell him I'll call on Sylvia's number at BSC. Tomorrow afternoon at four.'

She hung up.

She went down the street to a grocery store and bought some tinned soup, a loaf of bread, three apples and two packs of Lucky Strike before going back to her room on the third floor of the brownstone building on Pineapple Street. Nobody bothered her, none of her anonymous neighbours seemed to register that Miss Margery Allerdice was in residence. If she opened the bathroom window, and leant out as far as she could, the top of one of the towers of Brooklyn Bridge was just visible – on a clear day. She had a pull-down bed, two armchairs, a radio, a galley kitchen with two electric rings, a soapstone sink with one cold tap and a lavatory screened by a plastic curtain with tropical fish all swimming in the same direction. When she arrived back she made some soup – mushroom – ate it with some bread and butter and then smoked three cigarettes while wondering what to do. Perhaps, she thought, the best thing would be to fly now… She had her identification, she could be Margery Allerdice and be gone before anyone really noticed. But where to? Mexico? From there she could catch a ship to Spain or Portugal. Or Canada, perhaps? Or was Canada too close? And BSC had a substantial organisation there also. She ran through the pros and cons, thinking she could manage better in Canada, that it would be easier to be inconspicuous; in Mexico she'd stand out – a young English woman – though from there she could go to Brazil, or even better, Argentina. There was a sizeable English community in Argentina; she could find a job, translating, invent a past for herself, become invisible, bury herself underground. That was what she wanted to do – to disappear. But as she thought on she realised that all this planning and speculation, however worth while, wasn't going to be put into effect until she'd seen and spoken to Romer: she had to tell him what happened – perhaps he could sort out and solve the crowding mysteries. After that she could make up her mind, but not before.

As the evening drew in she listened to some music on the radio and in her mind went back over the events in Las Cruces. 'The Events in Las Cruces' – the euphemism was rather comforting: as if her hotel room had been double-booked or her car had broken down on Highway 80. She felt no guilt, no compunction about what she had done to de Baca. If she hadn't killed him she knew he would have killed her in the next minute or two. Her plan had been only to stab him in the eye and run. She only had a sharpened pencil, after all – one of his eyes was the only possible target if he was to be immobilised. But thinking back over those few seconds in the car, remembering de Baca's reactions, his total, shocking incapacity followed by his immediate death, she realised that the force of her blow must have driven the pencil point through the eyeball and the eye-hole in his skull, deep into his brain puncturing, in the process, the carotid artery – or perhaps hit the brain-stem, causing instant cardiac arrest. There could be no other explanation for his almost instant death. Even if she had missed the artery and the pencil had penetrated his brain de Baca might not have died. But she would have been able to make her escape, though. However, her luck – her luck – her aim and the sharpness of the pencil point had killed him as swiftly and as surely as if he had taken prussic acid or had been strapped to an electric chair. She went to bed early and dreamt that Raul was trying to sell her a small speedy red coupe.

She called Sylvia's number at BSC exactly at 4.01 p.m. She was standing at a pay phone outside the entrance of the Rockefeller Center on Fifth Avenue with a good view of the main doors. Sylvia's phone rang three times and then was picked up.

'Hello, Eva,' Romer said, his voice level, unsurprised. 'We want you to come in.'

'Listen carefully,' she said. 'Leave the building now and walk south down Fifth. I'll give you two minutes, otherwise there won't be any meeting.'

She hung up and waited. After about three and a half minutes, Romer emerged – fast enough, she thought: he would have had no time to set up any team. He turned right down Fifth Avenue. She shadowed him from across the street and behind, watching his back, watching his manner, letting him walk some six blocks before she was sure there was no one on his tail. She was wearing a headscarf and spectacles, flat shoes and a camel coat she'd bought in a thrift shop that morning. She crossed the street at an intersection and began to follow him closely herself for another block or two. He was wearing a trench coat, an old one with a few repaired tears, and a navy-blue scarf. He was bareheaded. He seemed very at ease, strolling southwards, not looking around, waiting for contact to be made. They had reached 39th Street before she walked up beside him and said, 'Follow me.'

She turned east and on Park Avenue turned north again, heading towards 42nd Street and Grand Central Station, going in by the Vanderbilt Avenue entrance and walking up the ramp to the main concourse. Thousands of commuters criss-crossed the vast space, swarming, jostling, hurrying: it was rush hour – probably as secure a place to meet as any in the city, Eva reasoned: hard to jump her, easy to cause confusion and escape. She didn't look behind her but made for the central information booth. When she reached it only then did she turn, taking off her spectacles.

He was right behind her, face expressionless.

'Relax,' he said. 'I'm alone. I'm not that stupid.' He paused, moving closer to her, lowering his voice. 'How are you, Eva?'

To her intense irritation the genuine concern in his voice made her suddenly want to cry. She had only to think of Luis de Baca to go hard and resilient again. She took off her headscarf, shook her hair loose.

'I was sold,' she said. 'Somebody sold me.'

'Not any one of us. I don't know what went wrong but Transoceanic is tight.'

'I think you're wrong.'

'Of course you think that. I would think that. But I would know, Eva. I'd figure it out. We're tight.'

'What about BSC?'

'BSC would give you a medal if they could,' he said. 'You did a brilliant job.'

This threw her and she looked around at the hundreds of people hurrying by and then, as if for inspiration, up at the immense vaulted ceiling with its constellations winking out of the blue. She felt weak: the pressure of the last days overcoming her now, all of a sudden. She wanted nothing more than for Romer to put his arms around her.

'Let's go downstairs,' he said. 'We can't talk properly here. I've got a lot to tell you.'

They went down a ramp to the lower concourse and found a place at the counter of a milk bar. She ordered a cherry milkshake with a scoop of vanilla ice-cream, suddenly craving sweetness. She checked the room as the order was prepared.

'There's no need to look around,' Romer said. 'I'm on my own. You've got to come in, Eva – not now, not today, or tomorrow. Take your time. You deserve it.' He reached over and took her hand. 'What you managed to do was astonishing,' he said. 'Tell me what happened. Start from when you left New York.' He let her hand go.

So she told him: she talked him through every hour of the entire trip from New York to Las Cruces and Romer listened, still, without saying a word, only asking her when she had finished to repeat the period of time from her saying farewell to Raul to the encounter with de Baca.

'What's happened in the days you've been out is this,' he told her when she had finished. 'The sheriff of Dona Ana County was called to the crash after you reported it. They found the corner of the map and the money and called in the local FBI agent from Santa Fe. The map went to Hoover in Washington and Hoover himself put it on the President's desk.' He paused. 'Nobody can quite figure it out – so they called us in, naturally enough, as it seemed to have a connection with the Brazilian map. How do you explain it? The death of a Mexican detective in a road crash near the border. There's a sizeable amount of cash and what appears to be a portion of a map, in German, detailing potential air routes within Mexico and the United States. Foul play? Or an unlucky accident? Did he buy the map? Was he selling it and the sale went wrong? Did someone try to steal it from him and was spooked and ran?' He spread his hands. 'Who knows? The investigation continues. The key thing from our point of view – BSC's – is that it confirms the validity of the Brazilian map. Unequivocally.' He chuckled. 'You could never have foreseen this, Eva, but the sheer exceptional beauty of this episode is that the map reached Roosevelt and Hopkins without a trace, without a hint of a smell, of BSC on it. From county sheriff to FBI operative to Hoover to the White House. What's going on south of the border? What are these Nazis planning with their airlines and their Gaus? Couldn't have worked out better.'

Eva thought. 'But the material was inferior.'

'They thought it was good enough. Raul was simply going to plant it, send it to a local newspaper. That was the plan. Until your plan superseded.'

'But I didn't have a plan.'

'All right. Your… improvisation. Necessity is the mother of invention and all that.' He paused, looked at her, almost checking her out, she felt, to see if she had changed, somehow. 'The key thing,' he continued, 'the amazing thing, is that it's all worked out about a hundred times better than anyone could have hoped. They can't point a finger at the British and BSC and say: look, another of your dirty tricks to hoodwink us into your European war. They turned this up themselves in a forgotten corner of their own backyard. What can the Bund say? Or America First? It's as clear as day: the Nazis are planning flights from Mexico City to San Antonio and Miami. They're already on your doorstep, USA, it's not something happening across the Atlantic Ocean – wake up.' He didn't need to say anything more: Eva could see how it fitted only one interpretation.

'London's very happy,' he said. 'I can tell you that – very. It might have made the crucial difference.'

She felt the tiredness gather on her again as if she were carrying a heavy rucksack. Maybe it was relief, she thought: she didn't have to fly, didn't have to run, everything had turned out all right – somehow, mystifyingly.

'All right. I'll come in,' she said. 'I'll be back in the office on Monday.'

'Good. There's lots to do. Transoceanic has to follow this up in various ways.'

She climbed down from her stool as Romer paid for her milkshake.

'It was a very close-run thing, you know,' she said, a little residual silt of bitterness in her voice. 'Very.'

'I know. Life's a close-run thing.'

'See you on Monday,' she said. 'Bye.' She turned away, craving her bed.

'Eva,' Romer said and caught her elbow. 'Mr and Mrs Sage. Room 340. The Algonquin Hotel.'

'Tell me exactly what happened,' Morris Devereux said, 'from the minute you left New York.'

They were sitting in his office at Transoceanic on Monday morning. Outside it was a cold late-November day, snow-flurries were threatened. Eva had spent Saturday and Sunday at the Algonquin with Romer. She had slept all day Saturday, Romer being sweet and considerate. On Sunday they went for a walk in Central Park and had a brunch at the Plaza, then they went back to the hotel and made love. She had gone home to her apartment in the evening. Sylvia had been waiting, forewarned – don't tell me anything, she said, take your time, I'm here if you want me. She had felt restored again and, for a while, all the nagging questions in her head had receded until Morris Devereux's request brought them charging back. She told him everything that she had told Romer, leaving nothing out. Devereux listened intently and made brief notes on a pad in front of him – dates, times.

When she finished he shook his head in some amazement. 'And it's all turned out so well. Fantastically well. Bigger than the Belmonte Letter, bigger than the Brazil Map.'

'You make it sound like some Machiavellian superscheme,' she said. 'But there was no plan. Everything was spontaneous, on the spur of the moment. I was only trying to cover tracks – to muddy water, to give me some time. Confuse people. I had no plan,' she reiterated.

'Maybe all great schemes are like that,' he said. 'Happenstance intersecting with received wisdom produces something entirely new and significant.'

'Perhaps. But I was sold, Morris,' she said, with some harshness, some provocativeness. 'Wouldn't you say so?'

He made an uncomfortable face. 'I would have to say it looks like it.'

'I keep thinking of their plan,' she said. 'And that's what bothers me, not the fact that I somehow, by luck and accident, foiled it and turned it into our so-called triumph. I'm not interested in that. I was meant to be found dead in the desert with a dodgy map of Mexico on me and 5,000 dollars. That was the real plan. Why? What's it all about?'

He looked baffled, as he thought through the logic of what she had said. 'Let's go over it again,' he said. 'When did you first spot the two crows at Denver?'

They ran through the sequence of events again. She could see that now there was something further troubling Morris, something that he wasn't prepared to tell her – yet.

'Who was running me, Morris?'

'I was. I was running you.'

'And Angus and Sylvia.'

'But under my instructions. It was my party.'

She looked shrewdly at him. 'So, I should probably be very suspicious of you.'

'Yes,' he said, thoughtfully, 'so it would seem.' He sat back and locked his fingers behind his head. 'I would be suspicious of me, too. You lost the crows in Denver. Hundred per cent sure?'

'Hundred per cent.'

'But they were waiting for you in Las Cruces.'

'I didn't even know I was going to Las Cruces until the man in Albuquerque told me. I could have been going anywhere.'

'So he must have set you up.'

'He was an envoy. A fetch-and-carry man.'

'The crows in Denver were local.'

'I'm pretty sure. Standard FBI.'

'Which suggests to me,' Morris said, sitting up, 'that the crows in Las Cruces weren't.'

'What do you mean?' Now she was interested.

'They were bloody good. Too bloody good for you.'

This was something she hadn't thought of. Neither had Romer. Denver and Las Cruces had always seemed like two ends of the same operation. Devereux's suggestion implied that there were two parties running – simultaneously, unconnected.

'Two sets of crows? Makes no sense – one inept, one good.'

Devereux held up his hand. 'Let's proceed with the assumption and ignore the solution. Didn't they teach you that at Lyne?'

'They needn't have been waiting for me,' she said, thinking fast. 'They could have been with me all the way from New York if they were that good.'

'Possibly. Exactly.'

'So who were the second lot if they weren't FBI?' Eva said: her mind was beginning that old mad clamour again – questions, questions, questions and no answers. 'The Bund? America First? Private hire?'

'You're looking for a solution. Let's play it through first. They wanted you dead with the map on you. You would be identified as a British crow because the FBI were following you out of New York even though you lost them.'

'But what's the point? One dead British agent.'

She noticed Morris now had a worried expression on his face. 'You're right: it doesn't add up. There's something we're missing…' he looked like a man faced with half a dozen urgent options, all of them unsavoury.

'Who knew I was in Las Cruces?' Eva prompted, trying to get the momentum going again.

'Me, Angus, Sylvia.'

'Romer?'

'No. He was in England. He only knew about Albuquerque.'

'Raul knew,' Eva said. 'And the fellow in Albuquerque. So other people knew apart from you three…' Something struck her. 'How come de Baca knew I was in the Motor Lodge? Nobody knew I was going to the Motor Lodge except me – you didn't know, Angus and Sylvia didn't know. I jinked, I weaved, I backtracked. I had no shadows, I swear.'

'You must have,' he said, insistently. 'Think about it: that's why the Las Cruces lot had nothing to do with the Denver crows. They had a big team on you, or waiting for you. A brigade – four, six. And they were good.'

'There was a woman in the red coupe,' Eva said, remembering. 'Maybe I wasn't looking for a woman. Or women.'

'What about the desk clerk at the Alamogordo Inn. He knew you were checking out.'

She thought: that little twerp on the desk? And remembered the Lyne mnemonic – the best often seem the worst. Maybe Raul, also. Albino Raul, the desk clerk, the couple in the coupe – a brigade, Morris said – two others she hadn't spotted. And who were the men de Baca had made the sign to as they left the Motor Lodge? It suddenly seemed more possible. She looked at Morris as he sat in thought, tugging at his bottom lip with finger and thumb. Isn't he rather leading me, she wondered? Is this Morris's smart intuition or is he steering me? She decided to stop: circles were rotating within rotating circles.

'I'll keep thinking,' she said. 'I'll call you if I have a brainwave.'

As she walked back to her office she remembered what the desk clerk had said to her when she'd checked into the Alamogordo Inn. You sure you want to stay here? There are nicer places out of town. Had he deliberately seeded an idea in her head? No, she thought, this is becoming absurd – it was driving her insane.

That night Sylvia fried her a steak and they opened a bottle of wine.

'Everything's buzzing at the office,' she said, hinting heavily. 'They say you're the star of the show.'

'I will tell you, I promise,' Eva said. 'Only I still haven't worked half of it out yet.'

Just before she went to bed, Morris Devereux telephoned. His voice sounded tense, on edge – he had abandoned his usual languid drawl.

'Can you speak?' he asked. Eva looked round and saw that Sylvia was clearing the dishes from the table.

'Yes, absolutely fine.'

'Sorry to call you so late, but something's bothering me and only you can provide the answer.'

'What is it?'

'Why didn't you just give the map to Raul?'

'Sorry?'

'I mean: those were your instructions, weren't they? You were simply meant to give a "package" to Raul along with the money.'

'Yes.'

'So why didn't you?'

She looked round, she could hear the clatter of dishes from the kitchen.

'Because I checked it and I thought it was botched. Inferior material – something rotten.'

'Did anyone tell you to check the merchandise?'

'No.'

'So why did you?'

'Because… Because I thought I should…' She asked herself why: it had been a matter of complete instinct. 'I just thought it was good procedure.'

He went quiet. Eva listened for a second and then said: 'Hello? Are you there?'

'Yes,' Morris said. 'The thing is, Eve, that if you'd just given the merchandise to Raul as instructed, then none of this would have happened. Don't you see? It all happened precisely because you didn't do what you were supposed to.'

Eva thought about this for a moment: she couldn't see what he was driving at.

'I don't follow,' she said. 'Are you saying that this is somehow all my fault?'

'Jesus Christ!' he said softly, abruptly.

'Morris? Are you all right?'

'I see it now…' he said, almost to himself. 'My God, yes…'

'See what?'

'I have to do some checks tomorrow. Let's meet tomorrow. Tomorrow afternoon.' He gave her instructions to go to a cartoon-news theatre on Broadway, just north of Times Square – a small cinema that showed cartoons and newsreels on a 24-hour loop.

'It's always empty around four,' Morris said. 'Sit in the back row. I'll find you.'

'What's going on, Morris,' she said. 'You can't leave me dangling like this.'

'I have to make some very discreet enquiries. Don't mention this to anyone. I'm worried that it may be very serious.'

'I thought everyone was thrilled to bits.'

'I think the crows in Las Cruces may have been our friends in grey.'

Our friends in grey were the German-American Bund.

'Locals?'

'Further afield.'

Jesus.

'Don't speak. See you tomorrow. Good-night.'

She hung up. Morris was talking about the Abwehr or the SD – the Sicherheitsdienst. No wonder he was worried – if he was right then the Germans must have someone in BSC – a ghost at the heart of the operation.

'Who was that?' Sylvia asked coming out of the kitchen. 'Coffee?'

'Yes, please. It was Morris. Some accounting problem at Transoceanic.'

'Oh, yes?' They all knew when they were lying to each other but nobody took offence. Sylvia would just log this fact away: it was too unusual – it showed how worried Morris must be to have drawn attention to himself in this way. They drank their coffee, listened to some music on the radio and went to bed. As she drifted off to sleep Eva thought she heard Sylvia making a short phone call. She wondered if she should have told Sylvia of Morris's suspicions but decided, on balance, that it was better to have them confirmed or denied before she shared them. As she lay in her bed she reran their conversation: Morris had seen something in the events at Las Cruces that she hadn't or couldn't. She wondered further if she should tell someone about this meeting with him tomorrow – as insurance. But she decided not to – she should just let Morris explain how he saw things. For some reason she trusted him and to trust someone, she knew all too well, was the first and biggest mistake you could make.

But there was no sign of Morris at the office the next morning – even by lunchtime he still hadn't put in an appearance. Eva was working on a follow-up story to the Mexican map, all about a new generation of four-engined German passenger planes – based on the Condor Fw 200 submarine hunter – that had a non-stop range of 2,000 miles, more than enough to cross the Atlantic to South America from West Africa. She thought that if she could place the story with a Spanish newspaper – El Diario or Independiente - that an Argentine airline had ordered six, then it might have some legs.

She drafted it out and took it through to Angus, who seemed to be more and more a presence at Transoceanic, these days, and less and less at OBA.

He read it quickly.

'What do you think?' she said.

Angus seemed distracted – not particularly friendly – and she noticed the ashtray in front of him was dense with buckled cigarette butts.

'Why Spain?'

'Better to start it there so Argentina can deny it. We get more mileage if it starts in Spain and then is picked up in South America. Then maybe we can try it here in the US.'

'Do these planes exist?'

'Condors exist.'

'Right. Seems fine. Good luck.' He reached for his cigarette case again – he clearly couldn't care less.

'Have you seen Morris, by any chance?' she asked.

'He said he had to spend the day at Rockefeller – following something up.'

'Is something wrong, Angus? Is something going on?'

'No, no,' he said, just about managing a convincing a smile. 'Rather too many Martinis last night.'

She left him, feeling slightly disturbed: so Morris was at BSC – interesting that Angus knew that. Had Morris told Angus anything? Could this explain Angus's untypical brusqueness? She pondered these issues as she typed up her Condor story and took it to one of the Spanish translators.

She had a late lunch at an automat on Seventh Avenue, where she bought a tuna sandwich, a slice of cheesecake and a glass of milk. She wondered what Morris could possibly glean at Rockefeller. The Las Cruces job had originated at BSC, of course… She ate her sandwich and for about the hundredth time ran through the events that had led to her encounter with de Baca, looking for something she might have missed. What had Morris seen that she hadn't? So: de Baca shoots her and makes sure that her body is quickly found. The map is discovered and some $5,000. What does this say to anybody? A young female British agent is discovered murdered in New Mexico with a suspect map. All eyes – all FBI eyes – would turn to BSC and wonder what they had been planning here. It would be highly, damagingly embarrassing – a nice Abwehr counter-plot, she could see. A British agent exposed distributing anti-Nazi propaganda. But we did nothing else, she said to herself, given the chance, and everybody at the FBI must be aware of this state of affairs – what would be so sensational about that?

But various rogue details tugged at her sleeve. Nobody had ever suggested that the Abwehr could run such an operation in the United States. A whole shadowing brigade from New York to Las Cruces – moreover, one with such resources and such refinements that she couldn't spot it and its members somewhere along the way. She had been highly suspicious – which is how she had snared the local crows. How big would the team have had to be? Six, eight? Changing over all the time, maybe with one or two women? She would have spotted them, she kept saying to herself, or would she: the whole time in Las Cruces she had been suspicious. It's very hard to follow a suspicious target, but she had to say she had never thought about women. But then again, she thought: why was I suspicious? Was I semi-consciously aware of the rings being run around me. She stopped thinking and decided to go early to the cartoon theatre. A laugh or two might be just what she needed.

She waited two hours for Morris at the theatre, sitting in the back row of the near-empty cinema, watching a succession of Mickey Mouse, Daffy Duck, and Tom and Jerry cartoons interspersed with newsreels that occasionally contained news of the war in Europe. 'Germany's war machine falters at the gates of Moscow,' the announcer intoned with massive, hectoring insistence, 'General Winter takes command of the battlefield.' She saw horses floundering up to their withers in mud as fluid and gluey as melted chocolate; she saw exhausted, gaunt German soldiers with sheets tied around them as camouflage, numbly running from house to house; frozen bodies in the snow taking on the properties of shattered trees or outcrops of rock: iron-hard, wind-lashed, unmovable; burning villages lighting the thousands of Russian soldiers scurrying forward across the icy fields in counter-attack. She tried to imagine what was happening there in the countryside around Moscow – Moscow, where she had been born, and which she couldn't remember at all – and found that her brain refused to supply her with any answers. Donald Duck took over, to her relief. People began to laugh.

When it was apparent Morris was not going to show up, and the theatre began slowly but surely to fill up as offices closed, she made her way back to the apartment. She was not that bothered – three out of four of these prearranged meetings never took place – it was too complex and too risky to try to alert people of a postponement or a delay, but worries still nagged at her. Or were they genuine worries? Perhaps her own curiosity about what Morris would have had to say made her more edgy and concerned. He would call in the fullness of time, she told herself; they would meet again; she would discover what he had discovered. Back in the apartment she checked the snares in her room – Sylvia had not been poking around, she was glad, almost stupidly happy, to note. Sometimes she grew tired of this endless, vigilant suspicion – how can you live like that, she thought? Always watching, always checking, always fearful that you were being betrayed and undone. She made herself a cup of coffee, smoked a cigarette and waited for Morris to call.

Sylvia came home and Eva asked her – very by the way – had she seen Morris at the Center today? Sylvia said no, reminding her of just how many hundreds of people worked there now, how huge BSC had grown – like a giant business enterprise, two entire floors of the skyscraper filled, crammed, overflow offices on other floors – Morris could have been there for a week and she'd have still not seen him.

At about eight o'clock a slight but poisonous unease began to afflict Eva. She telephoned Transoceanic and was told by a duty clerk that Mr Devereux had not been in all day. She telephoned Angus Woolf at his apartment but his phone just rang and rang.

At nine Sylvia went out to see a movie – The Maltese Falcon - with a friend, leaving Eva alone in the apartment. She sat and watched the phone – a stupid thing to do, she knew, but she felt better for doing it, all the same. She tried to recall her last conversation with Morris. She could hear in her mind his quiet 'Jesus Christ' as something profound had struck him, some missing piece in the puzzle had fitted into place. It had been more shock in his voice, she decided, than alarm, as if this potential solution was so… so unexpected, so drastic, that it had drawn this exclamation from him spontaneously. He had fully intended to tell her, otherwise he wouldn't have set up the cartoon-theatre meeting and, more importantly, he had wanted to tell her face to face. Face to face, she thought: why couldn't he have told me in plain-code? I would have got the message. Too shocking for plain-code, perhaps. Too earth-shattering.

She decided to ignore procedure and call his apartment.

'Yes,' a man's voice answered. American accent.

'Could I speak with Elizabeth Wesley, please?' she said, instantly Americanising her own voice.

'I think you have the wrong number.'

'So sorry.'

She hung up and ran to fetch her coat. In the street she found a taxi quickly and told it to go to Murray Hill. Morris lived there in a tall block of anonymous service apartments, as they all did. She made the taxi stop a couple of streets away and walked the rest of the distance. Two police patrol cars were parked outside the lobby entrance. She walked past and saw the doorman sitting behind his lectern, reading a newspaper. She hovered for five minutes, waiting for someone to go in and eventually a couple appeared who had their own key and she followed them quickly through the door, chatting – 'Hi. Excuse me, you don't happen to know if Linda and Mary Weiss are on the sixteenth or the seventeenth floor? I just left them and left my purse there. Five A – sixteen or seventeen. Just running out to a club. Can you believe it?' – the man waved at the doorman, who looked up from his newspaper at the animated trio and looked down again. The couple didn't happen to know the Weiss sisters but Eva rode up to the tenth floor with her new friends – where they exited – and then went on up to thirteen and came down the fire stairs to twelve, where Morris lived.

She saw two policemen and Angus Woolf standing outside the door to Morris's apartment. Angus Woolf? What's he doing here, she thought? And a nausea hit her stomach as she realised, almost immediately, that Morris must be dead.

'Angus,' she called quietly, walking down the corridor towards him, 'what's happened?'

Angus signalled to the cops that she was admissible and swung quickly toward her on his sticks.

'You'd better get out, Eve,' he said, his face pale, 'this is System Blue, here.'

System Blue was as bad as it could get.

'Where's Morris?' she asked, trying to keep her head, trying to seem calm and normal, knowing the answer.

'Morris is dead,' Angus said. 'He killed himself.' He was shocked and upset, she could tell: she remembered they had been colleagues, friends, for a long time, long before she'd arrived at AAS.

Eva felt her mouth go dry as if some small vacuum inside her was siphoning off all her saliva. 'Oh my God,' she said.

'You'd better go, Eve,' Angus repeated. 'All kinds of shit are hitting the fan.'

And then Romer came out of Morris's apartment to have a word with the policemen, turned, glanced down the passageway, and saw her. He strode towards her.

'What're you doing here?'

'I'd arranged to meet Morris for a drink,' she said. 'He was late so I came over.'

Romer's face was immobile, almost vacant, as if he were still taking in and computing the fact of Eva's presence.

'What happened?' Eva said.

'Pills and whisky. Doors locked, windows locked. A note that makes no sense. Something about some boy.'

'Why?' Eva said, unthinkingly, spontaneously.

'Who knows? How well do we know anyone?' Romer turned to Angus. 'Call head office again. We need a big-wig on this one.' Angus limped off and Romer turned back to her. Somehow she felt his whole attention was on her now.

'How did you get in here?' he asked her, his voice unfriendly. 'Why didn't the doorman ring up?'

Eva realised she had made a mistake: she should have gone to the doorman, not used her little subterfuge. That would have been normal: the normal, innocent thing a friend would do if another friend was late for a drink.

'He was busy. I just came up.'

'Or maybe you were looking for Elizabeth Wesley.'

'Who?'

Romer chuckled. Eva realised he was too clever – and he knew her too well, anyway.

Romer looked at her, his eyes were cold: 'Never underestimate the scrupulous resourcefulness of our Miss Dalton, eh?'

And she knew.

She felt a shrilling in her ears, a keening note of hysterical alarm. She put her hand on his arm.

'Lucas,' she said softly. 'I want to see you tonight. I want to be with you.'

It was all she could do – it was pure instinct. She needed to buy a few seconds of time before he realised everything.

He looked over his shoulder at the policemen.

'It's impossible,' he said. 'Not tonight.'

In those seconds she was thinking: he knows Morris and I have talked. He knows Morris told me something, which is why I came covertly into the building. He thinks I have the crucial information and he's trying to calculate how dangerous I am. She saw his expression change as he turned back to her again. She could almost hear their two brains – supercharged – churning. Two turbines going in their separate directions.

'Please,' she said, 'I miss you.' It might just throw him, she was thinking, this lover's plea. Just over twenty-four hours ago we were making love – it might just throw him for five minutes.

'Look – maybe,' he said. He reached for her hand and squeezed it then let it go. 'Stephenson wants to meet you. It seems Roosevelt's going to mention your map in a speech next week – on the tenth. Stephenson wants to congratulate you himself.'

This is so far-fetched it might almost be true, she thought.

'Stephenson wants to meet me?' she repeated, dumbly. It seemed inconceivable. William Stephenson was BSC: it was his party, every nut and bolt – every cracker, cookie and slice of cake.

'You're our shining star,' he said insincerely and looked at his watch. 'Let me sort out this mess. I'll pick you up outside your apartment at ten.' He smiled. 'And don't tell Sylvia. All right?'

'See you at ten,' she said. 'And then, afterwards, maybe we can…'

'I'll think of something. Listen, you'd better go before one of these cops takes your name.'

He turned and walked away towards the policemen.

As Eva rode down to the street in the elevator she began to calculate. She checked her watch: 8.45. Romer would be waiting for her outside her apartment at ten. When she didn't show after five minutes he would know she was flying. She had just over an hour to disappear.

She decided she had no time to go back to the apartment – everything had to be left behind in the interests of immediate safety and flight. As she waited for a subway she checked what she had in her handbag: her Eve Dalton passport, some thirty dollars, a packet of cigarettes, lipstick, a compact. Was this enough, she wondered, smiling ruefully to herself, to start a new life?

On the train to Brooklyn she began to go back over that last encounter with Romer and slowly, methodically, examine all its implications. Why was she so suddenly, immediately convinced that Romer was somehow behind the events in Las Cruces and Morris Devereux's death? Maybe she was wrong?… Maybe it was Angus Woolf. Maybe it had been Morris playing an elaborate game of entrapment with her, acting the innocent party? But she knew Morris hadn't committed suicide: you don't make a vitally important appointment and then decide to cancel it by ending your life. Romer had given nothing away, though, she had to admit – so why this unshakeable certainty? Why did she feel she had to fly now, at once, as though her life depended on it? The commonplace phrase disturbed her, made her come out in goose bumps – her life did depend on it, she realised. For Morris it was the fact that she hadn't given the map to Raul that was the key indication, the essential clue. Why hadn't she given the map to Raul? Because she had inspected it and found it wanting. Who told her to check the merchandise? No one.

She heard Romer's voice, her lover's voice, as if he were standing beside her: 'Never underestimate the scrupulous resourcefulness of our Miss Dalton, eh?'

That was what had clinched it for her. That was what had made her understand what Morris had seen. She couldn't see the whole picture, how the game was meant to end, but she had realised, standing talking to Romer outside poor dead Morris's flat, that Romer had sent her on the Las Cruces mission, knowing one thing for sure: he knew – absolutely, confidently – that she would never hand over merchandise without examining it. He knew her, he knew completely what she would do in that situation. She felt a blush of shame glow on her face as she came to terms with the fact that she could be so easily read, so perfectly programmed and positioned. But why feel shame, she said to herself, with a little flare of anger? Romer knew she would never be an automatic, press-all-the-buttons, courier – that was why he had volunteered her for the job. It had been the same at Prenslo – she used her initiative, took spontaneous decisions, made hard judgements. And the same with Mason Harding. Her head began to reel: it was as if he had been testing her, evaluating how she behaved in these circumstances. She suddenly thought: had Romer put the FBI crows on to her as well, knowing, confident, that she would lose them – and thereby rouse suspicions? She began to feel outmanoeuvred, as if she were playing chess with a grandmaster who was always working ten, twenty, thirty moves ahead. But why would Lucas Romer want her dead?

In the Brooklyn apartment she went straight to the bathroom and took down the medicine cabinet from the wall. She pulled away the loose brick behind it and removed her Margery Allerdice passport and a small wad of dollar bills: she had nearly 300 dollars saved. As she rehung the cabinet she paused.

'No, Eva,' she said out loud.

She had to remember this – she could never forget this – she was dealing with Lucas Romer, a man who knew her all too well, as well as anybody had ever known her in her life, it seemed. She sat down, almost giddy with the thought that had just come to her: Romer wanted her to fly, he was expecting her to fly – it would be much easier to deal with her if she was on the run, far from home. So think, she urged herself – double-think, triple-think. Put yourself in Romer's mind – assess his knowledge and opinion of you, Eva Delectorskaya – and then surprise him.

She reasoned to herself: Romer would not have fallen for her heartfelt invitation to spend the night together, not for one second. He would know that she suspected him; he would know that she didn't believe Morris had killed himself. He probably knew, also, that it was over the second she appeared in the corridor outside Morris's apartment and therefore his suggestion to meet at ten was almost an invitation for her to fly. She was suddenly aware that she didn't have a head start: not an hour, not half an hour – she had no time at all.

She left the apartment immediately, wondering if Romer would be aware of its address. She thought not, and as she walked down the street she confirmed that no one was following her. She slipped her Eve Dalton passport through a grating in the gutter and heard it splash gently in some water below. She was now Margery Allerdice – someone Romer knew, of course; he would know all the aliases he provided for his agents – Margery Allerdice would only take her so far.

But take her where? she thought, as she hurried on to the subway station. She had two clear simple choices: south to Mexico or north to Canada. As she deliberated she found herself wondering what Romer would expect her to do. She had just come from the Mexican border – would he assume she would head back, or go north – the other way? She saw a cab cruising by and hailed it. Take me to Penn Station, she said – south, then, to Mexico, the best decision, it made sense – she knew how and where to cross the border.

On the cab journey she continued to ponder the ramifications of this plan. Train – was that the right thing to do? He wouldn't expect her to take a train: too obvious, too easy to check, easier to be trapped on a train – no, Romer would think bus or car, so taking a train might actually buy her some time. She kept thinking about Romer and the way his mind worked as she crossed the East River, heading for the lucent towers of Manhattan, aware that only this would ensure her survival. Eva Delectorskaya versus Lucas Romer. It wouldn't be easy – more to the point, he had trained her, everything she knew came from Romer, handed down in one way or another. So the thing to do was turn his own methods, his own little tricks and specialities, against him… But she just needed a little time, she realised, weakly, just a day or two's start on him, time enough to cover her tracks, make it harder for him… She huddled down in the back of the cab: it was a chilly November night – some Mexican sun would be nice, she thought, some Brazilian sun. Then she realised she had to go north. She reached over and tapped the taxi driver on the shoulder.

At Grand Central she bought a ticket for Buffalo – twenty-three dollars – and handed over two twenties. The clerk counted out her change and gave her the ticket. She said thank you and walked away, waiting until he had served two other customers, before she came back to the booth, interrupting the next transaction and said, 'This is change for forty. I gave you a fifty.'

The row was impressive. The ticket clerk – a middle-aged man with a middle parting so severe that it looked like it was shaved in place – refused to budge or apologise. An under-manager was called; Eva demanded to see a supervisor. The crowd waiting in line became restive – 'Hurry it up there, lady!' somebody shouted – and Eva rounded on them, crying that she had been cheated out of ten dollars. When she began to weep the under-manager led her away to an office where, almost instantly, she calmed down and said she would be in touch with her lawyers. She made a point of writing down the under-manager's name – Enright – and the ticket clerk's – Stefanelli – and warned him that he and Stefanelli had not heard the last of this, no sirree: when the Delaware amp; Hudson Railway started robbing its innocent customers somebody had to stand up and fight.

She walked back across the huge concourse, feeling quite pleased with herself – she was surprised at just how easily she had managed to produce genuine tears. She went to a more distant booth and bought another ticket, this time for Burlington. The last train was leaving in three minutes – she ran down the ramp to the platform and boarded it with thirty seconds to spare.

She sat in her seat, watching the lit suburbs flit by and tried to put herself once more in Romer's position. What would he think about the kerfuffle at Grand Central? He would know it was staged – it was an old training ploy to deliberately draw attention to yourself: you make a fuss while buying a ticket to the Canadian border because that's precisely where you're not heading. But Romer wouldn't buy that – too easy – he wouldn't be looking south at all, now. No, Eva, he would say to himself, you're not going to El Paso or Laredo – that's what you want me to think. In fact you're going to Canada. Romer would intuit the double bluff immediately, but then – because one must never underestimate the scrupulous resourcefulness of Eva Delectorskaya – doubts would creep in: he would start thinking, no, no… maybe it's a triple bluff. That's precisely what Eva wants me to think, to conclude that she was going to Canada when in actual fact she was going south to Mexico. She hoped she was right: Romer's mind was devious enough – would her quadruple bluff be sufficient to fool him? She thought it would. He would read the play thoroughly and should think: yes, in winter birds fly south.

At the station in Burlington she made a phone call to Paul Witoldski in Franklin Forks. It was after midnight.

'Who is it?' Witoldski's voice was harsh and irritated.

'Is this the Witoldski bakery?'

'No. It's the Witoldski Chinese Laundry.'

'Can I speak to Julius?'

'There's no Julius here.'

'It's Eve,' she said.

There was a silence. Then Witoldski said, 'Did I miss a meeting?'

'No. I need your help, Mr Witoldski. It's urgent. I'm at Burlington Station.'

Silence again. 'I'll be there in thirty minutes.'

While Eva waited for Witoldski to arrive she thought to herself: we are urged, implored, instructed, ordered, beseeched never to trust anyone – which is all very well, she reflected, but sometimes in desperate situations trust is all you can rely on. She had to trust Witoldski to help her; Johnson in Meadowville would have been the obvious choice – and she thought she could trust Johnson too – but Romer had been in Meadowville with her. At some stage he would call Johnson; he knew about Witoldski also but he would check on Johnson first. Witoldski might buy her another hour or two.

She saw a muddy station wagon pull into the car-park with 'WXBQ Franklin Forks' printed along its side. Witoldski was unshaven and wearing a plaid jacket and what looked like waxed fishing trousers.

'Are you in trouble?' he asked, looking around for her suitcase.

'I'm in a spot of trouble,' she admitted, 'and I have to be in Canada tonight.'

He thought for a while and rubbed his chin so she could hear the rasp of his bristles.

'Don't tell me any more,' he said and opened the car door for her.

They drove north, barely saying a word to each other; he smelt of beer and other staleness – old sheets, perhaps, a body not recently washed – but she was not complaining. They stopped to fill up at a gas station in Champlain and he asked her if she was hungry. She said she was and he came back to the car with a packet of fig rolls – Gouverneur Fig Rolls, it said on the wrapping. She ate three, one after the other, as they turned west and headed for a town sign-posted Chateaugay, but just before they reached it he turned on to a gravel road and they began to climb up through pine forests, the road narrowing to a single track, the tips of the pine trees brushing the car as they moved slowly along, a thin metallic whisper in her ears. Hunters' trails, Witoldski explained. She nodded off for a while and dreamt of figs and fig trees in the sun until the lurch as the car came to a halt woke her up.

Dawn was close, there was a tarnished silveriness in the sky above her that made the pines seem blacker still. Witoldski pointed to a junction, lit by his headlights.

'A mile down that road you come to Sainte-Justine.'

They stepped out of the car and Eva felt the cold hit her. She saw Witoldski was looking at her thin city shoes. He went round to the back of the station wagon, opened the tail-gate and came back with a scarf and an old greasy cardigan that she put on under her coat.

'You're in Canada,' he said. 'Quebec. They speak French here. You speak French?'

'Yes.'

'Dumb question.'

'I'd like to give you some money for the gas – and your time,' she said.

'Give it to charity, buy a war bond.'

'If anybody comes,' she said. 'If anybody asks you about me, tell them the truth. There's no need to cover up.'

'I never saw you,' he said. 'Who are you? I been out fishing.'

'Thank you,' Eva said, thinking she should perhaps embrace this man. But he held out his hand and they shook hands briefly.

'Good luck, Miss Dalton,' he said, climbed back in his car, turned it at the junction and drove away, leaving Eva in a darkness so absolute Eva did not trust herself to take even one step. But slowly her eyes accustomed themselves to the gloom and she began to make out the jagged tips of the trees against the slowly greying sky and she could see the pale path of the road where it forked. She wrapped Witoldski's scarf tighter around her throat and set off down the track to Sainte-Justine. She was truly flying now, she thought, she had flown to another country and for the first time she began to feel a little safer. It was a Sunday morning, she realised, listening to the noise of her feet crunch on the gravel of the roadway, and the first birds beginning to sing – Sunday, 7 December 1941.