The Apothecary Page 0,46

there was a small room with an elevator, but instead of a button to call it, there was a place to insert a key.

“Can you pick that?” Benjamin asked.

“I dunno,” Pip said. “It’s a switch for the lift.”

As he said it, we heard the elevator cables running, and we stepped back. I held my visible pinky behind my back, not sure if that would do any good. Then I pressed it against the wall, so at least it wasn’t floating. The doors opened, and Mr Danby came out with a young man who looked puzzled.

“Stand outside and watch for birds?” the young man asked.

“Three small ones, all together,” Danby said. “One is a red-chested American robin. Captain Harrison thinks he saw a cat attacking them. I don’t understand why he didn’t report it right away.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but—I don’t think I would have reported a thing like that either.”

“That’s why you’re only a lieutenant,” Danby snapped.

I felt Pip’s hand grab mine, and he pulled me around the two men, towards the open elevator door. The three of us tiptoed silently in.

“So, if I see three birds, I call you?” the young man said.

“Try to capture them first,” Danby said.

The lieutenant, who wasn’t in uniform—I guessed because of the bunker’s “secrecy”—went unhappily outside. It was clear that he thought Danby had lost his mind.

Danby turned a key in the switch and got back into the elevator with us, glancing at the upper corners. He was looking for birds, I supposed. The doors closed and we started to sink down under the ground.

Below ground, the elevator opened onto a small room, in which a row of orange hard hats hung over brown canvas overalls on hooks. Heavy boots were tucked neatly under a bench along the wall. Danby went out of the room into a hallway and turned right. We followed him, padding barefoot past framed pictures of Queen Elizabeth, Princess Margaret, and Winston Churchill.

Then, abruptly, Danby stopped and turned around, as if he’d sensed someone behind him. I tucked my visible pinky behind a picture frame and held my breath. He scanned the hallway.

Another man leaned out of a doorway and called, “Danby! If you please.”

“Yes, General,” Danby said, giving the hallway one last searching look.

We followed him into the general’s office, where he sat down. The general had grey hair and an air of authority, but like the others, he wore no military uniform. There was a map of the world on the wall, with thumbtacks stuck in it. There were a few blue tacks in what seemed to be New Mexico, and a few red ones in Russia. There was a blue one stuck in an island in the Pacific, and a white one off the coast of Australia.

“Any luck with the prisoner?” the general asked.

“Not yet, sir,” Danby said. “The muteness should wear off soon.”

“Did you try getting written answers?”

“With no success, sir.”

“I heard you questioning Captain Harrison about birds.”

Danby flushed crimson. “Yes, sir.”

“Something to do with your investigation of the apothecary and his doings?”

“Yes, sir.”

“I’m sure you have your reasons, Danby, but the men are starting to talk.”

“But they—” Danby began, and then he seemed to think better of it. “Of course, sir.”

“Just so you know. You’re one of our best men, and I don’t want you compromised.”

“Thank you, sir.”

“And your East German contact? What does he report?”

“That the apothecary isn’t working for the Soviets, sir. Also that Leonid Shiskin, an accountant at the Soviet embassy, has been serving as a messenger, but seems to be working on his own, out of personal conviction. He isn’t running the network.”

“I see.”

“We know that the Soviets are looking for the apothecary. They expect the conspirators to gather soon, and they believe Leonid Shiskin might lead them to the group. But as it stands, I don’t think the group can proceed without the apothecary.”

“No?”

“No, sir. He’s their—their Oppenheimer, if you will.”

I was pretty sure Oppenheimer was the physicist who’d made the atomic bomb. I tried to look at Benjamin to see what he made of the comparison, and realised that the strangest thing about being invisible wasn’t being naked in a military bunker. It was that we couldn’t make eye contact. There was no way of sharing all the information I had grown used to sharing with him in a glance. I didn’t know where Benjamin’s eyes were, and he couldn’t see mine.

The general raised an eyebrow. “I see.” He looked at his watch. “D’you suppose the silent treatment might