Doctor Who_ The Turing Test Part 5

I found White in the bar, drinking with a couple of American officers in long coats and whisky smiles. I attracted his attention, and with some difficulty convinced him that I needed to talk to him urgently ('Nothing's urgent, Alan') and in private ('If it's secret, I don't understand it, and if it isn't, these chaps don't mind hearing').

In his room, he did make some attempt to sober up, by splas.h.i.+ng cold water from the sink across his face. He asked me again why I needed to see him.

'I I need to know about the woman.'

White raised his eyebrows. 'And I didn't think you were the type!'

I wasn't sure if he was joking, so I plunged on. 'The woman you were with last night. I don't mean to pry, but '

White laughed. 'You're not prying. She's just a tart, Alan. High-cla.s.s, but a tart. Not your type, I shouldn't think.'

I managed a smile. 'I wasn't asking for a recommendation!' I took a breath, looked at the wall behind White's head, which was decorated with pale stripy wallpaper. There were no lights on in the room, because the curtains were still open, but it was almost dark.

'Well then?'

'I think she's a spy.'

'Why?'

I told him about the meeting in the cafe with Elgar. 'I don't know who she's working for,' I concluded, 'But she's up to something.'

White was rubbing his lip. He was, suddenly, a great deal more sober. 'So is Elgar, by the sound of it. Unless he's playing a double game.' He stood up, paced to the darkening window, and stood there in silhouette. He looked almost as strange as the mysterious woman at that moment, and rather more predatory. 'And she's not a tart. It's much more complicated and real than that. I was trying to fob you off. Sorry.'

There didn't seem to be any need for him to apologise, in the circ.u.mstances at least, not to me and I said so.

'Who's Greene?' I added.

He jumped, visibly, like a bird startled by a sudden noise. I could almost hear the susurrus of feathers. But when he spoke his voice had the catch of laughter. 'Oh, he's the third man. There's White, and Elgar, and Greene's the third man. You never get to see him, because he's not part of the real world.'

I laughed too, but felt a chill suspicion. He wasn't going to tell me who Greene was what else wasn't he telling me? Was everyone in on this? How could I find out? I felt as if I were living at the heart of one of those insoluble problems that I had proved to exist, a maze of suspicions and possibilities and half truths in which no information stood on the solid ground of reality and where any door might open to reveal well, anything. I'd had enough of Paris: I wanted to go back to the security of Bletchley Park and the unimaginative but reliableBrigadier Tiltman, and just hide hide.

'Don't worry,' said White, as if he sensed my unease. 'Lots of these half-baked spy types make threats about killing people. Hardly any of them will do it. Killing requires a lot of effort, and leaves a mess behind to clear up. If it was the Germans we were dealing with, I'd be worried, but it's probably the French, or, G.o.d help us, the Bulgarians. I'll have to get in touch with London and sort it out. Thanks for the tip, old chap.'

His manner was quite different now, convinced and practical, but I suspected he was just good at sounding that way when he needed to. I left, having given up all my information, and without even having established to my satisfaction that even Mr White of Military Intelligence was on our side.

I found the Doctor in his room, with the light on and the curtains shut. He was reading a novel by Graham Greene, ent.i.tled The Power and the Glory The Power and the Glory. He looked relaxed, his earlier agitation forgotten.

'Your life may be in danger,' I said.

He didn't even raise his eyes from the book! 'Oh, it always is. Who is it this time?'

'The woman we saw last night?

Now the Doctor did look up, and for the second time I told the story of the meeting in the cafe. The Doctor listened with more attention than White had, and seemed to appreciate the strangeness of the thing more readily.

'Did you see the woman's skin?' he asked.

'I saw her face.'

'No, no, that was probably made up. Did you see her hands?'

I thought about it. 'No, she wore gloves. And a long skirt, with high boots.'

The Doctor nodded. I wondered whether I should say anything else about the otherworldliness of the woman but the Doctor spoke first, questioning me closely about what Elgar had said. He found one particular sentence interesting it had meant nothing to me 'You're the only first-generation we've got.' We both agreed that the use of words was subtly odd. 'First-generation' could mean by a.n.a.logy one of those people in a spy or field organisation nearest the top, or with most experience, but it didn't sound exactly right for either.

'It sounds like one of those ambiguous words in the coded message,' I said.

We stared at each other.

He grinned. 'A word for which there's no exact translation! Yes!'

'So the woman's working for the people who sent the message?' I asked, but realised it was a silly question as soon as I finished speaking. We had no way of telling. She could just as well be working for their enemies.

The Doctor just shrugged, and returned to his book. 'Next step wait and see,' he advised.

In the morning Elgar called us to a meeting in his office. It was a rather bizarre sight, because he was using what must have been the hotel's honeymoon suite. Pastel cupids and insect-like nymphets adorned the walls, and there were a couple of paintings showing mildly erotic scenes in the style of the pre-Raphaelites. The carpet was plush, the bed circular and draped with pink satin. In stark contrast a metal trestle table stood next to the window, with a French Army girl clattering away at a chunky typewriter. Elgar dismissed her before addressing us.

He was, as usual, in full dress uniform, swagger stick and all. White was there: he gave me a cautioning glance, presumably to remind me not to mention last night's conversation as if I were likely to!

'I gather you two have broken the code,' began Elgar.

'Partially,' I said. 'We can only be sure of the meanings of the words translated into German as part of the transmission.'

'Seems uncommonly careless, that. Why do you think they've included a translation table?'

I had to admit I hadn't thought about this. I glanced at the Doctor.

'Probably because the recipients don't speak German,' he said. 'And they'll need to, as part of their response to the message.'

'That's a good enough reason on the face of it,' said White. 'But to me it makes no sense. Why couldn't they use a dictionary? And how many words are there in the translation table?'

The Doctor and I answered together, like Tweedledum and Tweedledee: 'One hundred and forty-five.'

'Well, the recipients were hardly likely to be able to converse in German with a vocabulary of that size.'

These seemed good points to me, but Elgar just shook his head. 'I think the Doctor is right. The recipients don't speak German. The rest of the table may be reaching them in another message.'

He used the word 'may', but he spoke as if he knew it for certain. The Doctor and I exchanged a glance.

'Now, the main item on the agenda is this: we need to get a reply to them.' He stood up, and walked to a blackboard which he had set up, incongruous in the plush suite. He glared at the Doctor and me in turn, like a company commander in a film giving out battle tactics. 'We need to tell them that help is on its way, and will arrive on the thirteenth of February 1945.'

'I expect that it will need a confirming code word, which we haven't got,' said the Doctor. 'Also, I can't be sure that a message encrypted by this system will be what they're expecting.'

'It will have to do,' said Elgar briskly. Again I had the suspicion that he knew more than he was letting on.

I glanced at the Doctor again, half expecting him to complain further, but he merely nodded and said, 'Very well, sir.' It was the only time I ever heard the Doctor 'sir' anyone which was how I knew d.a.m.n well he didn't mean it.

As soon as we were back in my room I asked the Doctor what he was doing.

'Going along with him, of course,' he snapped. 'He knows more than we do at the moment. But don't worry, I intend to change that. At least we know he's not on the same side as the senders of the message. The next thing is working out which side is which, and what they're doing.' He was pulling all the acc.u.mulated paper of the last few days out of drawers and trunks and filing boxes, scanning the endless lists of numbers as if looking for some specific item. I asked if I could help, but he brushed me aside.

'Doctor, I am worried,' I had to admit after a few minutes. 'As you say, I have no idea whose side we're meant to be on, why we're doing this, or whether we can trust any of the people we're working with.'

The Doctor looked up and met my gaze with his. There was a quietude in his blue eyes, a degree of simple friendliness in his expression that I had already come to realise was quite rare for him.

'Alan Turing,' he said, 'welcome to the real world.'

A moment later, he found whatever it was that he was looking for, and we began to compose the message. Or rather the Doctor did, scribbling long lists of numbers on blank foolscap sheets. It was all I could do to keep them in order as he wrote.

I guessed straightaway that he'd been lying about not having the code word: but now I was becoming puzzled. Elgar's message, and his decision to send it, had clear implications.

'Elgar's setting a trap for them, isn't he?' I asked.

'Probably,' said the Doctor, without stopping his scribbling.

'Do we want to let him get away with that? Just to find out more?'

'I don't know. Maybe.'

'Don't you think we should check Elgar's credentials first?'

'White's doing that.'

I asked a few more questions on similar lines, but the Doctor only grunted in response. Eventually I told him I was going to see White.

He looked up, his eyes clear. 'Very well. You do that.'

I found the Intelligence man in his room, on the telephone, his voice raised and a little strained. He looked oddly pale, as if he had received a visceral shock, or even a personal bereavement.

'I see,' he said. 'Yes, of course I understand why '

Words from the other end of the line, then White said, 'Goodbye,' and hung up.

For a full minute, he didn't seem to see me.

Eventually he met my eye. 'Mankind has no future,' he said, in a dead voice. 'None whatsoever.'

Chapter Seven.

I waited for White to explain, but he didn't. I decided perhaps the information was cla.s.sified: a new type of weapon, perhaps. But it was difficult to envisage any single weapon with enough power to destroy the world. As a man with a good knowledge of science and mathematics, living only months before Hiros.h.i.+ma, I'd guess you might think it strange that I didn't think of the A bomb, but such possibilities were only theory at the time. No one in the general scientific world had any idea of how close the theory had come to practical fulfilment, and many thought it wasn't possible. But there were, as you might expect, many confused rumours of secret weapons the V 1 and V 2 had been falling on London and southeast England since September 1944, and there were many who thought a third such weapon, with far more devastating capacity, was due to begin operations any day.

With thoughts of this kind going through my head, and White's cadaverous expression before me, it's hardly surprising that I almost forgot about the message my reason for seeing White. When he asked me why I was there, I stuttered a little, then explained my doubts about 'going along with Elgar'.

He looked at me, his face so angry that for a moment I thought he might shout, or even try to hit me. I flinched. But all he said was, 'No, Elgar's right. These people have to be caught.' A pause, whilst he lit a cigarette. 'Not that it will do any good.'

It was no use. I had to know. 'Who are they?'

'I can't tell you.' But I could see that he wanted to do so. I played the Doctor's trick, and remained silent.

Suddenly he jumped up, grabbed his hat, and left the room, leaving his cigarette burning in the large bra.s.s ashtray on his desk. Seconds later he returned.

'h.e.l.lo. Mr Turing?'

I frowned at him.

He extended a hand. 'Graham Greene, novelist and journalist. And definitely not a b.l.o.o.d.y spy.' He picked up the cigarette from the ashtray and began smoking it.

'Ah,' I said. I remembered the book that the Doctor had been reading. I doubted it was a coincidence. Trust him to have worked it out. I was beginning to wonder how I'd been so stupid: though I personally didn't care for his books, Graham Greene was well known then, and I'd seen his photograph in the press. But then a photograph isn't the man.

'Would you care for a drink?' Greene asked. 'The bar's still open. I've always been interested in your work.'

'Ahm yes,' I said, wondering how much further into the slimy pit of intrigue I was about to fall.

Greene formerly 'White' got up and walked to the bar, almost too quickly for me to follow.

'How sober are you?' he asked, over our first drink. His gaze wandered around the bar, fixing on a pretty woman who was sitting on her own. He examined her fiercely, making it so obvious that she looked away, embarra.s.sed.

'I'm fairly sober,' I said.

'And careful, from what I gather. Until our persuasive friend came along.'

I nodded. 'There's no point in being otherwise.'

'Hmm. I think it's all an act. You're careful because you want to be a good little boy.'

'I do it because I have to,' I said, somewhat stuffily.

'That comes to the same thing. Good little boys do things because they have to. Men do things because they want to.'

I was getting quite angry with Greene by now. I had an impulse to reply, along the lines of, 'Spoilt, arrogant little boys do things because they want to, they don't give a d.a.m.n how anyone else feels. Grown men do things because they have to, right or wrong, out of a sense of duty (however misplaced) or justice or honour or love.' I had the words all ready. But I couldn't quite get them out of my mouth. Greene was the second person who had referred to my thought processes as immature since I'd come to Paris. Perhaps it was France, I decided: perhaps maturity was measured differently on this side of the Channel. I wondered whether Greene's ocular flirtation with the woman at the bar was considered to be maturity. I wouldn't treat a man in that way, even if I'd thought I could get away with it.

'The trouble is, you have no experience,' Greene was saying. 'You're confused and frightened and you want to go home.'