by Alex Gerlis
He sat down in the small reception area, the guards managing the feat of keeping an eye on him while avoiding any form of eye contact. They were trained to do that, he told himself. That and handling clipboards. The metal chair was uncomfortable, but he had walked fast and now he was feeling the familiar twinges in his back and a dull ache in his leg.
By the time he had been kept waiting for twenty minutes, his irritation had turned to an ill-concealed exasperation which was studiously ignored by the guards.
Five minutes later, the corporal returned, along with a sergeant wearing the distinctive uniform and red cap of the military police. ‘If you care to come with me, Lieutenant Quinn, we’ll have this sorted in no while. Just a small problem with your pass, sir.’ He was being passed through the ranks.
Quinn followed the sergeant up the stairs, past the first floor, through whose heavy doors he had once heard people talking in German, beyond the second and third floors where he had never seen the doors anything but firmly shut, past the fourth floor which always had a sentry on the stairwell and past the fifth floor where the door was sometimes ajar and through which he had seen a mass of electrical equipment. As they approached his office on the sixth floor, two guards carrying large boxes were coming down the stairs, forcing Quinn and the military policeman to go in single file, pressed against the wall. Quinn found himself ahead of the officer, who had had to step further back to allow the guards more space to descend.
Quinn pushed his way into the entrance to the sixth floor offices, half hearing but ignoring the sergeant’s cry of ‘not in there please, Lieutenant’. By the time the sergeant had caught up with him, he realised why. He was clearly not meant to see this. The large central room, from which three small offices led, was deserted. The walls which twelve hours before had been covered in charts and maps and photographs were bare. The large map table in the centre of the room had been disassembled and was propped against the heavily barred windows. The filing cabinets containing thousands of photographs were gone, as were the boxes of letters, postcards and other documents. There was a box in the centre of the room full of black phones and alongside it were the two large office clocks. One of the clocks had always been on Greenwich Mean Time, the other on Central European Time. One clock had stopped just after three, the other just after four.
‘Please sir, not in here.’
‘But this is my office.’
‘I’m afraid that we need to go up another flight of stairs to get this sorted, sir.’
‘But I don’t understand!’
Quinn had moved into the centre of the large room now, puzzled and determined to see what had become of his own small office. He moved quickly across the scuffed green linoleum floor to escape the attentions of the sergeant who was now at his shoulder, but as he did so he found his way blocked by a familiar figure dressed in a black greatcoat, towering well above his own six foot frame.
‘Captain Edgar!’
The tall man nodded to the sergeant. ‘Leave it to me.’
And then to Quinn. ‘Not happy with you bounding ahead like that, Quinn. Having a bit of a clear-out in here as you can see. Sergeant had instructions to bring you to the top floor. And by the way, it’s Major Edgar now.’
From his very first encounter with Edgar in the hospital two years previously, any dealings with him had an edge of menace to them. Had he been asked to explain that in more detail, Quinn would have struggled. He would have talked about the major’s coldness, about his quiet voice with no discernible accent that nonetheless appeared to dominate the room. He would have remarked on the fact that despite having met the major a number of times, he found it almost impossible to recall in any significant detail any of his physical characteristics, other than his height. But most of all, he would have recalled the near fear that he instilled in Quinn. No threats, certainly no violence but an overwhelming sense that anything the major asked or required was beyond discussion. His effect was almost hypnotic.
By now the major had led Quinn out of the sixth floor suite of offices which had been his life for the past two years and out into the stairwell. The major hesitated, looking up towards the seventh floor, where Quinn had never been.
‘I’ll tell you what, Quinn. Let’s go for a walk.’
Once in Duke Street, the major fixed his familiar trilby to his head in a precise manner, twisting it carefully so it sat just right. He wore it lower than Quinn had observed in other people and the brim of the hat appeared to be wider than usual. The effect was to cast much of the major’s face in shadow.
They headed south, across Pall Mall and The Mall, entering St James’s Park near the bandstand. The walk had been conducted in studied silence, but throughout it Quinn kept thinking of what Captain Archibald had said the previous evening, ‘I may not be around here for a few weeks, but all the very best, Quinn. Whatever happens, remember you’ve played your part.’ And now, the abandoned office, along with the BBC announcement of D-Day and the reference to the north west of France. The sense of unease that Quinn had felt when he first heard the BBC broadcast in the flat had returned.
They strolled down to the lake, still silent as they had been since leaving Lincoln House apart from Major Edgar’s occasional cough. And so they stood, their backs to The Mall, facing the lake, silent for a good two minutes.
When the major did start to speak it was in his usual quiet voice. The noise of the city around them obliged Quinn to shuffle closer to Edgar than he felt entirely comfortable with, but he did not want to miss a word.
‘Quinn. I want you to listen very carefully to what I am about to say. I don’t expect you will like one word of it and I have no doubt that by the time I have finished speaking you will hate me. But it is important that you listen, take it all in and then forget the last two years and get on with your life.’
Major Edgar paused as two men in bowler hats got up from a bench to their right. As they moved away, Edgar gestured towards the bench and that is where they sat for the next twenty minutes.
During that time, the major spoke in his quiet, commanding tone. Edgar leaned forward for most of the time, his elbows resting on his thighs and looking around him, anywhere other than directly at Quinn. Quinn had to lean forward himself to catch every word. To a passer-by, it may have looked as if an impromptu confession was taking place which was perhaps not too far from the truth.
‘You have obviously heard the news, Quinn. The landings?’
Quinn nodded. Of course.
‘I need to tell you something and from your point of view it’s not going to be very pleasant.’
There was a pause while Edgar carefully straightened his shirt cuffs and adjusted his tie, while at the same time nervously prodding away some gravel with the tip of his highly polished shoe. He coughed and shifted on the bench.
‘How long is it now since you’ve seen your wife, Owen?’
Quinn looked puzzled. This was not what he imagined they had come here to talk about.
‘Six ... seven weeks? Something like that.’
‘And, of course, you only saw her intermittently in the months immeadiately before that?’
‘While she was training, yes.’
‘I expect you miss her.’
Quinn looked unsure. Edgar was the not the kind of person he imagined having a conversation like this with.
‘Well, of course. Naturally.’
‘Have you ... adapted to her not being around?’
‘Well, I cope, if that’s what you mean. But I do miss her an awful lot. Perhaps more than I expected. Look, I’m not sure why you’re asking me these questions.’
‘Owen, I have to tell you that Nathalie is not who you think she is. We do not know her real name, but it is certainly not Nathalie Mercier. What we do know is that she did enter this country in June 1940 with that identity. She is indeed a nurse. There is no easy way of saying this, but I have to tell you that she came here as a German spy ...’
There was silence and no movement from
Quinn’s end of the bench. Edgar glanced over at him; he had been expecting more of a reaction than this. The younger man had a puzzled expression on his face, as if he had trouble hearing what Edgar had said. Edgar wondered whether he needed to repeat it. The silence was broken by a pair of ducks waddling noisily in front of them, arguing furiously. Quinn’s brow was starting to furrow now as first disbelief and then anger appeared to take hold. He was shaking his head.
‘No, no – don’t be so bloody ridiculous, Edgar!’ Quinn stood up, then rapidly sat down again, but hesitantly, as if he were about to stand up again.
‘If you think I’ve come here to listen to nonsense like this then …’
‘Listen Quinn – Owen. I know this is hard, but as it is I am telling you more than I should be doing. Just listen. It may the only time you hear it.’ Edgar had adopted a firm tone. He could not afford to leave Quinn in any doubt about what he was saying.
‘We became aware that your wife is a German spy only very recently. Certainly after she was sent to France – goes without saying, of course, that we wouldn’t have sent her over there if we’d known she was a German spy. I cannot tell you much, but I can tell you this: soon after she arrived in France we came across certain intelligence that made us suspect her. You have to trust me, Owen. We checked this intelligence out most carefully. We had to be sure and I am afraid that we are. We’ve been back over her movements since she arrived in this country and I can tell you that there is no doubt about it. We feel pretty bad about it, as I’m sure you do. But at least we’ve found out now, or rather a few weeks ago. If we hadn’t done so then I think the consequences could have been quite dreadful.’
Owen laughed.
‘Oh, I see! And they aren’t “quite dreadful”, as you put it, now?’
Edgar shifted uncomfortably at his end of the bench, holding his hands out in front of him in a conciliatory manner.
‘Of course they are dreadful for you, Quinn. I am sorry. We’re not fools. I don’t want you to think that we are being insensitive to your predicament. We can see that you are going to be absolutely devastated. But it is better to know than not to know, eh?’
Quinn was not so sure. As far as he was concerned, ignorance was bliss, at least it had been up until a few minutes ago. He didn’t know what to make of what Edgar was telling. It sounded so far-fetched as far as he was concerned, but then why would Edgar concoct such a ridiculous story. He was not sure what Edgar meant and he could not even be sure that what he was being told was true.
‘And who was she supposed to be spying on — me?’
‘Quite possibly. Until – if – we get the chance to interrogate her, we simply won’t know. We don’t know if she was spying on you or just trying to get into a position where we recruited her. As I say, we only discovered that she’s a spy a few weeks ago.’
‘And is all this connected to the Normandy business?’
‘What do you mean, Quinn?’
‘Well, the invasion started a few hours ago in Normandy, apparently. Everything I’ve been working on has been on the assumption that the invasion would be in the Pas de Calais. So what’s going on, Edgar? And where is Nathalie, in Normandy or the Pas de Calais?’
Edgar made to speak and then hesitated, as if he had not been expecting this question.
‘She could be anywhere in France, Owen. I can’t tell you any more than that and nor would you expect me to. As to the Pas de Calais, well ... all I can say is that the D-Day operation is barely twelve hours old. It is far too early to say what is going to happen when ... and where.’
More silence from Quinn’s end of the bench. Edgar shot him another glance and noticed that his eyes were moist and he was blinking rapidly. He appeared to be in shock and was tapping his feet on the ground. Quinn pulled a long white handkerchief from his uniform pocket and blew his nose.
‘So why are you telling me all of this, Edgar? Why didn’t you continue to keep me in the dark like you seemed happy enough to do since you apparently discovered she was a spy a few weeks ago?’
‘We are telling you now because you need to be aware of it. If I am to be absolutely honest with you, Owen, then I would have to admit that we weren’t going to tell you quite so soon. But something unexpected cropped up today that meant we needed to tell you much sooner than we had planned.’
‘And what is that?’
‘There is a German spy loose in London. Elusive chap this one. We’ve prided ourselves on having a pretty outstanding success rate in capturing German spies in this country, but not him. We’ve been after him since 1940, never been able to get our hands on him. From a professional point of view, one has to admire him. He is quite an outstanding operator. Caused us no end of trouble. However, a few weeks ago, we spotted him tailing you, just after we discovered your wife was a spy. What we think happened is this: the Germans wanted to be sure that what your wife was telling them was true, so they got this chap to verify you really do exist – that you work where she was telling them you worked, in the Navy — that kind of thing.
‘A week or so ago, this agent disappeared into the ether again, as he is prone to do. However, this morning we intercepted a transmission he made to Berlin. Couple of hours later he’s spotted near your flat. Had to wait around, of course, but once you left at eleven he followed you all the way to Duke Street. It was important that you came into work.’
Quinn was looking round the park. He had stopped dabbing his eyes now, but they were still red and damp.
‘And what about if he has followed us here?’
‘Of course not, wouldn’t have been so foolish as to bring you here if he had, would I? We watched him follow you to Duke Street then he hopped in a taxi and headed north. My bet is that even as we are speaking he will be making his final transmission from his place in north London then he will head off to a new place. He probably has two or three on the go at any one time. He’ll be back on to you, Quinn. Probably go and check you’re around this evening and then be out there in the morning. Which brings me back to why we need you to play ball with us.’
The younger man huffed and pulled a face.
‘I do understand, Quinn. I daresay that is the last thing you feel like doing. We need you to do this. I am afraid that you really have no alternative – regard it as orders. Please listen carefully.’
Edgar outlined the plan. It was quite detailed. Quinn was surprised that he was able to take it all in. Edgar looked across at Quinn, as if to check that he understood.
‘I’ll have to be heading off soon, Quinn — you know what you have to do then.’
Edgar was leaning forward, his forearms resting on his thighs, hands pressed together in his familiar prayer-like pose and head bowed towards the ground. Quinn was very still again, speaking in a quiet voice, with no trace of either the anger or the sarcasm that he had shown before.
‘You are certain about this, Edgar — Nathalie and all that?’
‘I am afraid so.’
The younger man stared ahead, the emotion appearing to rise up in him again. He was biting his lower lip and clasping his hands together very tight. Another long spell of silence followed as he sank deep into contemplation. The pair of ducks walked in front of them again, their argument unresolved. Edgar and Quinn watched them as they noisily climbed back into the lake before Quinn spoke again.
‘If ... and I say if ... if it’s true what you say, where do you think that leaves me? Do you think that any of her feelings for me could have been genuine?’
‘I think that only she can answer that, Quinn. We have to assume that her relationship with you was part of her work as a German spy. That doesn’t mean, of course ... that ...’ Edgar stopped. He really did not know what to say.
‘I presume you had ... marital relations? I mean, did you have a healthy physical relationship.’
Quinn blushed and nodded.
‘There we are then. Look, you are a good-looking chap. Good personality, charming. I am sure she had feelings for you.�
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When he had finished talking, the major leaned back against the bench, his hands pressed together in his familiar prayer-like pose, looking up at the white clouds picked out against the blue sky. Quinn sat perfectly still. They stayed like that while nearby bells pealed two o’clock. As if on cue, Major Edgar got up and stood awkwardly in front of Quinn, patting him gently on the shoulder before silently walking away.
Quinn waited a moment before turning round to watch Edgar walk back to The Mall. A black car was waiting and as Edgar approached it, a uniformed figure emerged to open the rear door for the major. Within seconds the car had sped off in the direction of Whitehall.
Quinn turned round and started to get up, but his legs felt so heavy that he was unable to move. He was weighed down by his thoughts. Recollections of times he had spent with Nathalie, snippets of what Edgar had said and flashbacks to his childhood, but as these memories evaporated he was left with the stark reality of what Edgar had told him. Although it seemed unbelievable, he kept coming back to the conclusion that Edgar would not have made it up. There would simply be nothing to be gained from telling him something untrue.
He stayed on the bench in a state of shock until three o’clock and when a policeman who had already passed him twice asked pointedly if everything was well, Owen said that it was and got up slowly to leave the park.
Quinn was far too wrapped up in his own thoughts to notice anything that was going on around him. He certainly never noticed the small man watching him from the bridge to the right of where he had been sitting. He might be described as round rather than fat by anyone who looked at him long enough, which few would bother to do. His red face was topped by a bowler hat perhaps one size too small. He effortlessly slipped in some fifty yards behind Quinn.
Quinn never turned round as he left the park and crossed Birdcage Walk, but even had he done so, it is highly unlikely that he would have noticed that same man following him from a careful distance.
