by Seb Spence
“Is their car all right?” Grace responded, in equally subdued tones. “I got the impression when we pulled in that there was something wrong with it.”
“They’ve got a slow puncture in one of the front tyres and their spare’s already been used. We’ll have to keep stopping to pump it up, which will be a nuisance and slow us down a bit, but it’s not a serious problem. It won’t prevent us from getting to the farmhouse.” She saw outside that Elliott had just replaced the foot pump in the Riley’s boot and had returned to the Hillman. She watched as the three men drove off.
“I think I’ll freshen up,” Grace announced, rising, “I feel a bit sticky after all that travelling.” She knew this might be her last chance to put in a call to Cheyne’s office. If Vivian Adair stayed at the table, Grace was confident she could do it without being seen or heard by her. But it was not to be: Vivian Adair got up as well. “You’re right, I feel the same way. I could do with splashing some cold water on my face.” They left for the Ladies room together.
#
A few minutes after driving off from The Black Bull Tavern, they came across the Hillman parked by itself in a lay-by on a short, straight section of road between two bends. The fields on either side of the road at that point were bordered with six-foot high hedgerows, so the lay-by could be seen only by the motorists passing along that stretch, and these were infrequent. Vivian Adair drew in behind the Hillman and, after checking that there were no cars approaching from either direction, she and Grace got out and began to remove their luggage. Simultaneously, the three men emerged from the Hillman, Elliott carrying a small rucksack that contained his transmitter.
Vivian Adair opened the rear door of the Riley and raised the back seat to reveal the hidden compartment underneath. She lifted out from it a small suitcase with her own transmitter but was alarmed to find that the leather music case she had stashed along with it had gone. Inside this case were the Bletchley Park documents that she was taking back to Berlin. She realised immediately that Elliott must have removed it when she went back into The Black Bull Tavern after speaking with him outside. Although she had locked the Riley, he no doubt had a spare set of keys for it. After slamming the door shut, she spun round to face him; she was about to demand he return the case, but there was no need, for he saw what was coming.
“It’s alright, Vivian. Don’t worry, the case is perfectly safe. I took it as a precaution. Given that the police are looking for you, it would be wiser if you weren’t carrying those documents.”
“Give me the case immediately.”
“You can have it back when you get to the farmhouse.”
“Return it to me now, or– ”
“This is not the time or place for a confrontation,” Elliott interrupted, and as if to confirm this, a line of cars came into view round the bend in the distance. “I’ll give you the case once we have all arrived safely at the farmhouse. Then there will no longer be any risk.” Knowing that she could do nothing while they were in full view of the approaching motorists, he climbed behind the wheel of the Riley. The other two men, having finished transferring the luggage, also got in: DaSilva, with a grin on his face, stepped into the passenger side, while Len pushed past her and sat in the back. Reluctantly, she got into the Hillman with Grace and the two cars then started out, the Riley in front.
As they drove off behind Elliott, Vivian Adair was silent, staring ahead grimly and gripping the steering wheel so tightly that her knuckles were white. She felt it had taken considerable effort and daring on her part to obtain the documents, and she was not going to relinquish them without a fight. Given the opportunity, she would have shot Elliott on the spot, but she had realised it was too risky to do it then and there. She would have to go along with his plan for the time being, but if he tried to double-cross her at the farmhouse, she vowed to herself that she would finish him.
Grace sensed the woman was in a fury. It occurred to her that if there was a feud in the cell and it came to a head, with luck, it might prevent them from reaching the submarine. She wondered how badly Vivian Adair wanted the documents.
“Does it really matter who takes the case?” Grace asked. “Surely the important thing is that it reaches Berlin.”
“Yes, it does matter. I’ve risked my neck to get hold of those documents; I’ve also had to do some very disagreeable things to obtain them. I have a lot riding on the outcome of this mission. It is not enough for it to be successful: I have to be seen to have been instrumental in its success. If Elliott keeps both sets of documents, they will go to the Abwehr and my bosses will get nothing. In their eyes, I will have failed. I know what Elliott is up to – he doesn’t want to share the credit, especially with a woman. I tell you, if he doesn’t hand them over at the farmhouse, ... ”
3.
Tuesday, 20th May, 1941, 13.45-14.15hrs: Newcastle
To Barton’s surprise, the express was only a few minutes late arriving at Newcastle Central Station. He and Moncur were the first to alight from it and as they ran down the platform to the exit, Barton spotted Tom Foster’s tall frame waiting for them at the barrier.
“Barton! It’s good to see you!” Foster exclaimed, shaking hands vigorously with him. “How’s life in the South?”
“Sorry, Tom, no time for reminiscing – we’re in a desperate hurry. It’s literally a matter of life and death. Where’s our transport?”
“Oh, as bad as that, eh?” Foster replied looking somewhat taken aback. “It’s just outside.”
“This is Bronx, by the way,” Barton said, waving his hand towards Moncur by way of introduction.
Foster led them out smartly through the great portico at the station entrance and stopped on the pavement outside. Barton noted a few taxis there but no cars. Some GPO vans were being unloaded further along and a Scammell three-wheeler in LNER livery went by.
“Where is it, then?” Barton asked.
“Right in front of you,” Foster replied, pointing across the street. There, standing at the opposite side of the roadway, was a sight that was familiar to Barton – a blue-grey Fordson Sussex lorry with ‘RAF’ stencilled on the cab door and a winch-operator’s cage on the back.
“Is that it? A barrage balloon tender! You can’t be serious, Tom – I said we needed a car.”
Foster looked hurt. “I thought you just wanted some transport – didn’t realise you were looking for something specific.”
“Don’t you have anything else? We’re likely to be involved in a high-speed chase; we need something that’s fast.”
“I’m not running a used-car dealership, Barton – this is all we’ve got spare at the moment. There is a war on, you know. You’re lucky to get this. The only reason it’s available is that the winch on the back has seized up and is awaiting repair. I’m afraid you’ll have to take it or leave it.”
Barton stared at the lorry in silence for a few moments and eventually responded: “I don’t suppose we have much choice – we’ll have to take it.” Patting Foster on the back, he tried to conceal his disappointment. “I’m sure it’ll be fine, Tom. Thanks for coming through for me on this one.”
Foster seemed assuaged by this and replied with a smile, “OK then, she’s all yours for the next 24 hours. All I ask is that you bring her back in one piece.”
After getting directions from Foster on how to reach the A68, they climbed into the lorry and set off, with Moncur behind the wheel.
“You realise we haven’t a hope in hell of catching them in this thing,” Bronx observed helpfully as they drove away from the station. “What are we going to do?”
“The only option is to go up the A68 and make for Edinburgh. It’s my guess they’re heading there, since that’s where Grace and Miller had their next booking. We’ll try and pick up their trail there.”
“I wouldn’t be too hopeful, if I were you; Edinburgh’s a big place.”
Barton did not respond but stared broodingly into the distance as he considered possible courses of action to take w
hen they reached Edinburgh. After a few minutes, the silence was broken by Moncur: “Incidentally, Barton, what’s in that red cylinder lying on the cab floor behind our seats? I noticed it when I got in. It looks like a very large fire extinguisher.”
Barton glanced down behind his seat. “Oh that – it’s just a hydrogen cylinder. Hydrogen is what they inflate the barrage balloons with to make them float. ”
“Isn’t hydrogen inflammable?”
“Yes, but only if you set light to it.”
“That’s not very reassuring Barton. Basically, you’re telling me we’re driving along in the Hindenburg.”
“The R101 would be a more appropriate comparison, seeing as we’re British”
“I’m not amused. Can’t we dump it?”
“There’s no need: it’s perfectly safe.” Barton noted that it was not a large cylinder, just a four-footer. They were usually six foot long and towed – 30 at a time – on a trailer behind the Sussex. “I wonder what it’s doing in the cab – maybe Tom put it here so it wouldn’t be pinched. Seems to be full though,” he said, looking at the gauge on the regulator.
#
Half an hour after arriving in Newcastle, they were turning onto the A68. Barton noticed there was a police car parked on the verge a little way after the junction. “Better watch your speed Bronx – we don’t have time for a run-in with the law.”
4.
Tuesday, 20th May, 1941, 12.00-14.00hrs: MI5 headquarters, 57-58 St James’s Street, London
Immediately after his meeting with General Cunningham, Minton rang his office at Crystal Palace and arranged for one of his interrogation officers to be sent over straightaway, along with a stenographer. They were part of the trappings he needed to create the courtroom atmosphere for cross-examining Wilks and Mitchell. He estimated it would take his staff at least half an hour to drive across London to the St James’s Street building and decided to use this time to read through and digest the material in the folder Cunningham had given him. Minton felt strongly that it was always important to be fully prepared for an interrogation, as there were often instances when seemingly trivial snippets of information could prove to be crucial in undermining the story of a spy.
At the end of half an hour, he set aside the folder. He would have liked longer to study its contents but felt he could not afford the time, for before the main interrogations started, he wanted to have a preliminary meeting with each of the two prisoners, ostensibly to take down basic details but in fact to gauge how difficult it was going to be to get them to talk.
Believing that the woman might be easier to prevail over, he chose to interview Joan Wilks first. He was, however, disappointed in this expectation and the questioning did not last long, for she refused to speak at all. Instead, she sat glaring at him defiantly, a mocking smile on her lips. She was clearly a fanatic, and he realised it could take weeks to break her, if she broke at all.
Mitchell, on the other hand, was an altogether different prospect. He responded genially to questioning and tried to give the impression that he was willing to cooperate. He was happy to help with the investigation, he said, but felt he must have been arrested in error: his explanation was that it was simply a case of mistaken identity for, as his papers indicated, he was not this Robert Mitchell person that Minton referred to. When asked if he had ever been to the Riga Street warehouse, he laughed off the question, saying he had never been in any kind of warehouse in his life – he was an actor, not a warehouseman. However, Minton sensed from the sweating and occasional nervous tics, that fear lurked behind the mask of relaxed bonhomie, and he was sure that this one would crack fairly quickly. It was just a question of applying sufficient pressure.
Minton pretended to take Mitchell’s remonstrations of innocence seriously and said that if it was a case of mistaken identity there was nothing to worry about; it would all be sorted out soon. By giving Mitchell some hope, the blow would be all the harder when that hope was extinguished by the massive weight of evidence Minton would be presenting. And a key element of that evidence was Lucy Walker.
When he came out of the room where Mitchell was being held, he found an orderly waiting for him. “Miss Walker has arrived from Holloway Prison, sir. We’ve put her in an office along from Room Twenty.”
“Excellent. I’ll see her soon. Make sure you look after her well. Bring her some refreshments while she’s waiting. Oh, and there’s something else ... ” In preparation for his interrogation of Bob Mitchell, Minton had been going over in his mind the events at the fake film studio in Riga Street, and an idea had occurred to him. “Can you get me a canister with a film in it – it doesn’t matter what the film is, but I need it fast, before I start my interrogation.”
#
As she was being driven away from Holloway Prison in the car sent to collect her, Lucy Walker had found it difficult to believe she was free: her experience with Lyonesse Films eight months earlier had made her suspicious of everyone, and at first she entertained the idea that her release might be part of some elaborate deception. But, by the time they reached the building in St James’s Street, she had accepted that her ordeal was really over.
However, sitting in the office, waiting for Colonel Minton to appear, suspicion turned to bewilderment as she wondered why she had suddenly been released. An orderly came in with tea and biscuits and said that the Colonel would see her shortly. Sipping the hot, strong tea, she went over possible reasons for her release: they might have decided there was not enough evidence against her ... or perhaps they had found Mr Elliott at last, and he had confirmed her story. If the latter, might he still be interested in signing her up for another of his films, she wondered.
Her speculations were interrupted by the entrance of Colonel Minton. “Miss Walker, I’m very pleased to see you, and greatly relieved that you have at last been freed from prison,” he said, shaking hands with her. “I know this has been a traumatic experience for you, and I regret that it has taken so long to bring about your release, but it has been necessary to keep you there for your own safety. I owe you an explanation of what has been going on, but I’m afraid it will have to be brief, as there is a very pressing matter I have to attend to, a matter that I hope you will agree to help me with.”
Lucy Walker stared at him questioningly but did not respond. Minton continued: “Towards the end of your interrogation sessions at Windermere House, I began to realise that you were telling the truth. I discovered that Lyonesse Films was a sham, and deduced that the people behind it were fifth columnists trying to set you up. They wanted the security services to believe you were a real German agent codenamed ‘Cobalt’, for whom we had been looking for some time.”
Lucy looked shocked. “You mean they weren’t really making a film?”
“That’s correct. The film equipment in the Riga Street warehouse belonged to a genuine film company that had gone bust, and it was just being stored there. The supposed film makers you met worked in a theatrical troupe in real life, and so had some experience of acting; as a result, they were no doubt able to make their movie-making activities look authentic, but they were not shooting a film. Their goal was to throw the security services off the scent: they figured that if you died in the process of being arrested, we would call off our search for the real agent we were tracking down.”
She digested this news silently and then asked in a tremulous voice, “But how was I to die?”
“The cyanide capsule they gave you, just before you walked down Grindley Street on the morning of your arrest, was real.”
“Surely not,” she protested in disbelief. “They were so good to me. I can’t believe they would want to kill me.”
“Remember you spat the capsule out in the lane just before you entered Grindley Street? I found it there and had it analysed by our technical staff – it contained a lethal dose of cyanide.”
Lucy Walker stared at him wide-eyed, stunned by this revelation.
“I know it’s hard to take in, but these peo
ple are determined and pitiless: they will stop at nothing to achieve their aims. We believe they are responsible for a whole string of murders, including your employer, Mr Pickering, and your aunt.”
Lucy’s eyes began to fill with tears, but she managed to compose herself. “Why didn’t you just let me go, then, if you believed my story?”
“Because I deduced that someone in my organisation must have been in league with this gang – at the time, I did not know who it was. If we had released you then, the mole would have guessed he had been detected and gone to ground. He would also have alerted the rest of the gang that you had been released. They would have had to eliminate you because you would have been able to identify them all. The best way to protect you without alerting the gang that we were on to them was to pretend we had not believed your story and to put you in prison awaiting trial for espionage.”
“Why didn’t you tell me all this at the time? At least I would have known what was going on; I wouldn’t have had to worry about facing a court trial and possibly years in prison – or worse.”
“I couldn’t tell you in case you told anyone else: even if you were sworn to secrecy, you might have let it slip out to someone – a visitor, say, you thought was trustworthy. I apologise for using such extreme measures, but it was the only course of action available. I did try to assuage some of your fears by hinting that things would turn out all right in the end. I had hoped that we would be able to track down the gang within a few weeks of your imprisonment and then release you, but in the event, it has taken nearly eight months. They have proved to be elusive, but we have them in our sights now. And we need your assistance to bring them in.”
