The Interrogator

by Andrew Williams

  ‘There were a few lines in the bulletin.’

  Lindsay looked down. He was turning the stem of his glass slowly in his hand. ‘I used to wonder if it was Martin’s submarine that fired the torpedoes . . .’

  ‘That isn’t very likely, is it?’

  ‘All those ships lost in the autumn to a handful of U-boats – the odds were short enough to trouble me between two and three in the morning. I know now that it wasn’t his boat.’

  Lindsay slipped the photograph of his mother back in his wallet then took a silver cigarette case from his jacket. ‘My grandfather gave me this. He served in the Imperial German Navy by the way. Would you like one?’

  Mary declined.

  He tapped the cigarette against the top of the case. ‘At sea, the war’s very simple. Boom: a torpedo bursts through the side of your ship and that’s it. It’s different in the Division, don’t you think, face to face with the enemy?’

  Mary thought of Rodger Winn at the plot table, gazing at his photograph of Dönitz like a monk before an icon. But that was academic interest. The fusty air of superiority in Room 40 sometimes reminded her of the Senior Common Room at her old college.

  ‘You may find yourself on the opposite side of an interrogation table from your cousin one day,’ she said with a smile.

  ‘He would get the better of me, he always does . . .’ Lindsay was about to say more but checked himself.

  ‘Go on, please,’ she said.

  He lit his cigarette and drew a little anxiously on it. ‘Would it shock you to know that I can’t help feeling proud of Martin? We’re close; he took me under his wing as a boy, he’s a little older. People say we are very alike, not just in appearance but in temperament too. You know . . .’

  He stopped abruptly and his face tightened into a frown. Mary’s cousin Gillian was shimmering towards them, blonde and willowy and very elegant.

  ‘This looks very intense,’ she cooed. ‘James has sent me over to remind you it’s a party – his party. Gillian Neville, Lieutenant,’ and she held out her hand.

  ‘Lindsay.’ His tone was only a polite degree above freezing. Gillian flushed an awkward pink. ‘Sorry. I’m not welcome. James asked me . . .’

  Mary lifted a gentle, caressing hand to her cousin’s face: ‘I know, darling, but we’re quite happy chatting here. Tell James you’re under fresh orders to sparkle somewhere else.’

  ‘I was very rude,’ said Lindsay when Gillian had left them.

  ‘Yes. James was right about that.’

  The little ormolu clock struck ten. The room was almost empty. Mrs Leigh was clinking glasses like an East End barmaid at closing time.

  ‘You two coming with us,’ I’ve got a table at the Havana, Denman Street.’ James Henderson was advancing towards them coat in hand. ‘It’s got a good little coloured band. I was in two minds about asking you really, you’ve been such party poopers.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Lindsay mechanically.

  ‘No you’re not. Well, are you coming?’

  Lindsay looked at Mary who shook her head: ‘I’d like to but I’m whacked.’ The memory of the Café de Paris was very raw.

  ‘Then I suppose that’s a no from you too, Lindsay?’

  ‘Well yes, I’m afraid it is, but I’ll walk with you to the bottom of Haymarket.’

  Lindsay joined the Havana party in the hall. Gillian Neville was bubbling conspicuously, her back turned resolutely towards him. Mrs Leigh helped him into his coat. The front door opened and the party began to drift on to the street. Lindsay turned to look for Mary.

  ‘Here.’

  Her cool fingers touched the back of his hand. She was standing at the bottom of the stairs, her skin very white in the flat shadow of the hall. ‘I’ve written it down for you. If I’m not at home, Uncle’s housekeeper will take a message. Sundays are good and some evenings.’ She paused for just a second and then laughed: ‘I feel sure you’ve got that maddening, slightly supercilious smile on your face.’

  ‘And lunch-times?’ he asked.

  ‘Sometimes.’

  He took half a step, reached for her hand and bent to brush it with his lips.

  ‘Auf Wiedersehen. Ein süsses Schrecken geht durch mein Gebein,’ he whispered.

  Mary was still laughing as the door clicked behind him.

  For once the city was still. It was a cool clear night, the sky sprinkled with blackout stars. The party shuffled along shuttered eighteenth-century streets towards Palace Yard and Parliament and Lindsay trailed self-consciously in its wake. The breeze was freshening from the west, gently rocking the flabby grey barrage balloons that clustered above Horse Guards like tethered elephants. As they crossed the Mall, James Henderson fell into step.

  ‘Colonel Checkland rang me an hour ago with some extraordinary news. We’ve got that fellow Mohr.’

  ‘Jürgen Mohr?’

  ‘Is there more than one Mohr?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Well it’s the one I’ve heard of,’ Henderson snapped. ‘The bugger who sent a personal signal to Churchill in the first months of the war, directing him to the survivors of a ship he’d sunk. There was a great brouhaha in the Commons at the time. One of their heroes. The most senior naval officer we’ve bagged. The Colonel says the First Sea Lord’s cock-a-hoop. HMS White picked up a contact off the African coast, pursued and depth-charged the U-112 to the surface. She’s on her way to Liverpool with the prisoners – expected in ten days. You’re to meet her.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘Good.’

  They walked on in silence.

  Lindsay parted company with Henderson in the Haymarket and five minutes later he was climbing the stairs to his flat. His father had lent him the pied-à-terre the family firm rented in St James’s Square. The apartment had been furnished by Lindsay’s mother with austere ‘Imperial’ pieces she had rescued from his grandmother’s home in Bremen. His father’s men had worked a small miracle carrying them to the top of the house. They were a sentimental anchor for Lindsay’s mother, a heavy dark echo of childhood and Germany. No one else liked them but no one was courageous enough to say so. The furniture made the small flat poky and uncomfortable, but it was rent-free and just a stone’s throw from the Admiralty and Piccadilly Underground station.

  Once inside, he felt his way through the thick blackness of the hall into his bedroom. A soft white light was pouring through the open curtains and he was able to move more freely. He took the little piece of paper from his pocket and smiled as he remembered the light touch of Mary’s fingers: ‘Abbey 1745’.

  ‘Mary Henderson, Mary Henderson,’ he chanted softly to himself, ‘where will this take us?’ And he eased himself on to his lumpy old bed, the telephone number held to the light from the window.

  9

  T

  he Easter Sunday service at St John’s was a dreary affair. Mary left before communion. Her uncle had invited two elderly colleagues from the Commons and their perjink wives to lunch. To the clink of silver and old china, they talked of defeat, of the losses in the Atlantic and the collapse of Yugoslavia, of thousands dying in the streets of Belgrade. As Mrs Leigh was clearing the plates the telephone rang in the hall. It was Lindsay.

  ‘Rescue me,’ she whispered into the handpiece.

  He laughed: ‘From what?’

  ‘Please be quick.’

  He arrived in Lord North Street between dessert and coffee. Mary left him on the doorstep and collected her coat and scarf before her uncle could draw them into conversation. A jeep from the Division’s transport pool was parked a little way along the street, its engine still turning. Lindsay had spent the morning at Section 11’s small office in nearby Sanctuary Buildings and was still in his uniform.

  ‘Hyde Park?’

  ‘Anywhere,’ she said.

  Bowling through the streets, the wind plucking at her scarf and hair, Mary’s spirits began to lift. It was a warm blue afternoon, the sun was twinkling through the windshield and the plane trees in
Park Lane were tipped with a promise of spring.

  ‘I’m so glad you rang,’ she shouted above the rattle of the engine.

  ‘But surprised?’

  ‘No. Why?’

  ‘It’s so soon after the party. But there were things I didn’t have a chance to say.’

  He turned into a street off the Bayswater Road and parked in front of the shell of a once handsome early Victorian terrace. A muddy crater had cut the road in half. On the other side, Mary could see a house belonging to a friend of her mother’s. Mrs Proctor kept a large pram in her hall full of papers and clothes and a strongbox of jewellery, just enough of her life to wheel to the shelter. But she was fortunate; until now her home had been spared.

  They walked south-east across the park, away from the hum of traffic and the Serpentine with families and spooning couples ambling at its edge.

  ‘Did Winn tell you?’ Lindsay asked. ‘Security has decided that none of our codes has been compromised, and there’s nothing to worry about, nothing at all, it’s just gossip.’

  ‘No, he didn’t tell me.’

  ‘But you don’t sound surprised.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘You know, they didn’t investigate it properly,’ he said with a little shake of the head. ‘They didn’t even speak to my prisoner, the wireless operator Zier.’

  Mary said nothing.

  The Royal Artillery had built a wire fence across the path to protect a battery of anti-aircraft guns and they were forced on to the grass, through the shaking daffodils.

  ‘Did I give the impression at the party that I was suffering from a conflict of loyalties?’ Lindsay asked suddenly.

  ‘Your cousin Martin, the U-boat officer?’

  ‘I want you to know, he despises Hitler.’

  ‘He’s fighting for him.’

  ‘He’s fighting for Germany.’

  ‘It amounts to the same thing,’ she said with slight irritation.

  Lindsay shook his head: ‘Really, no.’

  She stopped walking and turned away from him a little, hands buried deep in her coat pockets, shoes and stockings wet with dew the April sun was too weak to burn away.

  ‘This war, you know, I believe we’re fighting a new darkness,’ she said with quiet feeling. ‘Something evil. Really evil.’

  ‘Your brother said you were religious.’

  She turned back sharply to look him in the eye: ‘I haven’t taken vows. But yes, I feel it’s my Christian duty to do something, don’t you?’

  The question was flung like a gauntlet.

  ‘Perhaps my cousin feels the same,’ said Lindsay tartly. ‘German bishops say it’s a sin not to fight for the Volk.’

  ‘My goodness, you do sound confused.’

  ‘How patronising.’

  They stared at each other for a frosty moment, then she reached across and touched his sleeve: ‘Sorry, I didn’t mean to say that.’

  He smiled at her: ‘I haven’t forgotten – you like to be direct. But don’t apologise, we’re as bad as each other. And I’m rather protective of my cousin.’

  Small white clouds were rolling east over the city now, their cold shadows scudding across the grass. They found the path again and walked on at a brisker pace. Lindsay asked Mary about her family and university and the years she had spent studying archaeology: ‘I can’t imagine you in a muddy hole.’

  ‘I’ll let you have my paper on Norse burial rites.’

  He laughed. ‘Background for the new dark age.’

  Mary hesitated, then said, half in jest: ‘My brother may have told you I’m an academic bluestocking. I deny it.’

  ‘He said men were frightened of you, and now I understand why.’

  ‘Don’t tease me. James’s friends are frightened of any woman who has something to say for herself but you must stick up for me. We’re both outsiders, thrown into the same den of lions.’

  ‘Then it is my duty to protect you.’

  ‘Duty?’ She looked at him steadily, chin slightly raised, daring him to catch and hold her eye. It was an unmistakable, thrilling challenge.

  And he held her gaze: ‘Duty? No. Not a duty.’

  It was not until the following weekend that they were able to see each other again. By then the Germans had bombed the Admiralty, forcing daylight into dim, remote corridors, shaking even the sub-basement of the Citadel. Yugoslavia capitulated and Greece was on the point of doing the same. Lindsay took Mary to the Coconut Grove night club.

  There was an expensive air of hysterical gaiety, with Society girls wrapped around young men in Savile Row suits. The Latin Orchestra was very fine but there was almost no room to dance. They sat at a table sipping martinis, upright and self-conscious and too far apart for conversation. Lindsay said something she took to be an invitation:

  ‘Yes, if you like.’

  ‘I didn’t ask you to dance,’ he shouted. ‘We can’t, can we, it’s too crowded?’

  He looked ill at ease, unhappy. ‘What’s the matter?’ She reached across for his hand: ‘Come and sit next to me.’

  He squeezed in beside her, shoulder to shoulder, and she took his hand again, its palm a little rough and dry: ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I haven’t been to a place like this for a long time.’

  ‘We can go?’

  ‘No, no, it’s fine.’

  He smiled and raised her hand to his lips.

  Later, she floated home, his arm around her, drunk with warm anticipation. They kissed in the blackout shadows at the end of Lord North Street, quiet, deliberate, intense kisses. And he pressed himself against her, breathed the scent of her hair and felt the weight of her head against his shoulder.

  ‘I think I’m falling in love with you,’ he whispered.

  At last they broke apart and Lindsay held her hands tightly and bent to rest his forehead against hers: ‘I’m not sure I’ll be able to see you for a while.’

  ‘Tired of me already?’

  He laughed and kissed her forehead: ‘I’m meeting prisoners in Liverpool, the crew of the U-112 and then there are the interrogations.’

  ‘Winn’s very interested in the commander, Jürgen Mohr. He’s quite a catch.’

  ‘Perhaps it was your brother’s idea to send me to Liverpool, to save his sister?’

  ‘Perhaps he’s right.’

  MAY 1941

  MOST SECRET

  It is of the utmost importance that the loyalty and integrity of any officer engaged in this work should be beyond question and that their discretion should be of the highest order. The closest enquiries should be made into the political past and views of prospective interrogating officers.

  Admiralty NID 11

  Notes on the Interrogation of Prisoners of War, 1941

  10

  HMS White

  Liverpool

  I

  t was the old White’s finest hour. She swept into Liverpool in a triumphant cloud of steam, decked in crew and bunting. Her captain, Lieutenant-Commander Jack Thompson, was enjoying the spectacle from his ship’s open bridge. The brisk river breeze cut to the skin but he was too proud to care. He reached into his pocket and touched the rough edge of the signal paper.

  From the First Sea Lord. The Prime Minister has asked me to pass on heartfelt congratulations to the captain and crew of HMS White. Keep up the good work.

  The destroyer came to rest beneath the great brick bond warehouses of the Albert Dock and up and over went her ropes. There was already a disorderly murmur below, excited voices in the for’ard mess, whistling and singing, as if the ship were haunted by a mutinous ghost. The crew was preparing to celebrate ashore with beer at the Roebuck and dancing at the Grafton Ballroom.

  ‘The local intelligence officer is here to talk about the transfer of the prisoners, sir.’ The ship’s first lieutenant was at Thompson’s side. ‘And some chaps from the press would like to take pictures.’

  Thompson turned with a satisfied smile to the quay where the newspapermen had been joined
by sailors and dockyard workers eager for a glimpse of the famous U-boat commander.

  ‘Very good, Number One, I’ll see the local IO in my cabin.’

  The captain of the White was a deck officer of twenty years experience and it was his fixed view that only those who had seen service at sea were worthy of the King’s commission. It was quite apparent to him that the plump, shiny-faced lieutenant who shuffled into his cabin a short time later had not.

  ‘Lieutenant Cooper, sir.’

  Thompson looked the intelligence officer up and down with barely concealed scorn. ‘Please, sit down, Lieutenant,’ he said briskly, ‘It’s rather cramped in here but no doubt you’re used to that.’

  Lieutenant Tim Cooper sank with some relief into the chair he had been offered: ‘The news of the U-112 cheered us up no end, sir.’

  ‘Good.’

  Thompson slid some closely typed sheets of paper across the table to him. It was a list of the prisoners, and a few general observations had been scribbled beside the names of the officers. ‘I don’t think there’s anything of great interest there, but that’s for you and your colleagues to judge, isn’t it?’

  ‘Has Mohr been co-operative, sir?’

  Thompson stared pointedly at Cooper for a few seconds to indicate his displeasure, then said with careful emphasis: ‘Captain Mohr, Lieutenant. Captain Mohr behaved in an exemplary manner and we treated him accordingly.’

  A sheet of paper slipped unnoticed from Cooper’s knees to the deck. He had the anxious air of someone with something on his broad chest but wisdom or fear got the better of him.

  On the deck below, Kapitän zur See Jürgen Mohr could hear the stamp of soldiers’ boots and the orders barked at his crew as they were led along the ship’s side and down the gangway. He had been locked in the wardroom with the White’s silver trophies. The officers of U-112 were standing stiffly before him.

  ‘They will be coming for us in a minute.’

  Mohr’s voice was surprisingly high-pitched for such a tall man. He was too tall ever to be comfortable in a U-boat, lean, older-looking than his thirty–two years, his face weathered brown and creased.