by Seb Spence
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Minton felt it was a depressing outcome; he hadn’t bargained for things ending like this. He knelt down beside the girl’s body on the pavement and checked her neck for a pulse. Several seconds went by while he pressed his fingers gently on her carotid artery, trying to detect a sign of life. The others stood around, looking down on the pair in silence.
Suddenly, something seemed to galvanise him. “She’s still alive!” he exclaimed. “We need to get her to a hospital fast – St Thomas’s is the nearest.” He stood up and addressed the two men who’d made the arrest: “Take her in your car; we’ll follow on in ours”. Two of the other Special Branch men lifted the limp body into the car that was standing at the kerbside and got into the back seat with her, one on either side. Lucy sat propped up between them, her head slumped on the shoulder of one. The two arresting officers got in the front, and the car then drove off at speed.
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As the car accelerated away, Lucy cautiously half-opened an eye. They surely could not still be filming now, she thought, but decided to wait a little longer before ending her performance. Presently, she felt the car turn a corner and, guessing they must be out of Grindley Street, decided it was time. Sitting up between her captors she announced brightly, “Well, how was that? Did I do OK?”
The two men in the back stared at her, dumbfounded, while the man in the front passenger seat looked round, wide-eyed. “What was that you swallowed just now?” he asked, when he had got over his surprise.
“A cod-liver-oil capsule,” she replied. “I didn’t like the vinegar ones that Mr Elliott gave me: I bit my tongue a few days ago and the vinegar made the wound sting. I hate cod-liver oil, so I figured it would be just as good at making me pull a face.” The three men looked at her blankly, trying to make some sense of what she was saying.
“We’d better stop and let the others know what’s happened,” the driver said, pulling over. He waited until the two cars with Minton and the other Special Branch men had almost caught up and then got out to wave them down.
Lucy twisted round in her seat to look through the rear window at what was going on. The man in army uniform whom she had seen in Grindley Street was getting out of a car that had drawn up behind them, and two other men appeared from a second car beyond. These new arrivals converged on her driver and the four men stood conversing in the road. After a brief conference, they all returned to their vehicles.
“Change of plan,” her driver announced, getting behind the wheel and setting off, “we’re heading for IC3.”
Lucy wondered what was going on. “Where’s Mr Elliott?” she asked. “He said he’d meet me in Grindley Street.” No one replied or even looked at her. It seemed to Lucy that she was deliberately being ignored. At first, she thought the men were just unfriendly, but as the silence continued she began to feel uneasy, to feel that something was wrong. They crossed the Thames by Waterloo Bridge, and her unease turned into alarm, for she realised they were now heading away from the warehouse ‘studio’ in Riga Street.
“Where are we going?” she asked anxiously, but there was no response. She looked at the two men next to her: they were staring impassively out of the windows, avoiding eye contact with her. It began to dawn on her that these were probably not film extras, and she wondered who they were. She tried to keep her voice steady when she next spoke, but it began to falter. “Stop the car, I want to get out. I must speak with Mr Elliott or Mr DaSilva,” she pleaded, but still no one answered. She felt the tears start to well up in her eyes. “Who are you? ... Please let me go,” she sobbed.
Twenty minutes later, the car was passing through a quiet residential area. In a street of large secluded villas, it turned into a driveway lined with huge rhododendron bushes. As they drove in, Lucy glimpsed through her tear-filled eyes a small nameplate on the wall by the entrance: ‘Windermere House’ it announced innocuously.
3.
Saturday, 7th September, 1940: Stanmore, North London
It had been a depressing few days for Barton. There had been no news of GK and no reply from Grace, although he realised it was perhaps too soon to expect a letter from her. He felt he needed to sort out at least one of these problems.
He decided that, realistically, there was little he could do about the first. The day after he had learnt from Bronx Moncur that GK had failed to return, he had gone to see GK’s commanding officer in the Air Intelligence section at Fighter Command – a Squadron Leader Dobson. Barton had explained his misgivings concerning his missing friend, but Dobson had not been very sympathetic, though to be fair to him, he had bigger things to worry about, namely his part in helping to stave off the daily onslaught of a thousand or so German aircraft. The disappearance of a chump like GK did not figure very highly on the CO’s list of priorities; in fact, Barton got the impression that GK’s absence was something of a boon to his section.
All he found out was that GK had asked for permission to visit two Birmingham factories that produced the optical equipment his unit used for inspecting aerial photographs. GK had told Dobson he had some ideas for improvements, which he wanted to discuss with their technical experts. He was supposed to go up on Monday 26th August, visit the factories over the following two days, then return to Stanmore, reporting for duty at 0800 hours Thursday. However, he never appeared on Thursday morning, and enquiries made by the RAF Police at the two factories revealed he had not turned up for either of his meetings. Dobson dismissed the idea that GK might have fallen foul of enemy agents; his theory was that GK had simply decided to go AWOL and, as he had no leave due, he had concocted the story about the Birmingham factories in order to get a three-day head start on the scuffers.
“To be perfectly honest,” Dobson had disclosed, “Kemp didn’t fit in here; he didn’t like the work. The RAF Police are treating it as a case of desertion, and I agree with them. There’s no need for you to get involved, Barton: the RAFP are as anxious to get their hands on Kemp as you are, and they’re doing their best to track him down.” There seemed little more that Barton could do to help his friend.
As far as the problem with Grace was concerned, he decided there was only one option left for him: he would have to go down to Bramlington once more and apologise in person. If she refused to see him, then he would have to accept it was over between them. Accordingly, he had contrived to get another 24-hour pass – for today, Saturday – with the intention of going to Bramlington to call on her.
He had got off duty at noon but, before setting off on the journey, he had first popped into his billet to grab a bite of lunch. He had just cut himself a wedge of pork pie, when the phone rang. He picked it up immediately, hoping it might be GK or Grace, but it was a man with a West Midlands accent.
“Could I speak to Pilot Officer Barton, please.”
“Speaking.”
“Hello. My name’s Morrison. I’m a supervisor at the main telephone exchange here in Birmingham. I have a message for you from a caller. It was received on the evening of Monday 26th August, so I’m afraid it has been delayed by almost two weeks.”
“That’s a bit slow, isn’t it, even for the GPO?”
“There was an air raid going on at the time, and the exchange was hit by incendiary bombs just after the call came in; I was injured by one before I was able to write down the message, and I’ve been in hospital since then.”
Barton regretted his carping. “Oh! Sorry to hear that. I hope it wasn’t serious.”
“Well, let’s just say it hasn’t done my complexion any good, but I’ll survive. Anyway, as I said, I wasn’t able to write this down at the time, so I’m passing it on from memory. The message was from someone in RAF Intelligence who gave his initials as GK, I think – he said you would know who it was from?”
“Yes, yes,” Barton responded eagerly, “go on.”
“He insisted the message was urgent. He said he knew who ‘Cobalt’ was and gave a description: a slim girl in her twenties, slightly above average height and with brown ha
ir. I seem to recall he said she was probably on the stage.”
“Is that all?”
“I’m afraid so. I remember he abruptly stopped speaking at that point. I may just be imagining things, but I got the impression he either left the phone in a hurry, or else someone stopped him from continuing his call.”
Barton was alarmed by this remark: it seemed to confirm his worst fears. “Where was he phoning from?”
“It was a public call box in Hednesford, a small town about twenty miles north of Birmingham.”
“Is there anything else you can tell me?”
“That’s all I can remember.”
Barton thanked the man and took his number in case he needed to contact him again. His first thought on ringing off was that he had better inform Dobson about the call, so he phoned him immediately. Dobson received the news with detachment. He said he would pass the information on to the RAF Police, but it was clear he was still not convinced of the gravity of the predicament that GK might be in.
Barton’s initial impulse after putting down the phone to Dobson was to use his 24-hour pass to go up to Hednesford and start making enquiries, but on reflection he thought that this might not prove very effective. There was not much he could do by himself; he needed professional assistance. He also felt he needed to speak to someone who would not downplay his concerns.
After some thought, it occurred to him that there was one person who would fit the bill, someone who would be able to help and who would definitely take his concerns seriously – the officer who was in charge of investigating the original security breach in GK’s section. What was his name? Minton? Yes, that was it, Colonel Minton. From what GK had revealed on the night of the mess party, it was Minton who had first told him of ‘Cobalt’; the man would certainly be interested in hearing about Supervisor Morrison’s phone call with GK.
However, getting in contact with the Colonel could take a while, he guessed, in view of the fact he had no idea which part of military intelligence Minton worked in. The trip to Bramlington would have to wait, Barton thought regretfully.
4.
Saturday, 7th September, 1940: Windermere House, Hampstead
On arrival at Interrogation Centre 3, Lucy Walker had been given a nightgown to put on, of the type issued to patients in hospital, and had been made to remove her clothes so that they could be taken away for examination along with her straw bag and its contents. She had then been photographed and had her fingerprints taken. Following these formalities, she was led down to a cell in the basement, where she was left while Minton prepared to interrogate her. Throughout this reception process, she had sobbed continuously and protested her innocence; she kept saying there had been a mistake, she had just been pretending. It could all be cleared up, she insisted, if only they would call Mr Elliott or Mr DaSilva.
But her petitions were ignored. She found herself alone in a cold, stark cell, devoid of furniture apart from a low bed with a mattress on it. Anything that could potentially be used as a means of suicide had been removed; there was not even a light flex, the cell being illuminated dimly by a single bulkhead lamp out of reach in the ceiling.
Minton estimated it would be at least a couple of hours before they were ready to start her interrogation. Her clothes and effects had to be meticulously examined for incriminating evidence: concealed weapons, sabotage equipment, coding materials, miniature cameras – the stock-in-trade gadgets of the spy. In addition, the small package she had picked up from the dead-letter box in Grindley Street was found to contain a roll of microfilm and they needed to have it developed. There was no hurry, though, as far as Minton was concerned: a few hours spent waiting in the cell, fretting over what would happen next might help to put her in a cooperative frame of mind. Unlike their counterparts in the German security services, British interrogators were forbidden from using physical violence on their captives – but a certain amount of psychological pressure was permissible.
Their examination of her things turned out to be very fruitful. It did not take them long to discover the false bottom in her straw basket and the telltale items it concealed: a passport, a roll of banknotes and a gun. Close examination of the passport showed it to be a skilful forgery. It was also found to have several features in common with forged passports taken from two previously arrested German agents: the paper, ink and stamp marks were identical in all three cases. In contrast, the money – one hundred and twenty pounds in one-pound notes – was genuine. Revealingly, the serial numbers ran on from similar notes found on several captured agents – they were clearly part of a stash of Bank of England notes that the Abwehr were doling out to their operatives in Britain. The gun was a 6.35mm Mauser pocket pistol, compact but lethal at close range. Minton noted from the smell of the barrel that it had also been fired in the not-too-distant past, and so had it sent off to the ballistics experts for further examination.
Inspection of her clothing also turned up some illuminating discoveries. Her dress had been made by a French couturier whose fashion wear had been unobtainable in Britain since the Fall of France in May. Even more damning, her underwear was found to have the manufacturer’s labels still attached – S. Lindauer & Co. Corsetfabrik, Stuttgart-Cannstatt; this was a careless mistake. Most telling of all, one of her shoes was found to have a blade hidden in the heel. Taken together with the items in her straw bag, it was a fairly convincing array of evidence.
Minton was pleased with the way things were going and phoned Brigadier Vaughan to deliver a report on what had happened so far. Vaughan congratulated him on a well-executed operation and took it upon himself to expedite the analysis of the microfilm and pistol.
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Minton felt it was important that the first interview set the right atmosphere: it needed to establish the power and authority of the interrogators. The suspect should feel they were up before a judge in court. He decided that he and Goddard would take the first interrogation session together, with himself asking the questions and Goddard observing. He would get one of the other interrogation officers to sit in as well, and there would be a stenographer present.
Minton called Goddard to his office so that they could go over the line of attack. Usually, the first part of the interrogation process was aimed at discovering whether the suspect was in fact an agent. Once this had been established, the objective was then to break them to get as much information as possible about the enemy organization, and if possible to ‘turn’ them, that is, persuade them to act as double agents. The latter was an important goal, for such double agents offered several benefits: they could impart inside information on the working practices of the Abwehr; they could provide direct knowledge of the enemy’s intentions; and they could be used to pass disinformation back.
On the strength of the evidence, it seemed to both Minton and Goddard that the girl from Grindley Street was indisputably working for the Germans – her involvement with them was so obvious, in fact, that there seemed little need to establish it. However, they would need to convince the girl herself that their case against her was so unassailable that it was futile for her to deny involvement. Their aim then must be to persuade her one way or another to cooperate: they must get her to divulge her contacts, her mission, her codes – every detail of her operations and of what she knew of the Abwehr. Their ultimate goal was to turn her.
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The examination of Lucy’s effects was completed by 1pm, but prints of the microfilm found in her bag had still not been received by that time. However, Minton felt he had enough evidence to proceed without the prints, so he decided to go ahead with the interrogation without further delay. Consequently, just after one o’clock, Lucy was brought into the interrogation room and made to stand in the centre. In front of her, Minton and Goddard were seated behind a long table, which had nothing on it apart from a phone. At a smaller table at one side of the room a corporal was sitting at a stenotype machine, and seated in a corner behind Lucy was another officer. She recognised Minton as the man in
uniform she had seen in Grindley Street. He stared at her impassively for a few moments and then began the questioning.
At first, the questions were routine: “What is your full name?”, “Where do you live?”, “When and where were you born?”, “What are your parents’ names?” Lucy responded initially, speaking in a faint voice, but after the first half-dozen questions her patience snapped and she cried out tearfully: “Why are you asking me all these questions? You’ve made a mistake – we were filming. All you need to do is call the film company – Lyonesse Films – ask for Mr Elliott or Mr DaSilva. They’ll tell you we were shooting a scene in that street.”
“All in good time, Miss Walker. I promise you we will attempt to contact these people, but for the time being please carry on answering my questions.” Minton continued to work through his catalogue of queries, which were aimed at establishing the suspect’s background: “What is your religion?”, “Do you speak any languages other than English?”, “Have you ever travelled abroad?” Once they had built up a complete picture of her, they could start to probe it to find out which bits were real and which fake.
As soon as he had acquired all the information he needed, Minton decided it was time to let Lucy tell the cover story she had no doubt concocted to account for her activities. It would be interesting, he thought, to see just how she proposed to talk her way out of the predicament she was in.
“Very well, Miss Walker, please could you give us your explanation of why you were in Grindley Street this morning and what you were doing there. If you want to describe events leading up to this morning’s incident, that is fine with us; start your story at whatever point you wish, but please be as detailed as possible – let us know facts such as names, dates, places, addresses.” The intention behind urging her to give details was that they would get her to re-tell her account later on, perhaps many times: on each occasion she would then have to remember all the lies she had made up. The more detail she supplied now, the more likely it was that she would forget some fact later on and contradict herself. It was a method Minton liked to employ, but it required patience – and a good memory.
