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I want to take a step or three back. I have just reread the first chapter, and I can’t agree that Paul is a buffoon. He is of course unsure of what is going on, and that’s what he is meant to be. But he is sharp enough to read people well. When he meets Quinn, he compares him with the person in a painting in the room, thinking they share “the pout of privileged discontent”.
When he is meeting Elliot, he asks a question “...playing the innocent because that’swhat Elliot seems to like best”.
He will not be bulldozed into agreeing that Jeb and his men should go in: “Nothing I’ve seen or heard warrants going in at this stage”.
So on a reread, where I knew what comes later rather than being confused by all the smokescreens Crispin created for everyone, I read Paul as being absolutely the same person as Kit, trying to do the right thing, but operating very much in the dark.
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