I now think he knew that he was soon going to die but the message had somehow become scrambled or unintelligible to him. We are animals, after all, and I believe our old animal instincts lurk deep inside us. Animals seem to be able to read the signals – perhaps our big, super-intelligent brains can't bear to decipher them. I'm sure now my father's body was somehow subtly alerting him to the impending shutdown, the final systems malfunction, but he was confused. Two days after I had shouted at him about the lights he collapsed and died in the garden after lunch. He was deadheading roses – nothing strenuous – and died immediately, we were informed, a fact that consoled me, but I still hated to dwell on his few, bewildered, frightened weeks of timor mortis.
I unlocked my car and sat down behind the wheel, feeling blue, missing him badly all of a sudden, wondering what he would have made of my mother's, his wife's, astounding revelations. Of course, it would have all been different if he'd been alive – a pointless hypothesis, then – and so, to move my mind away from this depressing subject I tried to imagine Timothy Thoms without his hidalgo 's beard. 'Rodrigo' Thoms. I liked that better. Perhaps I would call him Rodrigo.
New Mexico . 1941
EVA DELECTORSKAYA STEPPED QUICKLY off the train at Albuquerque 's Santa Fe station. It was eight o'clock in the evening and she was arriving a day later than she had planned – but better to be sure and safe. She watched the passengers disembark – a dozen or so – and then waited until the train pulled out, heading for El Paso. There was no sign of the two crows she had lost in Denver. All the same, she walked a couple of blocks around the station, checking, and, being shadow-free, went into the first hotel she found – The Commercial – and paid six dollars in advance for a single room, three nights. Her room was small, could have been cleaner, had a fine view of an air shaft, but it would do. She left her suitcase there, walked back to the station and told a taxi driver to take her to the Hotel de Vargas, her original destination and where she was due to meet her first contact. The de Vargas proved to be ten minutes away in the business district but after the scare in Denver she needed a bolt-hole. One town: two hotels – standard Lyne training.
The de Vargas lived up to its pretentious name. It was over-decorated, had a hundred rooms and a cocktail lounge. She put a wedding ring on her finger before she checked in and explained to the receptionist that her luggage was lost in Chicago and the railway would be sending it on. No problem, Mrs Dalton, the receptionist said, we'll be sure to let you know the moment it arrives. Her room looked out over a small faux-Pueblo courtyard with a pattering fountain. She freshened up and went down to the cocktail lounge, dark and virtually empty, and ordered a Tom Collins from a plump waitress in a short orange dress. Eva wasn't happy, her brain was working too hard. She nibbled peanuts and drank her liquor and wondered what was the best thing to do.
She had left New York and travelled to Chicago, where she spent a night, deliberately not making her connecting train to Kansas City. She saw the trajectory of her journey across America as a thrown stone, heading westwards, slowly falling on New Mexico. The next day she travelled to Kansas City, missed another connection to Denver and waited three hours in the station for the next. She bought a newspaper and found some items on the war on page nine. The Germans were closing in on Moscow but winter was impeding their advance – as for what might be going on in England she could find nothing. On the next section of her journey, as the train was approaching Denver, she did a routine walk through the coaches. She spotted the crows in the observation platform. They were sitting together, a silly, slack mistake: if they'd been apart she might not have noticed them but she had seen those two charcoal-grey suits in Chicago as well as the two ties, one burnt-amber, one maroon. The maroon tie had a diamond-patterned weave to it that reminded her of a tie she had once given to Kolia as a Christmas present – he wore it with a pale blue shirt, she remembered. She had made him promise that it would be his 'favourite' tie and he had solemnly promised – the tie of ties, he had said, how can I ever thank you? trying to keep his face serious. That's how she had remembered the crows. There was a young man with an undershot lantern-jaw and an older man with greying hair and a moustache. She walked by them and sat down looking out at the prairies rolling by. In the window's reflection she saw them separate immediately: Lantern-Jaw went downstairs, Moustache pretended to read his newspaper.
From Denver she had planned to go straight on to Santa Fe and Albuquerque but clearly now she had shadows she had to lose them. Not for the first time she was grateful for what she had learned in Lyne: broken journeys always make it easier to spot the shadow. Nobody would ever travel as she had done – so coincidence was ruled out. It wouldn't be difficult to get rid of them, she thought – they were either inept or complacent, or both.
At Denver Station she bought a locker, left her suitcase in it, and then walked out into the city and went into the first multistorey department store she encountered. She looked around, browsing, moving up through the floors until she found what she wanted: an elevator close to a stairway on the third floor. She made her way slowly back to the first floor, buying a lipstick and compact on the way. At the elevator she dithered, letting others go by her as she scrutinised the store directory, then slipped in at the last minute. Moustache had been hovering but was too far away. 'Five, please,' she said to the operator but stepped out on three. She waited behind a rack of dresses by the doorway. Seconds later Moustache and Lantern-Jaw thundered up the stairs, quickly scanned the floor, and, not seeing her, and spotting that the lift was still going up, bolted out again. Eva was down the stairs and out on the street a minute later. She doubled back and jinked around but they were gone. She collected her suitcase and took a bus to Colorado Springs, four stops down the line to Santa Fe and spent a night there in a hotel opposite the station.
That evening she called in from a pay phone in the lobby. She let it ring three times, hung up, called again, hung up after the first ring and called once more. She suddenly wanted to hear Romer's voice.
'Transoceanic. How can I help you?' It was Morris Devereux. She checked her disappointment, angry with herself at being disappointed it wasn't Romer.
'You know the party I went to.'
'Yes.'
'There were two uninvited guests.'
'Unusual. Any idea who they were?'
'Local crows, I would say.'
'Even more unusual. Are you sure?'
'I'm sure. I've lost them anyway. Can I speak to the boss?'
'I'm afraid not. The boss has gone home.'
'Home?' This meant England. 'A bit sudden.'
'Yes.'
'I was wondering what I should do.'
'If you're happy, I would proceed as normal.'
'All right. Bye.'
She hung up. It was illogical but for some reason she felt more insecure knowing that Romer had been called away. Proceed as normal as long as you're happy. There was no reason not to, she supposed. Standard operating procedure. She wondered who the two men were – FBI? Romer had said the FBI were growing worried at the size and scale of the British presence. Perhaps this was the first sign of penetration… All the same, she changed trains twice more on the way to Albuquerque, making slow progress.