Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (47 page)

To support him, Roach took the job of dimmer man on the lighting. Thus at rehearsals Jim had to give him a special signal—to Bill and no one else. He was to raise his arm and drop it to his side when he wanted the footlights to fade.

With time, Jim seemed to respond to treatment, however. His eye grew clearer and he became alert again, as the shadow of his mother’s death withdrew. By the night of the play, he was more light-hearted than Roach had ever known him. “Hey, Jumbo, you silly toad, where’s your mac—can’t you see it’s raining?” he called out as, tired but triumphant, they trailed back to the main building after the performance. “His real name is Bill,” he heard him explain to a visiting parent. “We were new boys together.”

The gun, Bill Roach had finally convinced himself, was, after all, a dream.