19Orpheus
June 8th
Friday
“THE LAST TRAIN for Norwich leaves when?”
“At 9:12, sir, and it’s—”
“We’re not going to make it!”
“Shut up,” said Hermann. He turned back to the clerk. “Two, please, right now.”
“It’s 9:10!” Newt hissed.
“You're the one who wanted to go tonight!” Hermann hissed back at Newton, who was hovering at his elbow at the Liverpool Street Station ticket counter, eyes on the huge clock above the half-empty lobby.
“But we can’t wait until tomorrow!”
“If you have an alternate suggestion, I would love to hear it!” Hermann snapped.
Rrrip. The clerk produced two tickets and slid them under the hatch. “That will be £8.56.”
“Thank you,” Hermann said, and began to count through the money in his hand.
Newt intervened by snatching the tickets, seizing a £10 note, and slamming it onto the counter. He said, “Keep the change!” then grabbed Hermann by the arm and started running.
“Newton, what part of—not drawing attention to ourselves—”
“It doesn’t matter if we’re being followed, we’re going straight to them,” Newt shot back, half pulling, half pushing him across the floor towards the doors. “If we even make it aboard, since it’s 9:11—”
“Whether or n—” Hermann broke off with a hiss of pain as Newt yanked him around a bench, where a family surrounded by luggage watched them with mold interest.
Newt winced and slowed down. “Dammit, sorry.”
“Just go,” snapped Hermann, pulling out of his grasp and straightening up with his cane. “Make sure it hasn’t left yet!"
Newt sprinted on ahead, around the corner, and out the swinging doors onto the platform. A wall of hot, humid air hit him. The platform was dark, thick with smoke and fog. He scanned the tracks for their northbound train. It was still standing, but there was only one figure left on the platform—the conductor.
Newt shouted and waved, and started running over. The conductor saw him, and made some signal with his arm.
“Chop chop,” said the conductor, jerking his head at the door.
“H—hang on,” panted Newt, reaching him, waving the tickets. “One second. One more passenger.” He stepped onto the stairs, but kept one foot on the platform. The conductor, a hulking, fair-haired young man, looked past him with a frown. He sighted Hermann with a look of visibly depreciating sympathy.
“Get on,” he said to Newt.
“Hermann!”
Hermann was limping as quickly as he could, and almost there.
The conductor made another signal, as Hermann arrived, out of breath and red in the face.
“Come on,” said Newt, grabbing for Hermann’s hand to help him up the stairs. Hermann swatted him away and Newt moved up. The railing in one hand and his cane in the other, Hermann pulled himself up the steps. The conductor blew his whistle just behind them, and slammed the door shut.
“Made it,” said Newt, panting in the vestibule. The exertion, though brief, had left him dizzy. The engine rumbled.
“Yeah,” said Hermann, breathing heavily.
“Are you all right?”
Hermann shook his head. “I need to sit down.”
The bell began to ding, and the train began to move. Newt pulled open the carriage door.
At the front of the carriage, there was a couple, speaking in heated undertones. They fell abruptly silent when the door opened, and looked away from each other. Newt led Hermann to the center of the car, where it was emptiest. He picked a row across the aisle from a lone businessman, who was working with his head bowed, intently focused on whatever he was writing. They were already half-sitting down before Hermann noticed that the businessman had an enormous German Shepherd sitting at his feet. Hermann watched it warily as he took his seat.
The man himself ignored them.
“Hermann, I’m starving,” Newt said as soon as they had settled and the train had left the station. “When was the last time you ate?”
“I have no idea,” said Hermann in an undertone.
“We should see if there’s anything to eat at the first stop.”
“Absolutely not. There’s no time to get off the train and back on again.”
“I’m so hungry—” Newt began, with the sound of someone launching into a monologue, but before he could, a voice behind them interrupted.
“Excuse me?”
They both turned. A bald man with glasses was standing anxiously above them. He wore a long, ill-fitting coat and clutched a hard-backed briefcase.
“Pardon me. I notice your luggage rack is empty,” the stranger said. “I was wondering if I might stow my briefcase?”
“Fine,” said Hermann, waving his hand and turning away.
Newt squinted suspiciously at him.
“Thank you ever so much,” the stranger said, reaching over them to stow the briefcase.
“Don’t mention it...” said Newt.
“And you’ll keep an eye on it?”
Newt frowned. “Sure,” he said.
The man thanked them again and hurried off, leaving their carriage and closing the door behind him. Hermann twisted around to watch him go.
“What the hell was that about?” Newt said.
“Doesn’t matter,” said Hermann, scanning the back of the car for anyone else suspicious. Near the back door, there was a wiry man wearing sunglasses and a long dark coat. He appeared to be asleep. Hermann turned back around, with a glance at the German shepherd. “What were you saying?”
Newt was rooting around in Hermann’s messenger bag for something. Outside, diffuse lights passed in the fog, like fingerprints smudged on the glass. Occasional waves of darkness passed when a building obscured their view. As they left the city, those interruptions became less frequent; the buildings shrank and spread apart, and the halo of light grew murky.
Hermann found himself watching the couple arguing at the front of the carriage. He hadn’t noticed at first, but the woman was much younger than the man. He was speaking to her in a pleading undertone while she looked ahead in furious silence.
“Here we go,” said Newt, finally pulling the Tolkien book out of the brown envelope and decoy book jacket in which Hermann had concealed it. “You got the messages?”
“Messages?” said Hermann.
“Orpheus,” Newt hissed. “Are we decoding his messages, or not?”
“Right,” said Hermann. He took his bag back, and extracted a thick file full of random accounting sheets and tax forms. He undid the bulldog clip and thumbed through until he found a small packet in the center. “Here.”
The complete record of the Orpheus transmissions fit onto five pages of small print. He had illicitly printed two hard copies that morning—one set for himself, and one set for Lightcap. He handed the packet to Newt.
“So,” said Newt, spreading the five papers out across their laps and onto the seat next to him, while Hermann looked around to see if they were in anybody’s eyeline. There was only the dog and his owner, who was still engrossed in his own writing. “You saw the file. How did the book code work?”
Newt tugged on Hermann's tie. Hermann looked back at him in surprise, and saw that Newt was using his tie to polish his glasses.
“The code is word by word,” Hermann said. “Not a homophonic substitution cipher. Mercifully. Bowen used it with his field operatives in Berne for a short while.”
"Bowen... always Bowen. Wait." Newt put his glasses back on. "If it's his old code, do you think that's who Orpheus is talking to? Bowen?"
Hermann stopped short. "Huh... It's possible. But that would mean..." He gazed across the train carriage, absently renewing his inventory of the faces and outfits. "...That would mean Bowen was still a Razvedka operative, or a case officer of some kind—that he still has clearance. We have no proof of that. We aren't even sure whether he speaks Russian." Hermann looked back at Newt. "But it's also possible Orpheus thinks he's communicating with Bowen."
Newt nodded, looking back down at the five pages of code.
“So. How did Bowen and his ops agree on what—pages? Chapters?”
“Chapter,” said Hermann. “And each message specified what chapter the next message would use.”
“Where?” said Newt. “Beginning or end of message?”
“I don’t know,” said Hermann. “And that’s easy to change.”
“So do we have to start with the first message?”
“Well, assuming they started with chapter one—”
“Can we assume that?”
“I don’t know, Newton, there are a lot of variables, and I don’t have time to try every possibility in the usual manner, since you’re rushing me.”
“I’m not rushing you! I'm just asking if the—”
“Tickets please,” said a sharp voice above them before Hermann could retort. They both looked up.
The conductor stood over them with his hand out.
“Two to the end of the line,” said Hermann, holding out his hand to Newt. Newt bypassed him and handed them to the conductor himself, along with a wooden smile.
The conductor took his time reading them, then punched both with his puncher, but did not hand them back. “Bags?”
“No,” said Hermann.
“This isn’t yours?”
He indicated the briefcase.
“Not ours,” said Hermann.
“Whose is it, then?”
“I don't have any idea whose bag it is,” said Hermann impatiently.
“You’re traveling to Norwich without any luggage?” he said, as if that were unseemly.
“Is that a crime?” said Newt.
“Are you American?”
“Is that a crime?”
A bell began to ding, and the train slowed as they approached Chelmsford Station, mercifully distracting the conductor. He handed back their tickets haughtily, and left. New passengers began to board.
“What a nudnik,” Newt muttered, and Hermann nodded vigorously. Their situational annoyance redirected onto a mutual target, they derided the conductor until the train began to move again.
They rolled out of the station as the first bolt of lightning flashed. As the train laboriously accelerated, the thunder cracked and growled, close after the flash of lightning, and after a long, silent interval, it cracked again, unleashing a torrent of rain onto the train.
A grandmotherly-looking woman had sat down in front of them. Up in front of the carriage, the elder boyfriend, who had been quiet for some time, made another attempt at bridge-building with his young girlfriend. She finally snapped at him. Hermann looked away from them as they began to argue in earnest. They were loud he could almost hear the words.
“Realistically, we only have time to decode one message,” Hermann said finally. “Let’s decide where to focus our efforts.”
Newt was not listening. The grandmother in front of them, having settled in, had opened her bag and took out a small box of dates. Newt had taken notice, and, ignoring Hermann’s look of daggers, asked her for some. She shared them enthusiastically.
“The last message is the most up-to-date,” said Hermann, taking the papers out of Newt’s hands while he occupied himself with his dates. “It will have the most relevant information. We’ll focus on that one.”
“Sure,” said Newt, mouth full. “But how do you know which chapter?”
“We can eliminate the first,” said Hermann. “And probably the last. How many chapters are there?”
“22,” said Newt.
“Brute force. Low and high chapters are less likely, so I’ll try them last. And I’ll start in the middle of the message, in case there are nulls at the beginning. I need you—” He slid the book into Newt’s lap and opened it to Chapter 5, “A Conspiracy Unmasked”—“to find me words by number.”
“Okay.” Newt nodded, chewing and swallowing the last of the dates. “That was delicious. Do you want me to ask for some for you? She was very nice about it.”
Hermann waved his hand impatiently. “Focus. We only have an hour and a half.” He traced to the early middle of the message and chose a set of numbers that looked promising. Each set was five digits: 2 for the page number starting from the first page of the chapter, and 3 digits for the word on the page. His other hand held a pen over a notepad, balanced on his other leg. He wrote “Ch 5” on top of the page. “First set: 05-167.”
“‘The,’” said Newt after a second.
“10-045.”
He turned a few pages. “‘Where.’ Hmm. Not promising.”
“One more. 17-130.”
Pages flipped. “This chapter is only 12 pages long.”
Hermann looked up at Newt with interest. “Ah.”
Newt looked at him, coming to the same idea.
“Find the—”
“Yes,” said Hermann, already scanning the transmission. “The highest page number is...”
Newt flipped back to the table of contents “And if we just calculate the...”
“...it seems to be 21...” said Hermann.
“Ugh,” Newt said under his breath, “Arithmetic...”
“Swap,” said Hermann, thrusting the transmission into Newt’s hand. He took the book, and started calculating the number of pages in each chapter.
“Check if the illustration plates are numbered,” Newt added, beginning to scan the transmission with his finger. “21... Here’s a 22...”
It took them a few minutes to find the highest page number in the message (23) and thus eliminate a little more than half the chapters in the book. They spent the next hour trying each of the nine remaining possibilities, one by one. It was laborious work; by the time the train reached Ipswich Station, they had only conclusively eliminated two chapters.
The rain was still pouring steadily as the train tolled to a halt. The older woman got off the train, bidding them good night.
They were halfway to Norwich.
Newt twisted around to peer at the back of the carriage.
“Where’s the briefcase guy?”
“He’s in a different carriage.”
“Why?” said Newt.
“I have no idea,” said Hermann impatiently.
“Tickets,” said a voice, and they both jumped. The hulking conductor was standing above them.
“We already showed them to you!” said Newt defensively, hiding the book even though Tolkien was a perfectly innocuous thing to be reading.
The conductor said nothing, just held out his hand.
Newt handed them over.
“These are already punched,” said the conductor.
“Because you punched them,” said Hermann.
“You’re sure you don’t know whom this case belongs to?” the conductor said, pointing at the briefcase.
“Yes,” said Newt. “He just came and put it here. Then he left. We haven’t seen him!”
The conductor glared for a moment, then handed back the tickets.
“Stop being so defensive,” Hermann muttered to Newt when the conductor had left. “You’re drawing attention to us.”
“He’s fixating on us!” Newt whispered, watching him exit the back of the car. “He knows who we are, Hermann. He probably called us in at the last station. There will be cops waiting for us at the next stop!”
The German shepherd growled low. Hermann glared at it.
“How are you not more freaked out about this? It feels like everyone on this train is watching us,” Newt hissed, with a significant glance at their across-the-aisle neighbor, Mr. Shepherd.
“Why don’t you ask him whether he has any snacks,” Hermann hissed back.
“And what about that shady guy?” said Newt, turning to point at the back of the car. But the sleeping man in the sunglasses had vanished.
“Concentrate,” said Hermann as he turned back. “We have 8 more chapters to try.”
A half an hour later, the train was pulling out of Stowmarket. It was still pouring rain, and they still did not have the message.
“We’re only two stops away,” said Newt. “We’re running out of time.”
“We’ll get there.”
“What if this is the wrong system?” Newt said. “What if it’s not pages from chapter—what if it’s paragraphs? From a pre-agreed-upon point?”
“The file said chapters.”
“Well the file could be wrong—”
“The Blueberry wouldn’t have matched the codes if there wasn’t significant overlap,” Hermann said, speaking over him. “We’re on the right track. Keep trying.”
Hermann’s dogged calm kept Newt steady. Finally, just as they reached Diss Station, they found the proper chapter. They read Orpheus’s final message in full:
Meeting passing without incident all clear all parties in proper place meet at one as agreed east by water to complete trade.
“Well that’s inconclusive,” Newt said, when they had both read over the finished message. "He could be anyone. And he could be talking to Bowen... or to anyone."
Hermann nodded slowly.
“‘East, by water’? Where’s that?”
“No idea.”
“A trade? What for, do you think?”
“Trading the transducer, surely.”
“But for what? What does Orpheus... want from Bowen?”
Hermann shook his head. “I don’t know.”
“When did Orpheus send this?” Newt asked.
“Last Saturday night.”
The train, tolling its bell, was pulling into Diss. It was 11:00. Hermann’s eyes wandered as Newt speculated in a stream of consciousness murmur.
Up front, the young woman seemed to have given up arguing. She was staring at the seat across from hers, eyes unfocused, reevaluating it all while the older man collected his things. He was fiddling with the strap of his briefcase, and searching his pocket for something. The train was slowing down. He stood, still holding her hand. She looked up at him, and he let it drop. As he left, Hermann saw the glint of the wedding ring, restored onto his finger. His heart sank for her.
“...From the conference, it really only could be Becket or Victor,” Newt was saying. “A trade. A trade. A trade for what?”
The married man left the train carriage. The door rolled shut behind him, and the young woman buried her face in her hands.
The train pulled out of Diss. One stop left: Norwich.
At Norwich station, Hermann phoned the Estate to tell Mme Marsden he had arrived. He had called to notify her of his arrival earlier in the evening, from London—all he’d said was that he was coming on urgent business, alone. She’d promised to send a car for him. Hermann also called Lightcap again, on Newt’s request. There was no reply.
They waited outside the station with a handful of other passengers. The rain had eased. Newt was antsy, and Hermann was on guard. One by one, the others disappeared until they were the last ones waiting, listening to the light rain on the tin roof. Finally, a black car with an indiscreet Union Jack sticker on the window rolled to a stop in front of them.
Hermann had an explanation prepared for the driver, if he recognized Newt from the internal alert. The driver got out—he was young, and carried himself like a soldier, and he was missing an eye. He took no apparent notice of Newt, only opened the back door for them and shut it when they were both inside.
“Everything settled for the conference tomorrow?” Hermann ventured as they pulled out onto the main road.
“All quiet, sir,” said the officer. “Americans are all settled in.”
“How’s the mistress?”
“She’s all right, sir,” he said. “A bit tired, with all the fuss. But she’s waiting for you.”
Newt opened his mouth to say something, but Hermann hit him with his knee to keep him quiet. Newt glared at him.
As they drove down the highway, the storm ceased, leaving smoky clouds, rolling fast. They drove up a steep grade, then down a long hill, flat planes of field stretching out to an unseen horizon. Eventually the car turned off the highway to a side road, then a bumpy dirt road. Two sentries stood just inside the stone gates, half out of sight. They let the car pass with a nod.
Pale blue by day, the mansion was granite gray in the fog-drenched air. All the upper windows were dark. On the white gravel driveway, sleek government cars were packed together, side by side. An air of expectation hung over the Estate with the mist.
Hermann walked up the white gravel driveway. Newt touched his arm without a word and hurried away towards the stables, to search for the jammer.
The porch was silent and empty. The light above the heavy painted front door was still lit. Before Hermann could knock, the door opened, and a young woman with deep circles under her eyes led him inside. Upstairs, the conference attendees slept, awaiting tomorrow, and the silence downstairs was that of a deserted theater lobby, empty in the moment before the curtain goes up. She led him quickly and quietly down the halls like she was an usher and he was late to the show.
Below the candle brackets and extinguished lightbulbs, past the front parlor and the lavish dining hall, all dark within, and finally to an eggshell blue swinging door without a handle. The light was on inside the kitchen, and Mme Marsden sat at the table, gray hair pinned up, a tartan shawl around her shoulders, her arthritic hands resting on the floral tablecloth.
She stood up from the table, slow and shaky but determined, to greet Hermann and kiss him on the cheek. In the late hour, she seemed older.
“I am very worried about Newton,” she said without preamble. “Sit,” she added, moving to the stove to turn the kettle on. The girl had already done so, so Mme Marsden shooed her away. With thumps and clinks she took down two teacups and saucers from the wooden cabinets, while Hermann weathered a sudden wave of exhaustion. He rested his hands on the tablecloth, his thoughts swirling in disarray. Behind him the kettle boiled. She poured the hot water with a whispering sound while he watched her bowed reflection in the dark window, collecting himself.
Outside, Newt stole across the dark grass towards the stables. The still-wet grass quickly soaked the hems of his pants, his shoes, and then his socks. The frogs and crickets were silent, awaiting the next torrent.
Facing the dark forest, he found the back door to the stables, which was padlocked and easily picked. It took him a few moments, but it seemed that none of the perimeter patrols passed this way.
Newt had given some consideration to where he would have hidden a radio jammer, and given his knowledge of the Estate’s layouts, he had a promising hypothesis about the cellar below the stables. He let himself inside and shut the door. He found the cellar door in the dark, and opened it—unlocked. He turned on the staircase light. It flicked on, then with a pop, out again. The fuse had blown. Newt took out his pocket flashlight and shone it into the dusty darkness, then picked his way carefully down, holding the railing for balance.
“When he was here last week, he was just fine, just himself,” said Mme Marsden, sitting back down. Hermann warmed his hands on the teacup but didn’t yet drink from it. “Then—” She snapped her fingers, rattling her bracelets, “he vanishes. I do not believe all this, what they are saying with the alert. That he missing. That he is wanted for questioning. I think he was kidnapped, Hermann. Truly, I do.”
Hermann chose to gloss over this sensational speculation and said instead, “Where did he sleep last week? Are his things still there? Perhaps I could look at them.”
“He slept in the boarding house,” she said, gesturing at the window. “Top floor. The same place he used to when he worked here with Caitlin. His bags are still there, everything. He wouldn’t leave all of these by choice.”
“And you were the person who made the sleeping arrangements?” said Hermann.
“My staff,” she said. “I have the final say, of course,” she added.
“Was it your choice to house Newton in that particular room?” Hermann asked.
“It was his old room. It isn’t easy access. If he was kidnapped, I do not think it was from there.”
“But did someone ask you to place him there?”
She shook her head, frowning. “No, Hermann, I made the arrangements. Nobody asked me about Newton.”
Mme Marsden sipped from her cup, and Hermann looked away, frustrated. Maybe the lateness of the hour was confusing her. She didn't seem to understand his questions.
“Has it stopped raining?” she said, looking out the opaque window.
“Madame Marsden, this might be a strange question,” said Hermann, throwing tact to the wind, “but did you get orders about where Newton should sleep?”
But she did not seem to hear him. Her eyes roamed the landscape outside, the dim strip of gravel and the dark outbuildings beyond. Mist was rising in white tendrils from the grass.
“It was a night like this, when he came,” she said quietly, her voice far away. “But colder.”
“Who?”
“Robert.”
Newt coughed, covered in dust. He was on hands and knees in the cellar, feeling around behind the crates. It was so dark down here. Why had he made his radio jammer so small and sleek and hard to find? Why was he so awesome at his job?
He spat out some cobweb and got to his feet. A crossbeam swooped into his eyeline and he leaned back just in time to avoid smacking his head. He grabbed the crossbeam to steady himself. It wasn’t as close as it had looked. His vertigo had still not left him. He wondered whether the damage to his inner ear was permanent.
He moved to search the light fixtures.
“It wasn’t your fault,” Hermann said. The words, however useless, were the truth. “He lied. They called, and he lied. You trusted him.”
“They called?” said Mme Marsden, frowning, coming back from her reverie.
“The call from headquarters,” said Hermann. “The alarm call, saying Bowen was to be detained.”
“But there was no call,” she said. “That was the trouble.”
“But Ca...” Hermann trailed off, remembering what Caitlin had told him in the hospital courtyard the night before. Suddenly he remembered the blankness that had come over her face when she spoke of Bowen. He said it was all a mistake... that it would just blow over.
Caitlin had taken the call.
It was Caitlin who had covered for him.
Hermann turned his head slowly, carefully, back to Mme Marsden. She could see that he had been upset by something, and she was studying him closely.
“Mme Marsden, you knew him well, didn’t you?” he said.
“Who, Robert? Of course. Since he was a young man.”
“How well did he and Caitlin know each other?”
“Och,” she said, with the guttural noise of French disapproval. She swatted the air with a ringed and braceleted hand. “I told her. I warned her, I did. I told her, do not be a fool! But she does not listen, that girl. Never!”
“They were having an affair,” said Hermann, not in the tone of a question.
“For almost a year. He said he cared about her, loved her, she told me—I said Caitlin, you are behaving like a fool! He is a Don Juan, he is old enough to be your father. I've seen it so many times before, I said.”
Her voice had risen, and developed a tremor.
“But she refused to listen! And ever since then, ever since he defected all those years ago, she has not come back to see me. Never, not once.” Mme Marsden shook her head, lips pursed, and Hermann saw a decade of regret for that lost relationship.
Caitlin had protected Bowen—not for Russia, but for himself. Because she’d loved him. And though she had never been caught, she had paid for it every day since.
Hermann had shielded Newt in the same way. For that, he realized, he was going to pay.
Rain began to drum against the window.
The light fixtures were all clean, and Newt was starting to lose hope. Perhaps he was wrong, perhaps the jammer had been planted in the boarding house after all. He made his way back towards the narrow staircase, wondering if Hermann was having any luck with Mme Marsden.
His hand fumbled at the wall for the switch. He flipped it. It didn’t turn on. Oh right, he remembered. The fuse had blown.
He kept flipping the switch up and down. Then, on a hunch, he reached pulled his screwdriver back out. He unscrewed the switch and pulled it from the wall.
There, wired in behind the little metal panel, was a little blue bulb with a thick antenna. The radio delay jammer.
“Gotcha,” he whispered triumphantly.
It was burnt out. The jammer had used more power than the old wiring could handle. Newt leaned close and, holding his flashlight in his mouth, carefully unscrewed the jammer. He unwired it from the clasp, his hands shaking a little. This was it. He’d been right. He’d found the proof.
He was so engrossed in the task that he didn’t notice the footsteps behind him, coming down the stairs. By the time he did, the cloth was already over his mouth.
“Mme Marsden, are you certain that nobody told you which room you should put Newton in?”
“No.” She shook her head. “No one mentioned him to me.”
“With—” An idea occurred to Hermann. “Did anyone give you orders about where to place Rosewater? Did they tell you to put him in the attic too?”
She frowned, thinking. “Mr. Rosewater...”
“The liaison. The American liaison.” He leaned across the kitchen table, reaching for her hand. “Concentrate, please, Mme Marsden. Can you remember?”
She nodded slowly. “Yes... I got word about him. They wanted him in the attic. Special request.”
“Who did?” said Hermann. “Who told you that?”
She gave another little nod. “Victor did.”
Hermann’s mouth went dry. “Victor?”
At that moment they heard the car outside.
By the time Hermann reached the driveway, shouting after the car, rain driving into his face, the red taillights were already vanishing onto the dark road.
Hermann whirled around desperately to look back at the house, where the figure of Mme Marsden was still in the doorway, tugging at her shawl and shouting something. He wiped the rain out of his eyes and strained to hear her, but at that moment a dark shape darted out from behind the porch, coming straight at him.