The Blood-Dimmed Tide

by Rennie Airth

  There was a pause as Vane flipped through the pages. Sinclair continued to observe him, narrow-eyed. He still couldn’t read the man. But he felt increasingly that he was playing a game, performing some kind of charade.

  ‘September the eighth was a Sunday. I spent that weekend with friends in Hampshire, this side of Winchester. I can give you their names if you like. Surrey, you said ... where the other murder was committed ... not that far away, then. And I left before lunch on the Sunday to drive back to London.’ Vane shut the diary and sat down. ‘Hardly an alibi, is it?’

  He might have seemed unconcerned - he’d continued to speak in a flat voice throughout - were it not for his finger which began to tap on the desktop in front of him. To the chief inspector it signalled anxiety. Yet he had the curious impression that he and Bennett had become irrelevant to whatever was going on in Vane’s mind. Indeed, from the way his eyes strayed to the window just then he appeared to have forgotten their presence. The light in the courtyard outside was fading.

  ‘The murder you were telling me about earlier - the one that took place near Henley - can you give me a date for that?’ He spoke in a drawling voice, his tone bordering on the insolent. But his eyes, when he turned their way again, told a different story, the fixity of his stare reflecting some inner turmoil still under tight control.

  ‘Yes, of course, sir. But I wouldn’t ask you here and now to account for your movements so long in the past.’ It had just occurred to the chief inspector that what the other man had been doing these past few minutes was playing for time.

  Vane shook his head impatiently. ‘The date, man.’

  The change in his manner was startling; Sinclair’s eyebrows went up in surprise. ‘The eighth of July,’ he replied, after a pause.

  Vane slid his hand beneath the rim of his desk and a bell sounded faintly in the outer office. The door opened behind them.

  ‘Peter, would you find my personal diary for 1929 and bring it in, please.’ Not troubling to look up, he sat staring at his desk and they waited in silence until the young man from outside appeared with an identical book bound in red leather which he laid in front of his superior.

  ‘Thank you. That will be all.’

  Before the door shut Vane had the book open and the other two watched while he found the page he wanted. He sat staring at it for a long time. Sinclair glanced at Bennett again and caught his eye. When he turned back Vane’s head was still bent over the page, but now he was nodding, as though in confirmation of something he already suspected. He flicked through a few more pages, going backwards and forwards in the diary. Again he nodded.

  ‘The girl was killed on the eighth, you say. The day before that I travelled from Oxford to Birmingham to stay with friends before continuing on to Scotland, where I spent the rest of July and the first week of August. Naturally, all that can be confirmed.’ He shut the book.

  Struck speechless by the revelation, Sinclair sat blinking. It was several moments before he could find his voice. ‘You were in the Oxford area then?’ He could think of nothing else to say.

  ‘Yes, on holiday. I was a guest of Sir Robert Hancock and his wife at their place near Woodstock. He’s a colleague of mine. You’re welcome to check my story with him.’ Vane’s tone had altered. To the surprise of the other two, he’d shed his hostile manner. But as though to confuse them still further, he showed no sign of relief at having cleared himself. If anything, the indications of anxiety he’d displayed earlier had intensified. His finger had resumed its rapid tattoo on the desk in front of him. Eyeing him closely, the chief inspector sensed indecision behind his strange behaviour.

  ‘I don’t mean to question your word, sir, but did you travel to Birmingham, and to Scotland, in your car?’

  For the first time Vane seemed to find difficulty in formulating a reply. ‘No, Chief Inspector,’ he answered finally. ‘I did not. I went by train.’

  ‘You left it garaged in London?’

  The question hung in the air between them until it became clear, for whatever reason, that Vane was not going to respond to it. His gaze had turned inwards, and once again the chief inspector felt that his thoughts were elsewhere.

  Bennett stirred, breaking his long silence. ‘These questions must be answered,’ he insisted.

  Still Vane said nothing, and it was clear to Sinclair that something extra would be needed to shatter the wall of obduracy they were faced by. When he spoke again, it was in a sharpened tone, his crisp consonants lending stark emphasis to the words he chose.

  ‘Sir, the investigation we’re engaged in is unique in my experience. This man has killed nine children. Nine that we know of. He was described to me by a man who should know as a monster. Scarcely human. I see no reason to question this judgement. I only ask you to consider what’s at stake. If there’s anything you can tell us - any small fact—’

  ‘Chief Inspector! I beg you!’

  Vane’s anguished cry caught Sinclair off balance, and he stared back dumbstruck. It was the last thing he’d expected to hear.

  ‘There’s no need to go on. I see what’s at stake. But the situation’s not what you think. I’m not protecting anyone. I want to help you, believe me, but I fear we’re too late.’

  The folder, dun coloured, was marked across one corner with a broad red stripe. Vane had placed the file on his desk a few moments before, and the chief inspector’s eye hadn’t strayed from it since. Earlier, he had watched him retrieve it from a safe housed in a teak cupboard at the back of his office, using a key selected from a ring that was attached to a metal watch chain he wore. Some minutes had passed since his outburst, but although he’d quickly regained control of himself, apologizing to them both, he was unable to disguise the effects of the strong emotion he’d just experienced, which showed itself in his pallor and the jerkiness of his movements. At the same time, his attitude towards them had changed. Gone was the air of cold superiority to which the chief inspector had taken such exception when they first arrived. Anxiety marked his behaviour now and he seemed more human.

  ‘We’ve only met socially, haven’t we, Sir Wilfred?’ Vane glanced up from the file, at which he’d been staring. ‘I wonder if you’re aware of the particular position I fill here at the Foreign Office?’

  ‘Aware ... no. At least, not officially.’ Bennett allowed himself a slight smile. His relief a few minutes earlier on realizing this was not the man they were seeking after all had been noted by the chief inspector, who’d been seeking for some image with which to enshrine the glow of revelation emanating from his superior’s pale, but no longer stricken countenance: St Paul’s encounter on the road to Damascus sprang to mind. ‘But I admit to having been curious about you, Vane. I’ve made some inquiries - and received guarded answers. I told Mr Sinclair earlier today that I believed you were engaged in intelligence work.’

  ‘Did you, indeed?’ Vane’s elegantly raised eyebrow was a mark of his returning poise. ‘Well, that clears the air, at any rate.’ He looked at them both. ‘We’re all senior officials accustomed to the need for discretion. But I must stress that much of what I’m about to tell you is for your ears and these walls only, and in the event of it becoming public would almost certainly be denied. More to the point, none of it may be used in any future case for the prosecution. Do you foresee a problem there?’

  Bennett seemed unsure. He glanced inquiringly at the chief inspector.

  ‘None that I can think of,’ Sinclair replied. With the climactic moment approaching, he strove to maintain an appearance of calm himself. ‘As far as the police are concerned, this is a murder case, pure and simple. No connection with intelligence work would be admitted by the prosecution, I’m sure, and if the defence tried to drag it in, there’s always the resort of in camera proceedings. Of course, I can’t speak for what might happen if the killer were brought to trial abroad.’

  ‘Then let’s do our utmost to see if we can prevent that.’ Bennett’s tone was dry. ‘Please continue.’ He nodded to Va
ne, who squared the file on the desktop before him, as though ordering his thoughts.

  ‘I’ll start by giving you some background,’ he said. ‘Of necessity, this must be limited to what I believe you need to know. I assume it comes as no surprise to either of you that the Foreign Office should be involved in intelligence gathering. Traditionally, this has always been so, even now when a secret service exists in departmental form. I was earmarked for this work a while back and in recent years Germany has become my special area of responsibility.’ He paused, as though picking his words with care.

  ‘There are various sides to intelligence gathering, but I’m referring now to just one of them: a category of persons whom we use to acquire certain kinds of information and to carry out particular assignments. Agents, in short—or spies, if you prefer - professionals who are expert in the field of espionage and employed for that purpose. The British services have at their disposal a number of such men - and women. They’re engaged mainly to carry out functions of a questionable nature that no diplomat or other government official could afford to be associated with.’

  Again he paused, this time to raise his eyes to theirs.

  ‘I regret to have to tell you that the man you’re seeking is one of these.’

  ‘An agent employed by this country?’ Sinclair wanted to be clear on the point. Vane nodded.

  ‘Would you give me his name?’ Seeing the other hesitate, the chief inspector spoke quickly. ‘I warn you now you have no right under any law to withhold it.’

  ‘No, it’s not that. You don’t understand.’ Vane shook his head. ‘Of course I’ll give you his name. But which? He’s gone by so many. To us he’s known as Wahl, Emil Wahl; that’s how he appears in this file.’ He tapped the folder before him. ‘But his real name is Gaston Lang. That’s what he was christened.’

  ‘Lang, you say?’ Sinclair opened his notebook. As he reached for the pen in his pocket, he saw Vane shake his head.

  ‘Write it down if you wish, Chief Inspector, but it’ll do you no good. Of all the names Lang might be using now, I can assure you it’s the one he’ll never go by again.’

  ‘He’d been working for us for many years by the time I met him—that was in the summer of 1929. But his association with our intelligence branch goes back to the war, and it’s important you know how this came about.’

  Vane eyed his two listeners.

  ‘At that time British intelligence had an outstanding agent working for them, a Swiss called Ernst Hoffmann. He was based in Geneva and through him and his various contacts and sub-agents we were able to obtain an extraordinary amount of valuable information from inside Germany. Lang was his secretary.’

  Vane frowned.

  ‘We knew little about him. Apparently he grew up in an orphanage. Nevertheless, in spite of what could only have been the most limited schooling, he’d managed to catch the eye of Ernst Hoffmann and by the time our people got to know him he’d mastered several languages as well as other skills which his employer must have deemed necessary for his education.’

  His raised eyebrow hinted at a meaning not apparent in his words.

  ‘Hoffmann was an art dealer, by the way: it was a genuine business, and he used it as a cover for his other activities. He was already working for us before the war and during that period he used Lang as a courier and go-between to keep contact with his agents in Germany.

  ‘So he was well-placed to help us when war broke out, but in 1917 he died - quite unexpectedly, he had a heart attack while sitting in a cafe - and Lang was left to take over his work. With gratifying results, at least as far as our people were concerned. Hoffman’s death had thrown them into a panic and they were only too pleased to discover that this young man was able to carry on in his place, and just as effectively.

  ‘However, about a year later, in the spring of 1918, he turned up without warning in France and made his way to the British sector of the front, in the north, where he reported to our intelligence branch. He had a curious tale to tell. He said he’d been identified as a British operative by German counter-intelligence agents in Switzerland who had succeeded in falsely incriminating him with the Swiss police. He’d only narrowly escaped arrest and had managed to slip across the border clandestinely into France.’

  ‘Incriminating him?’ Sinclair seized on the word. ‘As a spy, do you mean?’

  Vane shook his head. ‘He was being sought for murder. The victim was a young girl.’

  ‘Good lord!’ Bennett couldn’t contain his astonishment.

  Beside him, the chief inspector’s eyes had narrowed. ‘And they believed him? These so-called intelligence officials?’

  Vane shrugged. ‘It would have been difficult, if not impossible, to check the truth of his story. The world of agents, of spies, is a murky one at best. It wouldn’t have been the first time one of them had been discredited in this manner. And the war was still going on, remember. He told them more. He said there’d been an attempt made on his life engineered by these same Germans in conjunction with two Swiss detectives who were in their pay. After a struggle he’d managed to escape, leaving one of the detectives dead. Stabbed. He carries a knife.’

  ‘So now there were two murder charges against him.’ Sinclair could hardly trust himself to speak.

  Vane saw the look on his face. ‘Try to understand how the situation must have appeared to our people. The war was being fought as fiercely as ever. No one guessed it would be over in a few months. Lang had brought a great deal of valuable information with him. He was the only person who knew the details of Hoffmann’s network in Germany. The names of his agents. At that particular moment he was of immense value to the Allied cause.’

  ‘So? What happened?’

  ‘Lang disappeared. He was never heard of again. Emil Wahl, a citizen of Belgium, appeared in his place.’

  ‘With all the proper credentials, I suppose?’

  Again Vane shrugged. ‘I can only repeat, this was a special situation. These things wouldn’t happen if wars weren’t fought.’

  ‘No, Mr Vane, I must correct you.’ The chief inspector’s voice was tight with anger. ‘These things wouldn’t happen if certain people did not choose to place themselves above the law. What those men did was condone one crime and commit another. It’s a disgraceful story. Disgraceful, do you hear me?’

  Bennett gestured with his hand, trying to calm his colleague. But Vane showed no disposition to take offence. Rather, his rueful shrug seemed a tacit acceptance of the verdict delivered. With a sigh, he went on.

  ‘At this point I should mention that although Lang had worked for us in a number of European countries, because of this wartime episode - or his version of it - he’d never been posted to Germany. However, after a dozen years the danger of exposing him again to their counter-intelligence section was felt to have diminished, and he himself raised no objection to being sent there.

  ‘It was decided to bring him to London first, something which had never happened before, but a sign, if you like, of the value that was placed on his services. In certain quarters, at least.’ Vane’s face was expressionless. ‘Our first meeting was at a restaurant with others present and I took the opportunity to fix a second appointment with him. This would be for the briefing he would need before setting off for Berlin. Since I didn’t want him appearing at the Foreign Office, and since I was about to go on holiday anyway, I arranged for us to meet outside London.’

  ‘Had he been in England long?’ Sinclair had recovered his poise. ‘I’d like to get some idea of his movements.’

  ‘I gathered he’d been here for several weeks and had visited different parts of the country. He’d wanted a holiday before taking up his assignment. I can’t tell you where he went, but I know he’s a birdwatcher - it’s in his file. He’s something of an expert, I believe. It’s one of the few things we know about him.’

  ‘Thank you.’ The chief inspector inclined his head. ‘You were saying you’d fixed a second meeting with him?’

>   Vane nodded. ‘I’d arranged to stay with these friends of mine outside Oxford, and since I was due to travel north myself on the seventh, I’d settled with Lang that we should meet the day before. He’d agreed to take the train up to Oxford and said he planned to spend a night or two at an hotel there before returning to London. I picked him up at the station and took him to a pub in Woodstock where I’d booked a private room for lunch, and where I gave him a detailed briefing.’

  He broke off, and sat staring at the desktop in front of him. As the silence grew longer, Sinclair and Bennett exchanged glances. It was a minute or more before the other man looked up. His eyes showed the same unfocussed glaze as before.

  ‘I won’t pretend I wasn’t curious to know him. Up till then he’d only been a name to me. But I was aware of his reputation and I approached the prospect of our meeting with caution.’ He paused once again. ‘I don’t suppose I need tell you that the qualities required for the kind of work Lang did for us are ... quite special. It’s not a profession for the squeamish. But even so, there are limits ... or there ought to be.’ Vane tapped the buff folder before him. ‘Unfortunately I can’t show you this. I’d be in breach of the law. But there are things in it you would find shocking. At least I hope so. They certainly were to me. If I were asked to characterize it I would say it was not so much a record of a man without scruple, as one without moral sense. So you’ll understand when I say I had considerable misgivings at the thought of working with him. Nor did this meeting of ours offer much in the way of reassurance.’

  He mused for a moment, as though in recollection.

  ‘It’s not easy to describe the effect he had on me. In many ways he’s quite ordinary. Soft-spoken; almost diffident in manner. And the business side of things went without a hitch. I found him quick to grasp what I was telling him, exceptionally so. Nothing needed to be said twice. But it was as though there was a barrier between us. Something real, but transparent, like a pane of glass. And he was on one side of it and I was on the other and there was no connection between us. No human bond. Thinking about it afterwards, I realized this feeling I had sprang from his glance. His eyes. They were quite dead.’