Sam Bourne - Pantheon

He was not sure of the etiquette of such a place. Would the Assistant Dean have made a reservation? It was no good if he had: he had never caught the man’s name. James decided to take up a position under the green awning just outside, and wait.

He hoped that if he looked out of place now it would be as a Yale man in the wrong part of town rather than as an Englishman abroad. At the J Press store on York Street he had invested in a jacket like those he had seen worn by college men his age, as well as a couple of shirts. The article in the local paper had made him realize that clothes that might strike an Englishman as perfectly ordinary could look strange and exotic to an American. And he did not want to stand out.

He wondered yet again why the Assistant Dean, an official whom he had never met, had offered to help him. How did he even know what help James needed? Was the rough manhandling and forced ejection from the building all a show and, if so, for whose benefit? What help was the man able to give him and why did it have to be secret?

James had no good answers to any of these questions and over the last six hours he had damped down his expectations, suspecting the Assistant Dean would probably not even turn up. But now, at twenty-five past seven, he glimpsed the outline of the man who had earlier whispered so urgently and promisingly into his ear, and he could not help but feel excited. Did this man know where Florence and Harry were and was he about to pass on that information?

On the pavement by the open door, the Assistant Dean gave him no more than a nod of greeting, beckoning him to follow him inside. He asked the waitress for a booth and was taken straight away to an arrangement of dark green benches with high wooden backs, with a tall post marking one booth from the other. Clearly familiar with this layout, the Assistant Dean instantly removed his jacket and hung it on the coat hook at the top of the post. There were two wide rings visible under the arms of his white shirt, sweat patches which, James concluded, suggested nerves rather than merely the sticky heat of a summer night in Connecticut.

‘George Lund,’ the man said, offering a brief, cramped handshake across the table. ‘Best if we look like we know each other.’ He gave James a wide and painfully artificial smile. If it was intended to convey long friendship with and affection for James, it would have instantly failed: the man simply looked strange.

‘Well, it’s good of you to see me,’ James began. ‘My situation is-’

‘We should order. There’s no one on that table over my left shoulder is there? No one who can hear what you’re saying or see us talking?’

James frowned. ‘Just a family; the adults have their backs to us and the children aren’t interested.’

At Lund’s insistence, they ordered right away, James opting for what was called a pizza margherita, which his host said was the best introduction to the dish for a novice. Lund made a point of doing the ordering. ‘Best if no one hears your accent,’ he explained once the waitress had gone.

Quietly, James attempted to restart the conversation and keep it light, calm the chap down a bit. ‘So how long have you been at Yale?’

‘Ten years. Straight out of college and into the faculty. The medical school.’

‘So you’re a doctor.’

‘Qualified but not practising. Preston recruited me straight after my final exams, to help him run the department.’

‘Preston?’

Lund looked puzzled. He was about to say something when the food arrived. Two plates the size of wagon wheels, steam rising from vast patches of melted cheese and deep gory smears of red that revealed themselves to be cooked tomatoes. James thought back to The Racket in Oxford, where this very evening there might be a few couples hiding behind the blackout curtains, sharing a small plate of tinned baked beans on a single slice of toast. What a contrast. Everything about this country screamed plenty; a single one of these pizzas would probably account for a month’s rations.

‘Preston McAndrew,’ Lund continued when they were alone again. ‘The man you came to see today.’

‘Oh, the Dean.’

‘Yes, though he wasn’t Dean then. Only head of the Medical School.’

‘And he’s your boss.’

Lund nodded, his eyes darting to a far corner of the room. ‘Listen, I should have said this before. You won’t tell anyone about this meeting, right?’

‘Not if you don’t want me to.’

‘I mean it. This entire conversation, even the fact that I’m here, is confidential. Are we agreed?’

‘We’re agreed.’ James noticed that Lund was methodically cutting up his pizza into even-sized slices but had not yet eaten any of them. James was not sure if he was allowed to begin eating or should wait. Was this an American custom?

‘I’ve taken a risk doing this,’ Lund said, still not eating.

‘What kind of risk?’

‘Never mind that. Now, why did you come into the Dean’s office today?’

‘I thought you knew. Isn’t that why you said you could help-’

Lund glared. ‘Don’t repeat that here.’

‘But I thought you heard what was going on outside your door. With me and the secretary. I thought you knew.’

‘I heard the secretaries discussing your earlier visit, when Miss Kelly had you thrown out. I wasn’t there, but they were talking about it. And then I heard you when you came back.’

‘So you decided to throw me out?’ James bit into the pizza, scalding his tongue on the hot cheese. It burned, but it was also delicious, like a thinner, tastier version of Welsh rarebit.

‘I did that for your own sake,’ Lund said, picking up the first of his carefully segmented slices of pizza with his hands and letting it hover before his mouth.

‘My sake? There had to be an easier way to do that than chucking me onto the street like a bag of rubbish.’

‘I’m sorry about that. But I didn’t want to arouse any suspicion. Now to my question: what are you looking for in Yale?’

‘I’m looking for my wife and son. They’re here in the Oxford evacuation party. Here in Yale, I mean.’

‘Do you have proof of that?’

‘Proof?’

‘Any evidence that makes you sure they’re here.’

James leaned his back against the hard wooden panel, attempting to assess the man opposite him. Did he need to be careful? Was the promise of help some kind of trap? Who was this man? He decided to limit how much he revealed. ‘I saw the ship’s manifest to Canada, with their names on it. And a colleague in Oxford assures me they are part of the evacuation group.’

‘Canada? Are you sure they made the journey to New Haven? Could they have stayed there?’

James was seized by a sudden squeeze of panic. He had never considered that possibility. He had taken Bernard Grey’s word at face value, even though, he now thought, he had known that the Greys and the rest of their Oxford co- conspirators were capable of lying to him and had done so several times. If Virginia Grey had felt no compunction in pretending to be shocked by Florence’s disappearance that morning, why would her husband hesitate before serving up some cock-and-bull story? To think he had been in Canada and had done nothing to look for her there. He was suddenly furious with himself. The anger that rose in him spilled out towards this man. ‘Are you telling me that my wife is not in Yale after all? Because if that is the case, I would like to know right away so I can make arrangements to leave.’

‘Please,’ the Assistant Dean said in an urgent whisper, his eyes imploring. ‘You must speak quietly. No, that is not what I am saying. I just need to know what you know.’

‘And I need to know what you know,’ said James, pushing aside his plate. ‘It’s a simple enough question. Florence and Harry Zennor, possibly travelling under the name of Walsingham: are they here or aren’t they?’