The Lure

3 Celtic Tiger

A casual observer would not have distinguished him, as a type, from the students scurrying in the rain towards the Georgian façade of Dublin’s Trinity College. He was thin, and wearing a worn black leather jacket and red and blue scarf. He carried a small blue rucksack, quite sodden. He was in his late twenties which would put him, most probably, in the category of a post-doc, or even a junior grade lecturer. He had short, untidy black hair, a two-day-old stubble and dark, intelligent eyes behind wet, round-framed spectacles which made him look slightly like an unshaven owl. The eyes were bloodshot and his skin was slightly pallid, as if he hadn’t slept.

He passed under the sheltered archway of Front Gate and crossed Parliament Square, its cobbles shiny and slippery. Here the wind was erratic and buffeting, and he hurried under the bell-tower, past the Old Library, the museum and the mathematics department. He turned into a building with a ‘Chaos Institute’ sign and climbed steps, trailing water and puffing from his run.

Priscilla the Hun was typing at high speed, overcoat still on and door ajar. Her nose was red and she had a box of paper handkerchiefs to hand.

‘Good morning, Priscilla. Did you have a good weekend?’

She gave him a frosty stare and the typing stuttered to a halt. ‘Professor Kavanagh wants to see you right away,’ she said with a malicious smirk.

Trouble. He went into the small office marked Dr Tom Petrie, switched on his computer, draped his sodden jacket over a radiator and wiped his spectacles dry.

• A conference announcement: New Ideas in Quantum Cryptography, to be held in Palermo in the summer. Save.

• A message from the Hun: three work-placement students arrive next week. You have been assigned to supervise them. Delete.

• A paper from a Sheffield colleague: A Symplectic Approach to Chaos. Print.

• Another message from the Hun, this one heavy with menace: you are three weeks overdue with your coffee money. Delete.

• Buy your Viagra here! Discounts for bulk orders. Delete.

• A lengthy message from a Brazilian he’d never heard of: I have proved the Goldbach conjecture. A crackpot. Delete.

The morning’s e-mail done, he pulled a heap of papers out of his rucksack and spread them over his desk. Rain had seeped through the damp canvas and some of the sheets were almost illegible.

This isn’t a good day, he told himself.

Having delayed as long as he dared, he left the office, walked reluctantly along the corridor and knocked nervously at a door.

‘Come.’

The office was large, dark and smelled of stale cigarettes. The man behind the desk was near-bald, brown-suited with a trim moustache. The air of disapproval was a permanent feature; Petrie thought it might come with the moustache. A golf bag propped up against a bookcase reminded Petrie that this was Monday.

‘Have you finished the PRTLI bid yet?’

Petrie’s stomach flumped. ‘I had intended to get it done this weekend.’

Actually, the intention only formed as he spoke; the assignment had gone completely out of his mind. Three nights ago, he had wakened up in the early hours of the morning with the solution — or just possibly the solution — to a long-standing paradox in quantum theory dancing in his head. Even the title of the paper had floated in front of him: Quantum Entanglement and the Measure of Time. As the dream-image began to fade he had jumped out of bed to write it down before it vanished for ever. In the gun-metal light of the winter morning, on a kitchen table cluttered with last night’s takeaway and boxes of cereal, he had read through his pencilled scrawl and it still looked good. The outcome was feverish work, day and night, to write up a paper before the competition got there.

Kavanagh was talking; Petrie was hauled back to the present. ‘… expecting to see it on my desk by this afternoon.’

‘It’s not needed for a week.’

‘Thank you for reminding me, although I was aware of the fact. Shall we say four o’clock?’ The bald head went down to a paper.

‘What’s the time?’

Kavanagh glanced at his watch automatically and then looked up, lips puckered. He adopted a curt voice to demonstrate his irritation. ‘The time, Petrie? It’s perhaps time you took your responsibilities to the Department seriously. Unless the PRTLI exercise delivers a top grade, our funding could suffer a serious cut.’

The Professor’s telephone rang.

‘I’ve written four papers in the last year, any one of which could bump us up to the top.’ And you haven’t written one in twenty years, you old hypocrite.

Kavanagh lifted the telephone. His eyes strayed to the young man, lines of disapproval giving way to a surprised frown. He handed the receiver over.

Priscilla. Her voice muffled, a mixture of heavy cold and awe. ‘Dr Petrie, the Provost wishes to speak to you. Hold the line.’

Kavanagh tried to be subtle, leaning forward to catch both ends of the conversation, but Petrie — by accident or design the Professor knew not — leaned back in his chair, putting the Provost’s words just out of hearing.

‘Sir John? Petrie here … Yes, sir … No, nothing that can’t wait. I have no lecturing commitments … Yes, I have, Provost, it’s my field … The Royal Society … I’ll come straight over.’ He handed the receiver back, paused briefly. ‘I have to see the Provost.’

Kavanagh put the receiver down, pursing his lips once more. ‘Well, well, the Provost. You do move in exalted circles, Petrie.’

It was a sweet moment. Petrie stood up. ‘I’d better get going.’

‘Yes, I suppose you’d better. We can’t keep Sir John waiting. Are you able to tell me what this is about?’

‘Afraid not, Professor.’ Petrie closed the door harder than was necessary.

Petrie had rarely been in the Admin. building and never in the vicinity of the Provost’s office. He trotted briskly across the quadrangle, entered the vast marble atrium and ran up broad stairs into a maze of corridors. A thin, elderly man was emerging from a toilet.

‘Where’s the Provost’s office?’

‘Straight ahead and first left.’

At the door marked Office of the Provost Petrie paused, brushed his wet hair back and then gave a tentative knock. He found himself in an outer office facing a surprisingly young woman with short wavy hair and a cheerful smile. She tapped on an inner door and waved Petrie into a room about twice the size of his Dublin flat.

The Provost looked somehow smaller and less imposing than when Tom had last seen him, swathed in academic gown and hoods, at a degree-awarding ceremony. At the side of the Provost’s desk, on a high-backed chair, sat a man Petrie had never seen before. He was thin, urbane, fortyish and had Civil Service, UK style, written all over him, from the Balliol College tie, with its discreet lion rampant crest, to the well-cut grey suit. A careful man rather than a brilliant one, Petrie judged; someone whose career comprised a predictable, steady progression up the promotion ladder.

The Provost motioned Petrie to an easy chair and looked at him curiously over metal-rimmed spectacles. ‘Dr Petrie, thank you for popping over. I dare say you’re wondering what this is all about.’

‘The PRTLI?’

‘What?’ The Provost looked surprised. ‘No, no, this isn’t a university matter at all.’

Petrie waited, mystified and nervous. The Provost’s companion, he noted, was going unintroduced. Behind the man’s brief smile, Petrie felt that he was being, somehow, assessed.

The man said, ‘I can’t tell you what this is about, Dr Petrie, because I don’t know myself.’

‘Right.’ So do we just sit here?

‘I’m just a message boy, you see.’

Petrie nodded. A message boy with a white silk shirt and Gucci cufflinks. The man continued: ‘It’s a request, really. Can you spare a few days to give some advice to Her Majesty’s Government?’

‘What about?’

‘I don’t know.’

In spite of the intimidating surroundings, Petrie laughed. ‘Okay. Where do we go from here?’

The Balliol man said, ‘It involves some foreign travel. To Vienna, I do know that.’

Vienna!

The Provost was leaning back in his chair, looking at Petrie thoughtfully. ‘Is there a problem, Dr Petrie?’

‘No, sir, I’m just thinking. My field is a bit off the beaten track.’

The Provost opened a buff folder in front of him. ‘Yes, it does seem rather abstruse.’ He peered at a sheet of paper. ‘What does it say here? Non-periodic tiling algorithms and unbreakable codes.’ The tone wasn’t altogether approving and Petrie wondered what Kavanagh had written in the annual confidential report.

Petrie looked across at the Provost’s mysterious companion. ‘Does Her Majesty’s Government want some decryption done? And if so, why don’t they just get GCHQ on the job?’

The question caught the Balliol College man by surprise. ‘It does seem odd.’

Sir John was strumming his fingers on Petrie’s file. ‘The request is that you be released from your university duties for the next two weeks. I have agreed to this.’

‘But Professor Kavanagh needs the research assessment report by this afternoon.’

The Provost frowned. ‘What? You’re writing it?’

‘Yes.’

The Provost scribbled on a memo. ‘I’ll drop Professor Kavanagh a note. He should perhaps be doing that himself.’

‘In that case, I guess I’m out of excuses.’

Mr Balliol handed over a sealed envelope. ‘Present yourself at the BA desk in two hours’ time and give them this reference number. Have your passport and travel things with you. Give your name as Mr Craig. Treat the matter in the strictest confidence. My telephone numbers, office and home, are therein but they mustn’t get into any other hands but yours.’

Petrie tore the envelope open, glanced at the numbers and returned the paper. ‘Why should I want to contact you?’

The man raised his hands and adopted a mystified look.

Nervously: ‘Are you asking me to get involved in espionage?’

‘Espionage? Oh my goodness no, how absurd!’ The civil servant quickly improvised a smile to emphasise this absurdity. ‘You’ll probably be back by the weekend, at which time I’ll contact you. However, you should keep yourself to yourself. If anyone speaks to you en route, be noncommittal. Beware of inappropriate behaviour abroad. Always act as if there is a hidden camera. Be especially wary of any, aah…’ — he squirmed slightly in the chair — ‘approaches from strange women.’

Petrie’s eyes widened.

The Provost cleared his throat. ‘Of course this is only a request, Petrie. You’re free to turn it down.’

‘I can’t wait.’ Petrie stood up. He turned at the door, hand on the handle and a worried expression on his face. ‘Forgive me, but this is pretty bizarre. Sir John, could this be some sort of elaborate hoax?’

A pink blush began to spread over the Balliol man’s face. The Provost seemed amused. ‘My colleague here is the genuine article. I was telephoned about him from London this morning.’

‘But was the call genuine?’

‘Oh, I should think so, Petrie. I know the caller well. The Prime Minister and I go back a long way.’

Petrie returned dizzily to his office.

Priscilla was sniffling in the corridor.

She looked at the young man with wonder. Dr Petrie was unimportant, lower even than her in the departmental food chain. In her own hearing he had heard the Professor call his research arcane and esoteric. She wasn’t sure what these things meant but the tone had been disparaging. And yet here he was, the humblest creature in the hierarchy, summoned by God, or at least His earthly equivalent, the Provost. She could contain herself no longer. She blew her nose with a used tissue and asked, ‘Dr Petrie, what on earth is going on here?’

Kavanagh walked into the office, trying to make it look like a casual encounter. ‘Ah, Petrie. How did it go with the Provost?’

Petrie helped himself to a biscuit from a red tin on the filing cabinet. ‘Very well, thank you, Professor.’

There was a pause. ‘And?’

‘I’m taking a couple of weeks off.’

Kavanagh stiffened. ‘I don’t think so, young man. You seem to be forgetting the PRTLI bid.’

‘I’m sorry, Prof, but you have to write it yourself. Sir John’s instructions.’

From the back of the taxi, Petrie looked out at the bars, the cafés and the bookshops lining the congested streets, but he saw none of them. His mind was elsewhere, grappling with questions.

And his stomach was churning.