one but the agent, neither the director nor any of the other operatives in the ring. Sometimes the operative never
even met the liaison, but communicated by messages at pre-fixed drops or by radio signals. All the messages were coded and
recoded. Each operative had one code name in the field and another code name at the centre. No one knew more than it was absolutely
necessary for them to know, so no one could tell. So every operative was separate, in his own cell, and yet the whole thing
was also like a spider's web, and when something touched it, the vibrations ran all through but only the one operative might
be affected; and if that operative was captured or something, then that operation could be wrapped up and left, quite separate
from the rest.
'Don't they save them?' I asked.
'It's more important to save the system.'
He said that we should have our own code, so that when he went away to school nobody could read our letters.
'But you don't write me letters. You always write to Daddy, not to me.'
'But if I did, if I needed to, we'd have the code. We've got to have the code first.'
Such urgency in the way he talked, head down, eyes moving on before I could catch them.
'Can't I just write ordinary writing?'
'Of course you can, for ordinary things. The code's for emergencies.'
He said we would have some words for a key. I must remember these words, and then I would put the letters of the alphabet
beside them and switch them, in order, cutting out the ones that repeated, and switch the letters when I wrote. He didn't
like any of the phrases I suggested so he gave me his own, Winston Churchill. Where Churchill ended, the code continued, the
alphabet running on in the usual way. If people didn't know where we'd started from, they'd never work it out.
'You'll have to write it down each time, and destroy the paper after so no one can find it.'
He made me practise it and write him notes so that I had it straight before he went away, message after message encrypted,
folded and double-folded and slipped into a pocket or left beneath a cereal bowl. Can you read this? If you can, put an orange in the fridge. Watch Margaret till she goes then come and find me. It got easier as you began to remember the transpositions and didn't have to work them out each time.
Later he added a refinement.
'We need to have a security check, when you write. So I know the message really comes from you.'
'Who else would it come from?'
'What you do is you have some other secret sign embedded in the message.' (If I did not understand 'embedded' I wasn't going
to ask.) 'Preferably something nobody else would notice. It should be something very simple, and something that's very easy
to remember. Like putting the date the wrong way round, like Americans do, with the month before the day. Or put in the year
but put it wrong. Put 1692 instead of 1962. They'd think it was only a mistake, see?'
'In this book I read there's this man, Richard Hannay. He breaks a spy ring. He knows how to be a spy. You should read it
too. Anyway, he learnt from hunting in Africa, from watching the deer he was hunting, seeing how they freeze on the spot and
merge with their surroundings. Perfect camouflage. So even when you know they're out there, you can't see them. That's what
spies do. They merge, blend, try to be like everyone else. To be indistinguishable from their surroundings.'
'It's not like that here. It's not like your story. It's just ordinary here. Everybody's ordinary.'
'That's it, silly, that's just the point.'
He said that we should write everything down. If we wrote it all down a pattern might emerge.
'Write what?'
'Start with the evidence. All the things in the house that we know were hers.'
'That's hardly anything.'
There were the clothes that I'd tried on with Susan, the jewellery box - or not the box, that came from Dad's mother, but
the things in it, the good things that he'd given her and the cheap things
even met the liaison, but communicated by messages at pre-fixed drops or by radio signals. All the messages were coded and
recoded. Each operative had one code name in the field and another code name at the centre. No one knew more than it was absolutely
necessary for them to know, so no one could tell. So every operative was separate, in his own cell, and yet the whole thing
was also like a spider's web, and when something touched it, the vibrations ran all through but only the one operative might
be affected; and if that operative was captured or something, then that operation could be wrapped up and left, quite separate
from the rest.
'Don't they save them?' I asked.
'It's more important to save the system.'
He said that we should have our own code, so that when he went away to school nobody could read our letters.
'But you don't write me letters. You always write to Daddy, not to me.'
'But if I did, if I needed to, we'd have the code. We've got to have the code first.'
Such urgency in the way he talked, head down, eyes moving on before I could catch them.
'Can't I just write ordinary writing?'
'Of course you can, for ordinary things. The code's for emergencies.'
He said we would have some words for a key. I must remember these words, and then I would put the letters of the alphabet
beside them and switch them, in order, cutting out the ones that repeated, and switch the letters when I wrote. He didn't
like any of the phrases I suggested so he gave me his own, Winston Churchill. Where Churchill ended, the code continued, the
alphabet running on in the usual way. If people didn't know where we'd started from, they'd never work it out.
'You'll have to write it down each time, and destroy the paper after so no one can find it.'
He made me practise it and write him notes so that I had it straight before he went away, message after message encrypted,
folded and double-folded and slipped into a pocket or left beneath a cereal bowl. Can you read this? If you can, put an orange in the fridge. Watch Margaret till she goes then come and find me. It got easier as you began to remember the transpositions and didn't have to work them out each time.
Later he added a refinement.
'We need to have a security check, when you write. So I know the message really comes from you.'
'Who else would it come from?'
'What you do is you have some other secret sign embedded in the message.' (If I did not understand 'embedded' I wasn't going
to ask.) 'Preferably something nobody else would notice. It should be something very simple, and something that's very easy
to remember. Like putting the date the wrong way round, like Americans do, with the month before the day. Or put in the year
but put it wrong. Put 1692 instead of 1962. They'd think it was only a mistake, see?'
'In this book I read there's this man, Richard Hannay. He breaks a spy ring. He knows how to be a spy. You should read it
too. Anyway, he learnt from hunting in Africa, from watching the deer he was hunting, seeing how they freeze on the spot and
merge with their surroundings. Perfect camouflage. So even when you know they're out there, you can't see them. That's what
spies do. They merge, blend, try to be like everyone else. To be indistinguishable from their surroundings.'
'It's not like that here. It's not like your story. It's just ordinary here. Everybody's ordinary.'
'That's it, silly, that's just the point.'
He said that we should write everything down. If we wrote it all down a pattern might emerge.
'Write what?'
'Start with the evidence. All the things in the house that we know were hers.'
'That's hardly anything.'
There were the clothes that I'd tried on with Susan, the jewellery box - or not the box, that came from Dad's mother, but
the things in it, the good things that he'd given her and the cheap things
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