The Best of Our Spies

by Alex Gerlis

  ooo000ooo

  Georg Lange acted like a condemned man throughout February 1945, utterly convinced that he had been tricked and was going to be tried as a war criminal. However, at the end of the month, one of the Frenchmen who had confronted him returned to his cell and told him that his information about Ginette Troppe had been correct. He was there to show that he was keeping his side of the bargain. A disbelieving Lange watched as the Frenchman produced the false documents and burned them in front of him.

  Before he left, Gaston shook Lange’s hand. Georg found the whole thing hard to believe and decided it was best treated as a bad dream and forgotten. He determined never to mention it to anyone. Who would believe him anyway?

  Georg Lange was released as a prisoner of war in June 1945 and returned to Mainz to be reunited with Helga, Charlotte and Maria.

  He had assumed he would return to the legal profession, but his few weeks of contemplating what he believed could be his imminent death had a marked effect on him. He trained as a teacher and specialised in working with blind children.

  He and his wife spent a few days’ holiday in Alsace one summer in the early 1960s and when they stopped in Strasbourg he did think about looking up the name Troppe in the telephone directory. Purely out of curiosity, he would not have contacted her. But he thought better of it. Some things were best left as they are.

  Georg Lange died in Mainz in 1988.

  ooo000ooo

  After he had helped Owen, André Koln returned to Paris.

  The concentration camps around Europe were being liberated and the few French survivors slowly began to return, but it was no more than a pitiful trickle. André was never under the illusion that either his wife or son had survived, he knew that was not even a remote hope that he could cling to. But he hoped that some members of his immediate family would return, but none did. Both of his parents, his brother, his sister and her family and all of his uncles and aunts and their children. One or two friends returned, along with a cousin of his wife’s who had survived a death march and a few acquaintances, but to all intents and purposes, he was alone. He knew that he was not alone in being alone. Less than two thousand of the seventy-five thousand Jews deported from Paris returned. In all, more than eighty thousand French Jews were murdered in the Holocaust.

  André did not return to the law. He concentrated on his journalism, his writing popular and distinguished by an angry passion. He married again twice; to a friend of his wife’s in 1946 and to a fellow journalist in 1953. Neither marriage lasted more than a year. He had no more children.

  André’s journalism took him to cover the wars in French Indo-China and it was there that he was shot in 1959. Despite medical treatment, he died of his wounds a few days later. Just before he died he asked a nurse to pass him a photograph from his wallet. He died clutching the photograph of Daniel, his son. The doctor who had been looking after him in the hospital wrote to his editor and said that André was unusually resigned to his fate for someone of his age.

  Owen Quinn attended André’s funeral in Paris. Addressing the congregation, André’s editor said he did not understand why he was so reckless. ‘It was almost as if he had a death wish.’ People shook their heads. They too did not understand. Only Owen did not shake his head. He understood.

  ooo000ooo

  Owen Quinn had been due back at the Admiralty on Monday, 5 February, but there was no sign of him until that Thursday when he quietly returned to work, seemingly with neither a care nor a concern in the world.

  When he was carpeted for being absent without leave, he demanded to see Major Edgar.

  It was the first indication that Edgar had that Quinn was back in London. His trail had gone cold in Strasbourg that weekend. All that he had been able to ascertain was that the neighbours had seen a large man in a beret escaping from outside the apartment with a pistol in his hands. The man who matched Quinn’s description was seen weeping over his wife’s body. Soon after, he left the apartment with a baby and another man, whom the neighbours described as thin, dark and French. Ginette Troppe’s mother had arrived back at the apartment as they were leaving. She had been in a state of shock ever since. Even allowing for this, Edgar realised that she knew next to nothing.

  Quinn, the other man and the baby were seen driving away in a small Peugeot. After that, nothing. No sign, no trace, no hint whatsoever. If there had been inkling before that Quinn had these abilities that he had demonstrated in France, thought Edgar, then he would have made a most effective SOE agent.

  He fully expected never to see Quinn again, so he was most surprised on the Thursday, which was the day after he himself returned to London to explain himself, to get a call saying Quinn had turned up and wanted to see him. The feeling, thought Edgar as he strode purposefully across Whitehall, was definitely mutual.

  Quinn was sitting in an office when Edgar walked in. He stood up and saluted and sat down again without being asked.

  Major Edgar made great play of demonstrating his anger. He removed his leather gloves and trilby and threw both down on the desk.

  ‘Are you going to tell me what happened, Quinn.’

  ‘I needed to be on my own, sir. Clear my head, that kind of thing. I realised I ought to have been back at work on Monday, for which I apologise and will, of course, understand if I am to be punished for that.’

  ‘And where were you, Quinn?’

  ‘Just driving around the country, sir. Walking. That kind of thing.’

  ‘You’re going to have to do an awful lot better than that, Quinn. France for a start. When did you get there?’

  Quinn looked puzzled. He hadn’t been to France. Check my passport, sir. What makes you think I’ve been to France?

  It went on like this for the rest of the morning and well into the afternoon. Edgar could see little prospect of getting Quinn to admit to anything. He was well versed in playing the innocent. The most difficult interrogation that Edgar had ever had to conduct up to this point was with an Italian living in Glasgow who they were convinced was a spy and which he probably was. But it turned out that the man was also suffering from some kind of mental illness. He was deluded, the psychiatrists told him. It meant that he was so convinced that he was innocent that he was not having to play a part. Without the man admitting to being a spy, they had no evidence. They had to let him go in the end. Quinn was proving to be as frustrating.

  He lit a cigarette and allowed a few moments for the tobacco to clear his mind. What is it that I am trying to achieve here? Edgar kept reminding himself. The objective was neither to punish Quinn, nor even to find out exactly what had gone on in France. The objective was ensuring that there would be no trouble. No difficulties, no noise. Silence was what Edgar was after. That no one would ever hear of Nathalie Mercier, or Geraldine Leclerc or Ginette Troppe or whoever she really was again. No one would know what happened. The whole business would be forgotten.

  ‘Your wife, Quinn...’

  ‘I have not seen my wife since last April, sir. I have accepted that I shall never see her again. I am anxious to put that part of my life behind me.’

  Edgar stared at Quinn for a very long time to see if he believed him and for some reason, he was convinced that he did.

  ‘I am gratified to hear that, Quinn. Don’t forget, whatever you went through – whatever we put you through – your wife was a Nazi spy. A totally committed one, I have no doubt whatsoever about that. Our small operation helped to save many thousands of Allied lives.’

  Quinn sat very still and didn’t say a word. After a while, Edgar felt uncomfortable and dismissed Quinn. He asked Quinn’s superior that no action be taken against him for being AWOL.

  Edgar kept an eye on Quinn from a distance for a year or so, but he never met with him again. Quinn was as good as gold. His people at the Admiralty said that he was quieter than normal, but seemed altogether calmer. ‘At peace with himself’ was a phrase used in connection with Quinn more than once. By 1946 Edgar considered that it was sa
fe to let Quinn go. He received an honourable discharge from the Royal Navy in early 1946 and trained as a teacher. The last that Edgar had heard was that Quinn was teaching at a boys’ grammar school somewhere in west London.

  By the end of 1947, Major Edgar ceased to exist, not that ‘Edgar’ had ever been anything other than a nom de guerre.

  His war had been a long one. It had started in early 1939, months before the official declaration of war and he had even been involved in a clandestine mission inside Germany itself, which had come close to breaking him.

  He stayed in the field of intelligence for a couple of years after the war, but found the Cold War altogether too chilly. He could not find it in himself to return to the world of finance in which he had worked until 1939, so he put Edgar behind him and went into politics. He had a successful political career, much admired for his compassion and pioneering work in the area of social reform. Once, in 1955 he was speaking at an educational conference in London and could have sworn he spotted Quinn sitting towards the back of the hall. He looked around for him afterwards, but there was no sign.

  In his later years he often thought about what had happened to Owen Quinn. Of course, he could have found out easily enough, but what would have been the point? He had liked Quinn. But not once, either during the war or after, did he ever have the slightest doubt that everything they had done had been other than totally justified. There was no question of that.

  The image of Nathalie Mercier, which was the name he associated with her rather than that of Ginette Troppe, was never far from his mind. He only had to pass a beautiful young woman with long, dark hair in the street to be reminded of her. But what was most likely to bring her to mind was whenever he thought about the deception operation and how its part in winning the war could still not really be spoken of.

  One day in 1957, or possibly 1958, he bumped into Dr Clarence Leigh in the Central Lobby of the Houses of Parliament. His old sparring partner from the SOE was now Lord Leigh of Leominster, or it could have been Leamington Spa – Edgar couldn’t remember though he was sure it was somewhere beginning with ‘L’ in that part of the country. His peerage was the consequence of an easily forgotten report he had written for the Government on adult literacy, or lack of it.

  Leigh now had the hunched appearance of a very overweight man, aged before his time, shuffling slowly from the House of Lords as Edgar emerged in a more sprightly fashion from the House of Commons. Leigh paused when he saw Edgar, tilting slightly back so as to be able to see him properly. Behind him was a young man, who could have been no more than twenty, carrying a bag and a pile of papers.

  ‘Anton – my assistant,’ Leigh said, by way of explanation. ‘How are you?’

  Edgar said he was well and the two men walked silently towards Westminster Hall and the St Stephen’s exit, Anton a few paces behind them. Leigh’s walking stick echoed on the tiled floor.

  Leigh paused again, catching his breath, holding Edgar gently by the elbow as he turned slowly towards him.

  ‘Tell me. Whatever happened to that French girl we were involved with. What became of her?’

  Edgar hesitated. He was not sure how much Leigh knew. He frowned, as if he were having trouble remembering exactly who Leigh was talking about.

  ‘Oh! Do you mean Nathalie... Mercier, was it? Lord knows. She disappeared. Never heard of her again after the July.’

  They resumed their slow progress to the St Stephen’s exit. Leigh was nodding his head slowly, not sure that he believed Edgar but not surprised that the truth was being kept from him. He would expect little else.

  ‘Often thought about that operation we were involved in with you – and her. I think I probably owe you an apology, shouldn’t have been so doubtful about it. She must have been worth a division or two to us, wouldn’t you say?’

  Edgar raised his eyebrows and nodded his head, as if that thought had never occurred to him. He let Leigh carry on talking.

  ‘And you say she just disappeared? Probably best that way.’

  ‘Probably,’ said Edgar, before shaking Leigh by the hand and promising to have lunch one day.

  He never saw Leigh again.

  Edgar never once discussed with his wife anything that he had done in the war. As far as she was concerned, he was in the Far East for the duration and while she had been left on her own to bring up the children in Dorset. The marriage only really recovered, after a fashion, when he retired in the late 1960s.

  During his retirement in Dorset he took long walks along the coast every day. He preferred them to be solitary, but sometimes his wife insisted on accompanying him. He would often stand just staring across the Channel, sometimes for as long as half an hour at a time. On occasion his wife would notice that his eyes had filled with tears. If he saw that she had noticed he would brush them away and make a remark about the ‘bloody wind’.

  He could see the other end of the Channel, where the sea was always stained with blood. But he had an absolute conviction that but for his work and others involved in the great deception, it would have been flowing with far more blood.

  He died in 1979.

  ooo000ooo

  CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT

  June 1960

  The rail ferry The Maid of Kent was twenty minutes out of Dover when the teachers finally managed to settle the boys and were able to sit down themselves for a cup of tea. It was going to be a busy day.

  Mr Atkinson, the Head of French, had organised the trip. He sat alongside Mr Quinn, one of the geography teachers. ‘Understand you speak French, Owen? You kept that one quiet. Could have used you when Madame Robinson had her fall.’

  ‘Well, I speak a bit. Haven’t really used it for years now. I get by.’

  ‘Spent much time in France?’

  Mr Quinn drank slowly from a chipped teacup and nodded. ‘A bit. A long time ago though.’

  The staff were used to Owen Quinn. A quiet man. Well respected. Absolutely dedicated to the boys, made up for not having any children of his own. Had never married. First-class teacher. But very quiet. Not exactly unfriendly, kept himself to himself. Reserved was the word that was most frequently used to describe him.

  ‘Was that during the war?’

  ‘Yes. I was over here at the end.’

  ‘D-Day?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Navy weren’t you? No chance of you being sea-sick today then!’

  Quinn nodded and smiled politely. The ferry was pitching and it was turning out to be a choppy crossing.

  ‘Been back since the end of the war?’

  ‘No. I think we’d better go and check on the boys, don’t you? Can’t have any of them falling overboard.’

  Mr Atkinson finally took the hint and went through the schedule one more time. The other teachers rolled their eyes. This trip was overplanned.

  ooo000ooo

  Mr Atkinson’s plan for the day had allowed two hours’ free time in the afternoon. He and the other French teacher would stay around the old town of Boulogne; the others could have a bit of time to themselves.

  Owen had reread all the letters just the night before. More than thirty of them. They wrote to him twice a year, at Christmas and the start of the summer holidays. The letters always contained one new photograph, news of how he was getting on and grateful thanks for the money they received every month. The letters never failed to end without a heartfelt expression of gratitude for what Owen had done for them. ‘You can never imagine,’ they once said, ‘how you gave us a reason to live again.’

  Owen checked his map and soon found his way to the school. No one would give him a second glance now. The tall young naval officer of fifteen years ago was now a middle aged man, slightly hunched, slightly overweight and slightly balding.

  ‘After school, he always plays football with his friends in the park opposite. Sometimes for hours!’

  Sure enough, a group of a dozen boys aged fifteen or sixteen were playing football in the park across the road from t
he school. Owen walked over.

  Even without the photographs, he would have picked him out. It was not so much the fair hair, flowing as he ran at least as fast as Owen had done at his age. It was the eyes. His mother’s eyes. Even from thirty yards away, they blazed out. Like jet black pools, just as he remembered them. He felt the hairs standing up on the back of his neck.

  At that moment, the ball ran towards him. Owen ambled over to trap it. As his did so, the boy ran over to collect it. Owen trapped it and flicked it up for the boy to catch it neatly. My son.

  ‘Voilà.’

  ‘Merci, monsieur!’

  For a moment, just a moment, the two looked at each other. Owen knew it was fanciful to imagine that there was any connection there as far as the boy was concerned. Just curiosity. But he did look him directly in the eye and flash him the broadest of smiles before running back to join his friends.

  Owen stayed for another few minutes. He was blinking back the tears now, the first time he had cried in fifteen years. He moved a bit further away from where the boys were playing, towards the safety offered by the lengthening shadow of the trees.

  He was not sure what to do now. The journey that had begun fifteen years ago in Strasbourg had finally come to an end.

  As he and André had driven away from Strasbourg that February night in 1945 he could not be sure that he was doing the right thing. He realised that he could hardly just turn up in England with his son. Who would believe his story? Edgar was unlikely to come to his aid, probably quite the opposite. What proof did he have? How could he bring him up on his own? What would his parents say? Everyone would probably treat him as if he was mad. Literally mad. When he thought about it, he realised his son would probably be put into care. Another war orphan.

  They had argued in the car. Owen told André the plan that was forming in his head. ‘He is your son,’ André had insisted. ‘You cannot abandon him.’

  Owen told André that the most important thing that he could give to his son was the chance of a normal life and he knew where he could get that.