Eye of the Needle(43)
“Well, think, for God’s sake,” Bloggs said. “Where?”
Godliman shook his head in frustration. “It must have been only once, and somewhere strange. It’s like a face I’ve seen in a lecture audience, or in the background at a cocktail party. A fleeting glimpse, a casual encounter—when I remember it probably won’t do us any good.”
Parkin said, “What’s in that area?”
“I don’t know, which means it’s probably highly important,” Godliman said.
There was a silence. Parkin lit a cigarette with one of Godliman’s matches. Bloggs looked up. “We could print a million copies of his picture—give one to every policeman, ARP warden, member of the Home Guard, serviceman, railway porter; paste them up on boardings and publish them in the papers…”
Godliman shook his head. “Too risky. What if he’s already talked to Hamburg about whatever he’s seen? If we make a public fuss about the man they’ll know that his information is good. We’d only be lending credence to him.”
“We’ve got to do something.”
“We’ll circulate his picture to police officers. We’ll give his description to the press and say he’s just a conventional murderer. We can give the details of the High-gate and Stockwell murders, without saying that security is involved.”
Parkin said, “What you’re saying is, we have to fight with one hand tied behind our back.”
“For now anyway.”
“I’ll start the ball rolling with the Yard,” Bloggs said. He picked up the phone.
Godliman looked at his watch. “There’s not much more we can do tonight, but I don’t feel like going home. I shan’t sleep.”
Parkin stood up. “In that case, I’m going to find a kettle and make some tea.” He went out.
The matches on Godliman’s desk made a picture of a horse and carriage. He took away one of the horse’s legs and lit his pipe with it. “Have you got a girl, Fred?” he asked conversationally.
“No.”
“Not since—?”
“No.”
Godliman puffed at his pipe. “There has to be an end to bereavement, you know.”
Bloggs made no reply.
Godliman said, “Look, perhaps I shouldn’t talk to you like a Dutch uncle. But I know how you feel—I’ve been through it myself. The only difference was that I didn’t have anyone to blame.”
“You didn’t remarry,” Bloggs said, not looking at Godliman.
“No, and I don’t want you to make the same mistake. When you reach middle age, living alone can be very depressing.”
“Did I ever tell you, they called her Fearless Bloggs.”
“Yes, you did.”
Bloggs finally looked at Godliman. “Tell me, where in the world will I find another girl like that?”
“Does she have to be a hero?”
“After Christine…”
“England is full of heroes, Fred—”
At that moment Colonel Terry walked in. “Don’t get up, gentlemen. This is important, listen carefully. Whoever killed those five Home Guards has learned a vital secret. There’s an invasion coming. You know that. You don’t know when or where. Needless to say, our objective is to keep the Germans in that same state of ignorance. Most of all, about where the invasion will come. We have gone to some extreme lengths to ensure that the enemy be misled in this matter. Now, it seems certain, he will not be if their man gets through. He has, it is definitely established, found out our deception. Unless we stop him from delivering his news, the entire invasion—and therefore, one can safely say, the war—is compromised. I’ve already told you more than I wanted to, but it’s imperative that you understand the urgency and precise consequences of failure to stop the intelligence from getting through.” He did not tell them that Normandy was the invasion site, nor that the Pas de Calais via East Anglia the diversionary one—though he realized Godliman would surely conclude the latter once he had debriefed Bloggs on his efforts to trail the murderer of the Home Guardsmen.
Bloggs said: “Excuse me, but why are you so sure their man found out?”
Terry went to the door. “Come in, Rodriguez.”
A tall, handsome man with jet-black hair and a long nose entered the room and nodded politely to Godliman and Bloggs. Terry said: “Senhor Rodriguez is our man at the Portuguese Embassy. Tell them what happened, Rodriguez.”
The man stood by the door. “As you know, we have been watching Senhor Francisco of the embassy staff for some time. Today he went to meet a man in a taxi, and received an envelope. We relieved him of the envelope shortly after the man in the taxi drove off. We were able to get the license number of the taxi.”
“I’m having the cabbie traced,” Terry said. “All right, Rodriguez, you’d better get back. And thank you.”
The tall Portuguese left the room. Terry handed to Godliman a large yellow envelope, addressed to Manuel Francisco. Godliman opened it—it had already been unsealed—and withdrew a second envelope marked with a meaningless series of letters: presumably a code.
Within the inner envelope were several sheets of paper covered with handwriting and a set of ten-by-eight photographs. Godliman examined the letter. “It looks like a very basic code,” he said.