‘Why’s that?’
‘Do you remember when we last ran into each other?’ Powderman continued: ‘It was outside Rockefeller Center. You were with Bill Stephenson.’
Guttman looked at him as if to say, and so? But he felt his pulse pick up.
Powderman swivelled on his chair, avoiding Guttman’s eyes. He seemed uneasy. ‘I mentioned to Percy that I’d run into you.’
Percy Foxworth. Former SAC in New York and now Guttman’s successor as the head of SIS. Guttman said, ‘Of course you did.’
Powderman glanced at him, checking the tone of this; Guttman did his best to look benign. Powderman said, ‘I thought I’d better say I’d seen you – it’s not every day you run across an Assistant Director outside the shop.’ He exhaled. ‘I didn’t expect Percy to think anything of it.’ He added ruefully, ‘I was wrong.’
‘What happened?’
‘Percy went bananas. He claimed you should have told him you were seeing the Brits. He said he was going to make a formal complaint to Tolson.’
‘Did he?’
Powderman nodded. ‘He kept me there – or here, actually,’ he said, gesturing to the room, ‘while he dictated the memorandum. I saw him sign it.’
It must have gone out then, thought Guttman. But why hadn’t Tolson ever said anything to him?
Powderman looked sheepish. ‘I’m sorry if I landed you in the shit.’
‘Don’t worry about it. You did the right thing.’
Powderman seemed relieved – enjoying the double reward of purging himself without being punished for the confession. Guttman changed the subject. ‘Tell me something. Have you sent anybody out to the Chicago Field Office in the last few months?’
Powderman stared at him curiously. ‘Nope. And I’d know – it would need my okay. Why?’
Before Guttman could answer, there was a brisk knock on the door and an older woman walked in, carrying a file in one hand. She reminded Guttman of Tatie, the head of the typing pool in Chicago. Women didn’t usually last long at the Bureau, but the ones that did – like Tatie, or Helen Gantry, Director Hoover’s assistant – were tough as nails, and knew it too.
‘What have we got, Bonnie?’ asked Powderman. He added, ‘This is Assistant Director Guttman from the Bureau.’
She gave Guttman a quick appraising stare, and he saw some of her assurance replaced by caution. Her boss was no longer the only man in the room she needed to please. ‘Not a lot there,’ she said, handing the file over to Powderman. ‘There’s nothing on a Kalvin or a Schneider.’
‘In the Bund files?’ asked Guttman.
‘Anywhere,’ she said firmly. ‘I checked all the internal subs records.’
‘Good girl,’ said Powderman, and Guttman saw Bonnie wince almost imperceptibly. She had to be in her fifties. She said, ‘Arthur Perkins didn’t come up either.’
‘Can’t say I’m surprised,’ said Powderman. ‘Not exactly a Nazi name.’ He opened the file she’d handed him and peered at the single piece of paper inside. ‘So what’s this?’
Bonnie explained, ‘Missus Arthur Perkins did make the files.’
‘She did?’ Guttman couldn’t help himself.
Bonnie said nothing while Powderman scanned the paper. ‘Well,’ he said at last, ‘I don’t think we should get too excited.’ Looking at the sheet, he went on, ‘Mrs Perkins is a Forbes from Boston – apparently that counts for something up there. She attended Miss Porter’s School for Girls and the Radcliffe College for young women, which she left prematurely, presumably to marry Mr Perkins, who was a graduate of Milton Academy and then of Harvard College.’ He sighed and shook his head. ‘This should be in the Social Register, not our files.
Hang on, here’s the kicker – in 1931 it seems Mrs P. hosted a lunch for Eleanor Roosevelt in 1931, at the Cosmopolitan Club here in New York.’
There was silence in the room. Eventually Guttman broke it. ‘And …?’
Powderman put the paper back in the file and chucked it on to the desk. ‘And nothing,’ he said crossly. ‘It doesn’t even tell us what they served for lunch.’ He shook his head. ‘Why that was worthy of a place in Records is beyond me.’
He and Guttman exchanged the knowing looks of Bureau veterans.
Guttman went out into Foley Square, where the rain was harder now and the line to give blood even shorter. He had forgotten that it was Powderman whom he and Stephenson had run into, well before Pearl Harbor, and was taken aback by Powderman’s confession that he had told on Guttman. He couldn’t understand why Tolson hadn’t called him in and chewed him out. Everyone from agents to assistant directors was required to inform the local SACs if they ventured into their territories. Not doing so wasn’t a major offence, incurring a reprimand but not much else, so maybe Tolson had decided to let it pass.
No. Tolson would never let go of an opportunity to give Guttman a hard time – he did that even when Guttman had done nothing wrong. Given a real reason, Tolson would have been down on the fourth floor in D.C. like a shot. In the whole kerfuffle about Guttman’s actions pre-Pearl Harbor, Tolson had tried to throw the book at him – so why leave this page out?
But right now Guttman needed to concentrate on the more immediate problem at hand. From the Bureau files, and from his conversations with the New York police and Perkins’s successor at Columbia, he was sure that Arthur Perkins was clean as a whistle. Yet if he were so innocent, why had he been killed? He hadn’t been involved in high-security research. As far as Guttman could tell, Perkins’s involvement with the scientists working in the Columbia lab he oversaw was confined to setting their salaries.
Guttman pondered this as he walked towards the Bowery again, trying to decide whether to go back to D.C. There was a train he could catch from Penn Station in forty-five minutes; if he got it, he’d be home for a full night’s sleep before going to work in the morning.
His thoughts returned to Perkins. Could his murder then have been a terrible mistake? Had someone thought the Chairman of the Columbia University Physics Department was involved in the creation of a super-weapon? Maybe. And maybe they had mistaken him for Fermi, or Szilard, or any of the physicists now working so frantically on the South Side of Chicago.
But that didn’t make sense. If enemies knew enough about the project to kill somebody in order to impede it, then surely they knew enough to pick the right individual. Unless …
Guttman stopped in the middle of the Bowery sidewalk, absent-mindedly fingering the change in his pocket, oblivious to the other pedestrians who were forced to move round this short, stocky man, standing like a squat deer caught in somebody’s headlights.
Maybe they had killed Perkins because they wanted him out of the way. Guttman stood still and grappled with this unformed idea, inchoate as a jellyfish, until a further thought came out of nowhere. They hadn’t killed Perkins because he was X or did Y, but because somebody else was Z.
15
HE WAS ASKING to see the widow without warning, so he wasn’t surprised to be told to wait outside in the hall while the Negro maid consulted her employer. He’d given his card and hoped that would do the trick, since not many people would turn away an Assistant Director of the FBI, especially in wartime. Yet it seemed the widow of the late Arthur Perkins was in no hurry to have him admitted.
At last, the door opened again. The maid looked at him impassively. ‘Mizz Perkins will see you now.’
He followed her into a short hallway with parquet floors, a mahogany coat stand and framed prints of English landscapes on the wall. The hall opened up into the living room. It had a dramatic view of the Hudson, though the foggy mist that had come in after the midday rain obscured the Jersey side. A chintz-covered sofa was positioned with its back to the window, and an armchair sat at an angle to it. A decorative fireplace hollowed out of the room’s central internal wall was full of dried flowers, which gave out a faint whiff of cinnamon-like scent. On the mantelpiece an array of invitations stood, arranged like so many calling cards in a Jane
Austen novel. The far end of the room led into a small dining room, and it was from here that a tall woman came towards him.
‘Nancy Perkins,’ she declared, coming across a large Persian rug to shake his hand. She didn’t smile. ‘And you are Mr Gootman from the FBI,’ she said.
‘Guttman,’ he said, but she didn’t seem to hear, for she was busy ushering him to a seat on the sofa while she sat down, straight-backed and legs uncrossed, in the armchair. She wore a simple, pale blue dress that Guttman’s mother would have said was ‘nothing fancy’, but he could see it was beautifully made – as if its maker had understood that falls from fashion never last, and that quality survives until the wheel of taste comes round again.
‘Thank you for seeing me, Mrs Perkins. I apologise for not phoning ahead.’
She didn’t look impressed by this. ‘What did you want, Mr Gootman?’
He didn’t bother correcting her again. She was a Boston Yankee, after all. Not many Germans up there, and not many Jews with German names. ‘It’s about your husband, Mrs Perkins, and events just before he died.’
‘My husband’s accident was over a year ago, Mr Gootman. Why are you asking me about it now?’ She sounded more curious than cross.
‘I’m not, Mrs Perkins. I’m here about a project started on your husband’s watch. I won’t be very long – most of it is pro forma stuff.’
‘You should know that I’m not a scientist,’ she said with an intonation – dry, cynical and clipped – which Guttman had last heard on a visit to Yale.
‘I realise that. Still, I wanted to ask if anything unusual happened in your husband’s professional life in the months before the accident.’
‘And if it had?’ There was a daunting quality to the blue eyes.
‘There was work of national importance going on in your husband’s labs. There still is. I’m trying to establish how much he was involved with the work going on around him, or whether he stood back, as it were.’
‘As it were,’ she muttered, and when she looked at Guttman it was with a superior knowingness. She said, ‘My husband was the Chairman of the Department. It didn’t leave him a lot of time for participating in research. It was something he felt most keenly. That’s why he was so excited.’
‘What about, ma’am?’
‘He had decided to do science again. He planned to give up the chairmanship and join the team of Professor Fermi.’
She pronounced it Fir-me, and Guttman needed to be sure. ‘Enrico Fermi? The Italian physicist?’
‘That’s the one. Very gifted, apparently, if a little intense for my taste.’
It was what people often said about the Jews – ‘a nice enough fellow, if a little intense’. Guttman tried not to bristle.
Mrs Perkins was saying, ‘My husband was like a little boy at Christmas, even after I told him he might find it difficult to take orders from someone who had been his junior. He said to think of it as an officer with a desk job, who re-enlists as a private in order to join the fighting. It was rather touching when I look back at it, but at the time I’m afraid I wasn’t very sympathetic.’
‘Oh?’
She shrugged and gave a sigh. ‘Arthur said we might have to move because of the new job. It was not a prospect that cheered me. After New York, the delights of Chicago were not apparent to me. Boston would have been acceptable, even if they say you can’t go home again.’
‘You said your husband was going to give up his chairmanship of the department. Was he concerned about who would take his place?’
She shook her head. ‘He said a simpleton could do the job. The only hard part was managing the physicists. Some of them could be impossible, especially the Hungarians.’
‘Szilard?’
‘Particularly Szilard.’ She was emphatic. ‘He should have been named “Lizard”; it’s almost a perfect anagram as it is. There’s something slippery about that man – he’s been in so many countries by now you feel his only nationality is himself. Oh, I know he’s meant to be brilliant, but he could have shown a bit of gratitude. It was Arthur, after all, who got him his position.’
‘Was Fermi like that too?’
‘Not at all. He did show gratitude, even though he has more reason to have a swelled head – he’s won the Nobel Prize and Szilard hasn’t.’ She sat back decisively in her chair. ‘But no, none of the administrative issues worried Arthur. I’d never seen him so determined. What bothered him was something else.’
Guttman wanted to ask what this was, but decided there was no point pushing; this was a lady who said what she wanted to say, no more and no less. After a pause, Mrs Perkins continued. ‘What troubled him was the scientist whose place he would be taking. Unfortunately, Arthur had told the young man he could join the Fermi team. Then Arthur had to tell him he couldn’t.’
‘Tricky,’ said Guttman mildly.
‘If anyone could smooth things over it would have been my husband,’ she said with a touch of pride. ‘But not this time. Arthur said the young man had taken great exception to being left out, especially when Arthur – unwisely in my view – explained he was joining the team instead. Arthur said the man was not only upset, he was positively insulting.’
‘Oh, dear,’ said Guttman, hoping this was the right thing to say. It was not a phrase he was accustomed to using.
Mrs Perkins nodded vaguely, and Guttman pressed on. ‘Do you know the name of the scientist your husband was going to replace?’
She shook her head, but didn’t seem interested.
‘Was he foreign?’ Guttman prompted.
‘I wouldn’t be surprised.’ She smiled, as if both admiring his tenacity and recognising its futility. ‘So many of them are.’
‘Would anyone at the department know?’
‘I shouldn’t think so. Fermi was away when my husband made his mind up – he was going to tell him on the day he … on the day of the accident. He wanted Fermi to be the first to know. And of course, technically Fermi had to approve the move. Though I don’t think there could have been any question – my husband had a very distinguished record in research, even if it was some time ago. No, what bothered Arthur was this other man’s unpleasantness.’
‘But you can’t remember his name?’
‘I can’t, I’m afraid.’ She seemed untroubled by this.
He had reached a dead end, doubly dismaying since his expectations had briefly risen so sharply.
‘You’re looking very disappointed, Mr Gootman.’
‘Guttman,’ he said dully.
‘Of course. I’ve never been very good with names.’
He couldn’t bring himself to reply. He decided to make his excuses and head for the train. Then Mrs Perkins said, ‘I’d tell you to phone the university and ask Miss Debenne but I’m not sure she’d be willing to help.’
‘Who’s Miss Debenne?’
‘She was Arthur’s secretary. Forgive me for my bluntness, but she isn’t awfully fond of Germans. Her family’s suffered terribly since France fell.’
‘But I’m not German,’ Guttman protested. ‘I’m a Jew.’ He sensed he sounded ridiculous.
‘Oh,’ she said, undisturbed. ‘That wouldn’t help, I’m afraid. Miss Debenne isn’t keen on the Jews either – you know the French. I suppose I could call her. You see, she kept Arthur’s appointments diary –’ Suddenly she stopped. ‘I’ve just remembered. She sent all the diaries to me when spring semester ended. I didn’t pay much attention.’
‘You have your husband’s diaries?’ asked Guttman, surprised.
‘Yes,’ she said, looking as if she didn’t know why Guttman was getting so worked up. ‘They’re not diaries as we know them, Mr Guttman. Just appointments and names.’
In the silence that followed you could have heard a pin drop. Gradually, like an awakening flower, Mrs Perkins understood the import of what she’d said. To her credit she seemed embarrassed. ‘My goodness, I’ve been a complete booby, haven’t I? Names are exactly what you want.’
�
�One name will do,’ said Guttman.
Five minutes later, Mrs Perkins had deciphered Arthur Perkins’s inscrutable handwriting in the relevant page of the moleskin book he’d used as a diary – the entries had stopped five days later when he’d had his all-too-final appointment. Guttman memorised the entry for January 18, 1942 like a catechism. Ian Grant (Princeton) – 3.30 Fac Club.
16
WHEN HE GOT back to Arlington it was almost midnight. It must have rained here as well, for the streets were shiny in the harsh beam of his headlights, and on the bridge over the Potomac his tyres hissed, rolling through the surface water.
He parked in the little driveway outside the garage, too tired to face the palaver of opening and shutting its door. When Isabel had been alive, this home had been a kind of paradise to them both, two city kids who’d dreamed of one day having a backyard. Now on his own, it seemed increasingly a burden.
As he walked up to the front door he noticed a light showing in the living room; Annie would have left it on since she’d been in today. He put his briefcase down and fumbled for his keys, then finally worked the right one into the lock.
He knew at once that something was wrong. The key turned too easily, as if the locking mechanism had been removed. He’d already moved forward, anticipating the slow swing open, but the door gave way as if snapped from a rubber band. He stumbled into his front hall, then the door hit something and Guttman nearly fell down. From the dim light cast by the living-room lamp he could just make out one of the kitchen chairs, upended by the opening door; it had been placed two feet back from the entrance, a makeshift burglar alarm.
A woman’s voice came from the living room. ‘Who’s there?’ it called out.
He recognised the voice. ‘Annie? It’s me.’ What was she doing here?
He picked up the chair and set it down on its legs, then walked into the living room. Annie was standing by the sofa, dressed but slightly dishevelled, and he saw from the wool throw and the contours of the sofa cushions that she had been lying down. ‘What’s going on?’ he asked, puzzled now more than alarmed.
The Accidental Agent Page 18