"The beginnings of one." Vicary rose. "I'd like to see the inside of Jordan's house before I question him. Any objections?"

"No," Boothby said. "But softly, Alfred, very softly."

"Don't worry. I'll be discreet."

"Some of the watchers specialize in that sort of thing--breaking and entering, you know."

"Actually, I have someone in mind for the job."

Harry Dalton worked the thin metal tool inside the lock on Peter Jordan's front door. Vicary stood facing the street, shielding Harry from view. After a moment Vicary heard the faint click of the lock giving way. Harry, like a consummate professional thief, opened the door as if he owned the place and led them inside.

"You're damned good at that," Vicary said.

"I saw someone do it in a movie once."

"Somehow, I don't believe that story."

"I always knew you were an intelligent bloke." Harry closed the door. "Wipe your feet."

Vicary opened the door to the drawing room and went inside. His eyes ran over the leather-covered furniture, the rugs, the photographs of bridges on the walls. He walked to the fireplace and examined the silver-framed photos on the mantel.

"Must be his wife," Harry said. "She was beautiful."

"Yes," Vicary said. He had quickly read the copy of Jordan's service file and background check given to him by Boothby. "Her name was Margaret Lauterbach-Jordan. She was killed in an automobile accident on New York's Long Island shortly before the war broke out."

They crossed the hall and looked inside the dining room and the kitchen. Harry tried the next door and found it was locked. Vicary said, "Open it."

Harry knelt down and worked the tool inside the lock. A moment later he turned the latch and they went inside. It was furnished as a working office, certainly for a man: a desk of dark stained wood, a chair of fine leather, and, a unique feature that said much about the occupant, a drafting table and stool that an engineer or an architect might use. Vicary switched on the desk lamp and said, "What a perfect place to photograph documents." The safe was next to the desk. It was old and looked as though it weighed at least five hundred pounds. Vicary looked closely at the legs and noticed they were bolted to the floor. He said, "Let's take a look upstairs."

There were three bedrooms, two overlooking the street, a third larger room at the back of the house. The two in front were obviously guest rooms. The wardrobes were empty and there were no personal touches of any kind. Vicary led them into Jordan's room. The double bed was unmade, the shades raised on windows overlooking a small, unkempt walled garden. Vicary opened the Edwardian wardrobe and looked inside: two U.S. Navy uniforms, several pairs of wool civilian trousers, a stack of sweaters, and several neatly folded shirts bearing the name of a men's shop in Manhattan. He closed the wardrobe and looked around the room. If she had been here she had left no trace, only a faint breath of perfume that hung in the air and reminded Vicary of the fragrance that Helen had worn.

Who is this, please? Oh, bloody hell!

Vicary looked at Harry and said, "Go downstairs, quietly open the door to the study, go inside, and close it again."

Harry came back two minutes later. "Did you hear anything?"

"Not a sound."

"So it's possible she may be slipping into his study at night and photographing everything he brings home."

"We have to assume that, yes. Check out the bathroom. See if she's left any personal items here at all."

Vicary could hear Harry rattling around inside the medicine chest. He came back into the bedroom and said, "Nothing belonging to a woman in there."

"All right. I've seen enough for now."

They went downstairs again, made certain the door to the study was locked, and let themselves out the front door. They had parked around the corner. As they turned onto the pavement Vicary looked up at the terrace of houses across the street. He looked down again very quickly. He could have sworn he saw a face in a darkened window looking back at him. A man's face--dark eyes, black hair, thin lips. He glanced upward again but this time the face was gone.

Horst Neumann played a game with himself to help ease the tedium of waiting: he memorized faces. He had become good at it. He could glance at several faces--on the train or in a crowded square--commit each to memory, then mentally flip through them, the way one looks at photographs in an album. He was spending so much time on the Hunstanton-to-Liverpool-Street run that he was beginning to see familiar faces all the time. The chubby salesman who always fondled his girlfriend's leg before kissing her good-bye at Cambridge and going home to his wife. The spinster who seemed forever on the verge of tears. The war widow who always gazed out the window and, Neumann imagined, saw her husband's face in the passing gray-green countryside. In Cavendish Square he knew all the regulars: the residents of the houses surrounding the square, the people who liked to come sit on the benches among the dormant plants. It was monotonous work, but it kept his mind sharp and helped pass the time.

The fat man came at three o'clock--the same gray overcoat, the same bowler hat, the same jittery air of a decent man embarking on a life of crime. The diplomat unlocked the door to the house and went inside. Neumann crossed the square and slipped the envelope through the slot. He heard the familiar grunt as the chubby diplomat stooped to retrieve it.

Neumann returned to his spot on the square and waited. The diplomat came out a few minutes later, found a taxi, and was gone. Neumann waited for a few minutes to make certain the taxi was not being followed.

Neumann had two hours before his train. He stood up and started walking toward Portman Square. He passed by the bookshop and saw the girl through the window. The shop was empty. She was sitting behind the counter reading the same volume of Eliot she had sold him last week. She seemed to sense someone was watching her, because she looked up suddenly as if startled. Then she recognized him, smiled, and gestured for him to come inside. Neumann opened the door and walked in. "It's time for my break now," she said. "There's a cafe across the street. Will you join me? My name's Sarah, by the way."

Neumann thought, Oh, what the hell? He said, "I'd love to, Sarah."

Rain beat softly on the roof of the Humber. Cold infiltrated the interior, so they saw their breath when they spoke. Grosvenor Square was unusually quiet, indistinguishable in the blackout. They might have been parked outside the Reichstag for all Vicary could tell. An American staff car slipped into the square, headlamps shrouded. The street shone with the rain in the puddle of light thrown off by the vehicle. Two men climbed out; neither was Jordan. A moment later a motorcycle courier plunged through the darkness. Vicary reflexively thought of France.

He closed his eyes to squeeze away the images and instead saw the face of the man in the Kensington window. Probably nothing more than a nosy neighbor, he told himself. Something troubled him, though--the way the man stood a few feet back from the glass, the way the room was in darkness. He pictured the face: dark hair, dark eyes, a narrow mouth, pale skin, the features arranged in a way to obscure national origin. Maybe German, maybe Italian; maybe Greek or Russian. Or English. Or English.

Harry lit a cigarette, then Vicary lit a cigarette, and after a moment the back of the Humber was thick with smoke. Vicary wound down his window an inch to release the cloud. The cold poured in and sliced at his face.

Vicary said, "I never knew you were such a star, Harry. Every policeman in London knows your name."

"The Spencer Thomas case," Harry said.

"How did you catch him?"

"The dumb bastard wrote everything down."

"What do you mean?"

"He wanted to remember the details of the murders but he didn't trust his memory. So he kept this bizarre diary. I found it when I searched his room. You'd be surprised at the things some people put in writing."

No, I wouldn't, thought Vicary, remembering the letter from Helen. I have proven my love for you in a way that I can do for no other man. But I am unwilling to sacrifice my relationship with my father for the sake of a marriage. I have proven my love for you in a way that I can do for no other man. But I am unwilling to sacrifice my relationship with my father for the sake of a marriage.

"How's Grace Clarendon?" Vicary asked. He had never asked about her before and the question sounded unnatural, as though he had just asked Harry about rugby or cricket.

Harry said, "She's fine. Why do you ask?"

"I saw her outside Boothby's office last night."

"Boothby always asks for Grace to deliver files to his office personally. Grace thinks it's because he likes to look at her legs. Half the people in the department think she's having it off with him."

Vicary had heard those rumors once upon a time himself: Boothby had slept with everything in the department that wasn't nailed down, and Grace Clarendon had been one of his favorite conquests.

You can't do this to me! Bastard! Bloody bastard!

Vicary had assumed Boothby disciplined Grace over the Vogel file. But it was possible he had just overheard a lover's quarrel. He decided he would not tell Harry any more about it.

The car entered the square a moment later.

Vicary's first image of Jordan would linger with him for a long time, faintly irritating, like the odor of foul cooking trapped in clothes. He heard the low rumble of the approaching staff car and spun his head in time to see Jordan slip past his window. He saw him for less than a split second, but his mind had frozen Jordan's likeness as surely as film traps light. He saw the eyes, looking across the square, as if for hidden enemies. He saw the jawline, taut and crisp, as if steeled for a contest. He noted the cap, pulled tightly to the brow, and the overcoat, buttoned tightly to the throat.

Jordan's staff car stopped in front of Number 47. The engine started and they pulled forward very quickly. Harry got out of the car and pursued Jordan across the pavement.

The rest Vicary watched like a pantomime: Harry asking Jordan to come away and get in the second Humber, which seemed to have materialized from thin air; Jordan looking at Harry as though he were from outer space.

Harry identifying himself in the overpolite manner of a London police officer; Jordan telling him very clearly to fuck off. Harry seizing Jordan's arm, a little too firmly, and leaning over to murmur something into his ear.

All color bleeding from Jordan's face.

37.

RICHMOND-UPON-THAMES, ENGLAND.

The redbrick Victorian mansion was not visible from the road. It stood atop the highest point of the grounds at the end of a ragged ribbon of gravel. Vicary, alone in the back of the freezing Humber, doused the light as he approached the house. During the drive he had read the contents of Jordan's briefcase. His eyes burned and his head was throbbing. If this document was in German hands, it was possible the Abwehr could use it to unlock the secret of the invasion. They could use it to peer through the smoke and the fog of Double Cross and Fortitude. They could use it to win the war! Vicary imagined the scene in Berlin. Hitler would be dancing on the tabletops, clicking the heels of his jackboots. And it's all because I couldn't find a way to catch that damned spy! And it's all because I couldn't find a way to catch that damned spy!

Vicary rubbed a clear patch in his fogged window. The mansion was dark except for a single yellow light burning over the entrance. MI5 had purchased it before the war from bankrupt relatives of the original owner. The plan had been to use it for clandestine meetings and interrogations and as lodgings for sensitive guests. Used infrequently, it had grown seedy and derelict and looked as though it had been abandoned by a retreating army. The only signs of habitation were the dozen staff cars parked haphazardly in the weedy drive.

A Royal Marine guard appeared out of the darkness and opened Vicary's door. He led him into the cold timeworn hall and through a series of rooms--a drawing room of covered furniture, a library of empty bookshelves--and finally through a pair of double doors that led into a large room overlooking the darkened grounds. It smelled of woodsmoke and brandy and faintly of wet dog. A billiards table had been pushed aside and a heavy oaken banquet table laid in its place. A bonfire burned in the huge fireplace. A pair of dark-eyed Americans from SHAEF Intelligence sat quietly as altar boys in the chairs nearest the flames. Basil Boothby paced slowly in the shadows.

Vicary found his spot at the table. He placed Jordan's briefcase on the floor next to his chair and began slowly unpacking his own. He looked up, caught Boothby's eye, and nodded. Then he looked down again and continued preparing his place. He heard doors opening and two pairs of footsteps crossing the wooden floor. He recognized one set as Harry's and knew the other to be Peter Jordan's.

A moment later Vicary heard Jordan's weight settling into the chair directly across the table from him. Still, he did not look at him. He removed his notebook and a single yellow pencil and laid them on the table carefully, as if arranging a place setting for royalty. Next he removed Jordan's file and laid it on the table. He sat down, opened the first page of his notebook, and licked the tip of his pencil.

Then, finally, Vicary lifted his head and looked Peter Jordan directly in the eye for the first time.

"How did you meet her?"

"I bumped into her in the blackout."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I was walking down the sidewalk without a blackout torch and we collided. She was carrying a bag of groceries. They spilled everywhere."

"Where did this happen?"

"Kensington, outside the Vandyke Club."

"When?"

"About two weeks ago."

"When exactly?"

"Jesus, I don't remember! It might have been a Monday."

"What time in the evening?"

"Around six o'clock."

"What did she call herself?"

"Catherine Blake."

"Had you ever met her before that night?"

"No."

"Had you ever seen seen her before that night?" her before that night?"

"No."

"You didn't recognize her?"

"No."

"And how long were you with her that first night?"

"Less than a minute."

"Did you make arrangements to see her again?"

"Not exactly. I asked her to have a drink sometime. She said she'd like that, and then she walked away."

"She gave you her address?"

"No."