He reaches over and takes the paper and pencil. Half his brain studies the puzzle, the other half studies her -- how she takes a cigarette from her handbag and lights it, how she watches him, her head resting slightly to one side. Aster, tasso, lovage, landau ... It's the first and only time in their relationship he's ever fully in control, and by the time he's completed the thirty clues and given her back the paper they're pulling through the outskirts of a small town, crawling past narrow gardens and tall chimneys. Behind her head he sees the familiar lines of washing, the air raid shelters, the vegetable plots, the little red-brick houses coated black by the passing trains. The compartment darkens as they pass beneath the iron canopy of the station. "Bletchley," calls the guard. "Bletchley station!"
He says, "I'm afraid this is my stop."
"Yes." She looks thoughtfully at the finished crossword, then turns and smiles at him. "Yes. D'you know, I rather guessed it might be."
Sist sett
