by Alex Gerlis
‘I just don’t understand it, Tom – Cooke was such a rising star. I’d have put my house on him delivering the goods.’
‘Even stars fall, Roly, it’s an occupational hazard in espionage. A first-class agent still relies on luck and good fortune. He – or she – can simply be unlucky. Don’t forget, in espionage even a minor mistake – the slightest of slip-ups – is magnified many times over. The consequences can be terrible, as seems to have been the case with poor old Cooke. May not have been his fault.’
‘But he was so good in the Netherlands. Do you remember at school, there was that boy in your year, can’t remember his name – Withersfield possibly? Scored a century in the house finals and took eight wickets? Everyone got terribly excited about him – he was going to play for the MCC et cetera. Next season he barely got out of double figures. Maybe poor old Cooke was just good for one match, rather like Withersfield.’
‘Espionage is a good deal more complex than cricket, Roly. Anyway, why am I here, apart from having to watch you eat your dinner?’
‘I need to get someone back into the game. A virgin you call them, don’t you? Someone with no connection to Turkey, no hint of any association with the bloody place. I want the absolute minimum number of people here to know about it. I certainly don’t want the stations in Ankara or Istanbul to know about them. I want you to run them and for you to report to me. I want a top-class agent, someone who can go in there and come back with proof that the bloody Turks are up to their necks in exporting chromium – and then I can go and see Mr Demir and present him with that evidence.’
Sir Roland was breathing hard now, his face red.
‘What does Winston know about this, Roly?’
‘Not a lot at the moment, Tom. He does ask occasionally about Turkey and I tell him we’ve got an operation going on there and he nods approvingly and grunts, in that way of his. He’s got other things on his mind at the moment, as you’ll appreciate. But sooner or later he’ll ask me about Turkey, and if we can turn this around and get evidence of what the Turks are up to and stop the exports, he’d be thrilled with that. It will damage the Germans badly – these chromium exports aren’t some sideshow, you know, it’s bloody vital we stop them. But I’m relying on you, Tom.’
‘There’re barely enough hours in the day as it is, Roly.’
‘There’ll be special funds for this, Tom – you’ll be able to afford the costs of the operation and take someone on to look after the agent from this end. Does that help?’
Gilbey shrugged; money was the least of his concerns. ‘I’ll tell you what, Tom. Sometimes Winston likes to muse about what will happen in Europe after we’ve won this damn war – there’s never any doubt about that in his mind, Tom, it’s one of his strengths, his absolute conviction we’ll win. And one of the things he does is muse about who’ll get which embassy after the war – there’ll be at least a dozen embassies we’ll need to reopen. He’s asked me if I’d fancy Brussels, but I’m not sure I’ll be up to it by then… Flemish and all that. But I’d be happy to recommend you – you’d be perfect for it, Tom. Comes with a knighthood of course and I’m sure Rosemary would love it.’
‘Is it in his gift, Roly?’
‘Hah! Winston likes to think that everything is in his gift. If we win this bloody war the selection of the England cricket team will be in his gift. In any case, might you be interested?’
‘I think we’re rather jumping the gun, Roly.’
‘Perhaps, Tom, perhaps… but I thought I’d mention it. I’ll make sure this case has Winston’s official seal of approval and some extra funds as I say. If so, do you think you’ve got someone who can meet that brief, someone decent you can send out there?’
Tom Gilbey nodded. ‘I think so, Roly, but I’ll need a month before they’d be ready to go, closer to two. They’re only just back from another mission and they’ve got one or two things to sort out first.’
‘And you’ll tell me who they are?’
‘Closer to the time, Roly, of course.’
‘And remember they’re not to go and get themselves killed, eh?’
Chapter 7
London
July 1943
They were in Tom Gilbey’s office in Broadway in central London, his visitor contemplating how he’d moved up in the world, this new office at least two floors higher, with
impressive views over St James’s Park.
Tom Gilbey was now clearly more important, the security around him much tighter. His host stood awkwardly in the middle of his office as Prince entered.
‘It’s good to see you… Richard, really good to see you. Got here all right, I see.’
A pause before ‘Richard’; he’d usually call him Prince. And as for the observation he’d… ‘got here all right’, Richard Prince did wonder whether he ought to remind him that he’d spent six months on a clandestine mission in Nazi-occupied Europe, so finding an office in central London was simple enough.
For a moment or two the two men stood facing each other, the spy master in his fifties opposite his agent, some twenty years younger.
‘Please do sit down. I’ll buzz through for some tea. I asked Susan to get some custard creams as a treat. We deserve it, eh?’
Tom Gilbey was clearly nervous and when he looked up he realised Richard Prince would not be taken in by the promise of custard creams as a special treat.
‘Dare I ask how things are going?’
As the younger man leaned forward in his chair Gilbey instinctively moved back, like a boxer stepping back in the ring, evading a punch.
‘Things, as you call them, sir, are going very badly.’
A long silence followed as Tom Gilbey adjusted his cufflinks. Susan brought in a tray of tea with an improbably large plate of custard cream biscuits and spent too much time fussing over whether they both had exactly what they wanted.
‘Surely by now, Richard, you’ve got somewhere? Back in May I said you could have another month to look and I gave you a car and a driver. Are you saying you’ve not made any progress?’
‘With all due respect, sir, a month and a car were never going to make much difference. I hate to trivialise the matter by describing it as being like searching for a needle in a haystack, but that’s what it’s like. It’s hopeless. And the longer it goes on…’
‘I’ve promised you we’ll do all we can to help, Richard. Don’t despair.’
‘Don’t despair?’ Richard Prince had been glancing down but shot an incredulous look at Gilbey. He slammed his cup on the table, the tea spilling into the saucer and from there onto the table. ‘For Christ’s sake, sir! While I was risking my life for you in Nazi Germany my three-year-old son was allowed to be taken from a hospital by a couple who’d somehow been able to adopt him and who then disappeared. Don’t you think I’m allowed to despair?’
* * *
In the couple of months or so since he’d returned to Britain there were times when Richard Prince would spend all evening into the early hours of the morning sitting in a room – usually a hotel bedroom – with a large glass of whisky in his hand and in his mind, one thought that ate away at him:
How on earth do people go through dreadful events – truly dreadful events, not just the occasional mishaps or inconveniences life routinely comes up with – and survive? How do they cope with dreadful shocks?
As a police officer it had often struck him how remarkable it was that people he was dealing with remained stoic when given the most appalling news rather than just keeling over as he’d imagine he’d do. He couldn’t understand why more people apparently recovered from receiving dreadful news, why more people didn’t fade away fast when they were the recipients of it.
And heaven knows it wasn’t as if he hadn’t come to experience this himself.
Richard Prince had arrived back in Britain at the beginning of May. He’d been sent to Denmark as an agent the previous November and had not only operated in that occupied country but had twice entered Nazi Germany. Th
e first mission was to Berlin in December and was a perilous one, fraught with danger, which he fully expected, and an encounter with the Gestapo which he’d somehow survived. But the mission had been a success, and as a result he’d been required to return to Germany the following month. He’d ended up in the Neuengamme concentration camp, from where he’d managed to escape back to Denmark, despite suffering from typhus. Once in Copenhagen he found his safe house there was no longer safe, but still managed to make contact with another British agent who helped him escape to neutral Sweden and from there to Britain.
Throughout his utter exhaustion and illness one thing motivated him: he would soon be reunited with Henry, his son. The bond between father and son was especially close: three years previously his wife and daughter had been killed in a car crash. He and Henry were all each other had, and throughout his mission Prince regretted leaving his job as a senior detective in Lincolnshire and allowing himself to be recruited by British intelligence.
But his world had collapsed on his return. His late wife’s sister had been looking after Henry while he was away. On a visit to friends in London she’d been killed in an air raid. Henry had been found wandering the street with no clue as to his identity. After a short spell in hospital – where it was assumed he had no family left – he was allowed to be adopted and apparently because of the chaos of war, no one was able to trace the couple who’d adopted him.
Tom Gilbey had allowed a devastated Prince two months to search for Henry but it had been a thankless task: the file on the couple who’d adopted Henry had been useless, a Terence and Margaret Brown with an address that turned out to be a boarding house in Croydon. They, and his son, had disappeared.
But Tom Gilbey was clearly anxious to send Prince on another mission. Even in the weeks after Prince had found out about Henry’s disappearance Gilbey had been explicit about it.
‘You’re the best man we have at the moment. We need to get you out into the field again – as soon as possible. You’re wasted here. You have a duty to your country.’
And although Prince had replied that the duty he had towards his son was more important, he’d been surprised at how uncertain he’d felt when he said that. Despite the constant danger and the ever-present fear, he had to admit he’d felt a degree of exhilaration when on the mission that nothing else he’d ever experienced came close to.
And now he still felt the same. He knew he was getting nowhere in his search for Henry. He was far too close to the case and that was clouding his judgement. As a detective leading major investigations he’d been organised, methodical and objective. As a father looking for his child he’d been disorganised, impulsive and emotional. He realised there was probably a better chance of finding Henry if someone else led the search.
He’d come to the view that he’d go on another mission if he could extract a promise from Gilbey about the search for Henry. And then there was Hanne, the Danish woman who’d helped him in Copenhagen and who’d been arrested by the Gestapo. As far as they knew, she was a prisoner somewhere in Germany.
Hanne Jakobsen, the spy who’d saved his life and whom he’d fallen in love with.
He needed a commitment from Gilbey to keep searching for her too.
A promise to find Henry and Hanne.
That’s what he’d demand in return for going on another mission. But first he wanted Gilbey to be more forthcoming about the mission. He certainly didn’t want to make it easy for him and he certainly didn’t want to be taken for granted.
* * *
‘Come on, Prince, you know I can’t spell it out until I have some indication as to whether you’re prepared to undertake another mission.’
‘And how can I indicate that until I have some idea what that mission is?’
Gilbey shifted uncomfortably in his chair, snapping a custard cream in half and crumbling the biscuit part on his plate. ‘You know how it works, Prince, or at least I’d hope by now you do… this isn’t some shop where one browses the goods and decides which ones you like and which you don’t. Look…’ he paused, giving the impression he was saying more than he thought wise at this stage. ‘Let me say this – the mission is of vital importance. I don’t think I’m understating matters when I say if it is successful it could help swing the course of the war in our favour.’
‘And if it fails?’
‘Then it could prolong the war. So come on, Prince, might you be interested?’
Prince paused, helping himself to another custard cream before explaining there were certain conditions: he wanted an assurance – an absolute assurance, in writing and ideally on some kind of official letter-headed paper – that the search for Henry would continue while he was away. He wanted a promise that at least two people – named officers – would be working on the case, full-time. He’d insist on meeting them before he left. And he also insisted on an undertaking that the search for Hanne would continue.
‘You know, sir, prisoners escaping who may have information, resistance groups – anything really.’
Gilbey nodded approvingly. ‘All sounds reasonable enough to me.’
Richard Prince blinked in surprise.
‘And regarding Henry – all this will be set in motion before I go?’
Tom Gilbey looked momentarily uncomfortable. It felt like they were haggling over the price of something which felt slightly distasteful but he nodded nonetheless.
‘You seem keen to get out there, Richard. It would have been easy enough for you to go back to Lincolnshire – after all, we can’t force you to go on a mission. That’s the point really, a good agent – a top one – takes to it like a duck to water. They have an instinctive feel for what they’re doing. They get seduced by the drama and the intrigue and, to be blunt, they get a kick out of it – it’s almost addictive. Dealing with danger, rising above it, having a clear understanding of the objectives of the mission and managing to achieve that – I sense that in you. I promise you we’ll do all we can to find Henry while you’re away.’
Tom Gilbey looked relieved now, as if a weight was off his shoulders. For the first time he seemed relaxed and was able to look Prince in the eye; he leaned back in his chair and smiled and then leaned forward again to pour them both another cup of tea.
‘Slightly too early for anything stronger, eh Prince?’
The younger man didn’t reply. He noticed his boss had resorted to his surname now he’d agreed to another mission.
‘Is there something perhaps you want to tell me, sir?’
Tom Gilbey frowned. ‘Such as?’
‘Such as what this new mission is… where will I be going, for instance?’
‘I was hoping perhaps tomorrow, Richard, would be a more opportune time to…’
‘I’d appreciate knowing now, sir. It’s not back into Germany, is it? I fear I’d be a marked man if I—’
‘It’s not Germany. You’ll be going a bit further south.’
‘Is this going to be some kind of quiz, sir?’
‘You’ll be going to Turkey.’
Richard Prince pulled a face and nodded in the manner of someone who’d received not so much good but news that at least was not nearly as bad as they’d feared. ‘Really, sir? That’s…’ He paused, unsure of how to express how he felt.
‘That’s better than you were expecting, is that what you mean?’
‘I suppose so, sir.’
‘Well let me tell you this, Prince – and it’s perhaps the most important lesson you’ll learn about going on a mission to Turkey. It may well be a neutral country but it can be at least as perilous a place for an agent to operate in as the Reich itself. Don’t be lulled into some false sense of security and think you can cut corners or let your guard down, if that isn’t rather mixing one’s metaphors. You’ll be in Istanbul – I don’t suppose you’ve ever been there?’
‘No, sir.’
‘Istanbul is quite the most fascinating city I’ve ever been to – I know that describing it as where East meets West is a t
errible cliché and all that, but one is terribly aware of that, of there being so many cultures in the city. At times it can feel quite European and at other times the culture is decidedly non-European, quite different from anything you’re used to. And like Madrid, Lisbon and Zurich, the city’s full of spies, all these big neutral cities attract them – it’s what makes them so damn dangerous.’
‘And my mission, sir? Are you able to tell me about it?’
‘I want you to be absolutely assured I mean what I say about making sure the search for Henry is run properly while you’re away. We’ve had a senior detective who retired a couple of yours ago recommended to us, and he said he’d like to have one of the chaps he worked with to be on the case with him. For the next two days I want you to brief them and at the end of it I want to be sure you have confidence in them.
‘Frankly, there’s no point in me sending you on a clandestine mission if you have these doubts – about the search for Henry – preying on your mind. In any case, I need a couple more days to get things in place. Where are we now – Tuesday? Meet these chaps tomorrow, come back and see me Friday.’
Chapter 8
London
July 1943
Only one of the two ancient lifts serving the security floors at the top of the building on Broadway was working that Friday morning which meant a small queue had formed for it. Most of those in the queue had come in from outside, soaked by a summer storm which had caught them unawares and was releasing an unpleasant smell in the way rain does on clothes.
An elderly commissionaire operated the lift. He wore a black uniform shiny with age, slightly frayed epaulettes and a row of medals on his breast attesting to service in the Great War. Two minutes later Prince was back in Tom Gilbey’s office, and as he entered it so too did a short lady of indeterminate age, dressed in a manner best described as ‘sensible’ who he was sure he’d seen looking in his direction in the reception area.
