The Interrogator

by Andrew Williams

  They were all looking at him now, angry that anyone should dare to challenge their justice with a show of pity.

  ‘Why? You of all people.’ Lange could feel Dietrich’s hot stale tobacco breath on his cheek. His blue eyes were mad with anger, the pupils fully dilated. Slowly, he reached up and pinched Lange’s left cheek between his thumb and forefinger, digging his nails in hard until he gasped with pain.

  ‘You’re lucky it’s him,’ Dietrich hissed.

  ‘I just, I . . .’ Lange could not speak. The words had gone again. The window was closing.

  ‘Take him back. We don’t need him any more.’

  It was Bruns who took hold of his arm. ‘Come on.’

  And Lange wanted to go with him, to escape, to run, to hide, ‘Go, go now,’ the words screaming, echoing through his mind. But he could not move. He could not move. Guilt was tearing at him, guilt and a helpless paralysing fear of what would happen when he was gone.

  ‘Come now,’ Bruns almost pulled him off his feet.

  ‘And not a word,’ Dietrich glared at him. ‘Not a word to anyone, do you hear?’

  There was silence in the kitchen, a cold complicit silence as they watched Bruns bundle Lange to the door. Then a low despairing moan and Lange turned quickly to look at Heine. The rope was slack and he was rocking to and fro, his face in his hands. Dietrich was standing over him again with the end of the rope in his hands.

  ‘If you’re a man you’ll do it. Do it now.’

  Then the kitchen door swung firmly shut and Lange was in the dark passage.

  Later, he lay with his face on his pillow, chinks of light forcing their way through his closed fingers. He was alone. Soon the bell would ring for roll call and he would have to go down to the terrace. His roommates were there already. Dietrich would be there, Schmidt, Bruns and the others. He would have to look them in the eye. Twisted faces, he could see them now, the fury and the relish with which they had set about their task, the pleasure. Nineteen. Heine was only nineteen. All he had ever wanted was to be an engineer, an oily rag for his country. Why, why, why? Was it their collective humiliation, their way of coping with the helplessness and shame of being prisoners? They needed to prove their loyalty and dedication to duty even at the expense of their own. Yes, they were all to blame. But as he lay there on his bed Lange knew he would never escape the conviction that he was most to blame. It was the yellow file. He could see it in Dietrich’s hands. He could see it in front of Heine’s bruised face. And the engineer was holding a pen in trembling fingers to make his confession. The yellow file. Lange wondered if he would ever be clean again.

  33

  T

  he car was waiting for Mary at the bottom of the church steps with its engine running.

  ‘Prayers for victory?’ he asked as she slipped into the seat beside him.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Wonderful.’ And he pressed his foot to the floor.

  Her uncle was watching from the top of the steps with a concerned look on his face, the church emptying around him.

  The Austin smelt of oil and cigarette smoke and was stuffy even with all the windows open. There was an alarming screech as Lindsay worked his way through the gears. It would take them a little less than two hours to reach Oxford. It was a perfect summer Sunday and a hamper and ice bucket were balanced carefully on the back seat. Mary was relishing the prospect of a few precious hours away from the grind and the grime of London.

  But the journey began awkwardly. Lindsay looked more tired, more careworn than she had ever seen him but he was short with her when she said so. They seemed to have lost some of their old easy familiarity. He made little effort to answer her questions and conversation began to peter out between Marble Arch and Notting Hill Gate. She was relieved of the obligation when, on the outskirts of west London, he was able to open up the throttle and the wind began to whip through the car. With the sun blinking through the windscreen and the throb of the engine, she was asleep before they reached High Wycombe.

  They parked on the Woodstock Road in Oxford and Mary took him into her old college.

  ‘This is for bluestockings, isn’t it?’ he asked provocatively.

  ‘For clever and free-thinking women, you mean.’

  An old scout recognised her as they were ambling round the main quad and they were obliged to listen to her litany of woes about rationing at high table and civil servants in the university buildings. It seemed to Mary that Oxford had changed very little; it was quieter perhaps but still timeless and mellow in the summer sunshine. Lindsay was thinking the same:

  ‘Someone must have missed Oxford off the Luftwaffe’s map.’

  ‘You sound sorry.’

  ‘No,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘no, I’m glad.’

  ‘Perhaps it represents something greater.’

  He gave a short laugh: ‘A corner of civilisation? Do you think Warsaw or the East End of London knows? Anyway, there’s time yet.’

  ‘Gosh, what good company you are.’

  He put his arm around her waist and squeezed it: ‘Sorry.’

  It was the first time he had touched her that day.

  They walked into broad St Giles past the memorial for those of the city who had fallen in the Great War, to St John’s College and on towards the neo-Gothic buildings of Balliol. And Mary told him something of the history of the Scottish college and of its founders John Balliol and his wife the Lady Dervorguilla. When John died in 1268 his heart was cut from his chest, embalmed and kept close by his widow. It was buried beside her at last at the abbey she built in his memory. ‘Sweetheart Abbey not far from Dumfries.’

  ‘I’ll take you,’ said Lindsay.

  ‘Who knows, by the time this war’s over you may not love me.’

  ‘I will love you,’ and he turned to face her. ‘But you’ll be tired of me. I’ll have exhausted your patience.’

  He lifted her chin and she allowed his lips to brush her cheek before turning away.

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said, breaking free.

  They walked back to the car for the hamper, then on past the gaudy High Church brick of Keble College to the University Parks. Here the war was making its mark. The railings were reduced to a few broken inches and the park to the south of the path had been turned over to allotments. Sunday gardeners were bent over their strips like the lay brothers of a medieval college. They found a peaceful spot beneath the shade of a sweet chestnut, a stone’s throw from the River Cherwell. Lindsay had done well: a bottle of Bordeaux, duck, pickled herring, some cheese and fresh bread – even a bar of American chocolate.

  ‘How on earth . . .’

  ‘Good intelligence. For you, guvnor, a shillin’,’ he said in a Scots-cockney accent.

  ‘You ruthless spiv.’

  ‘I know how to please a lady,’ and he smiled warmly at her. ‘Pass me the corkscrew.’

  He opened the bottle, then began arranging knives and glasses and food on the rug.

  ‘Is this a little indecent?’ she asked, rolling down her church stockings.

  ‘Wonderfully indecent.’

  After they had eaten, they lay on the blanket soaking in the lazy heat of the day. It was humid and still, with not a breath of wind to stir the broadleaf canopy above. A college bell was tolling in the distance, and closer, excited voices and the solid clunk of bat on leather ball, laughter from the river and the splash of a punt pole inexpertly handled. And in such a place, on such a day, the battle in the Atlantic was no more than an abstraction. Eyes closed, empty of all but feeling, sun on muscle and skin, a trickle of perspiration on her throat and the grass brushing the back of her legs. She was surprised and almost sorry when he touched her again, a loving caress with the back of his hand lightly against her arm.

  ‘May I tell you something?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘The Security Service – Five – tried to question me and I think I’m being followed.’

  She sat up, turning to look at him: ‘Followed? Why?’
>
  He shrugged: ‘Kapitän Mohr is chasing me.’

  He told her of his visit to the shop on the Commercial Road, of Mohr’s letter with its pointed reference to his cousin, of the telephone conversation with his father and the black Morris he kept seeing in St James’s Square.

  ‘I tried to talk to the driver but all I got for my trouble was a thick lip.’

  Mary reached across to stroke his cheek but he took her hand and kissed it.

  ‘I can’t believe this, Douglas. This is terrible.’ Her voice trembled a little. ‘And Ian Fleming is involved too. Have you spoken to anyone else in the Division?’

  ‘I haven’t been into the Admiralty since all this blew up. The Director sent word he didn’t want to see me. They’ve got the report, of course.’

  ‘It’s bloody. It’s . . .’ She took a deep breath and tried to be calm but tears and resentment were welling inside her.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mary, I didn’t want to spoil the day. It will sort itself out. A cousin in the Kriegsmarine is not a capital offence,’ he gave a harsh laugh, ‘yet.’ He paused for a moment, then said: ‘It’s my mother I’m concerned about, and you. Sooner or later they will speak to you.’

  ‘Let them,’ she snapped crossly. Then she reached up with both hands and pulled his head down to kiss him hard. After a while, they broke apart and lay quietly side by side. The sun was lost behind a mass of blue-grey cloud and the air heavy now with the promise of thunder.

  ‘You should leave the Division,’ she said.

  ‘And go back to sea? I can’t.’

  ‘You may have to leave. Perhaps I should too.’

  Lindsay raised himself to his elbow abruptly: ‘Because of me? No. No. They won’t let you and it would be madness anyway.’

  There was a white flash in the west and seconds later the crack and rumble of thunder. Mary got slowly to her feet and began to brush the grass from her frock. By the time they reached the park gates heavy raindrops were spotting their clothes and rolling down their faces. Lindsay swung the hamper on to his back.

  ‘Can you run?’

  ‘Of course but I’d rather walk.’

  He smiled and brushed a strand of wet hair from her face: ‘As you wish.’

  Another sharp flash and almost at once the thunder. People began hurrying past under macs and umbrellas and the Sunday papers. Mary’s dress was clinging thickly to her skin and her hair hung in rat’s tails about her face. At the end of Keble Road she stopped to balance on Lindsay’s arm and empty water from a shoe. Looking up, she saw he was blinking madly as the rain ran down his forehead into his eyes.

  ‘What on earth . . .’ and he pulled a face at her. She began to laugh. And for a time she could not stop, short breathless infectious laughter. He hugged her and she made him dance a little circle as the rain fell in a drenching sheet in the empty road.

  They drove the steamy car through the city in search of a tea-room and found one close to the station. Its sympathetic owner showed them to a table close to a heater, then served tea and a biscuit. Lindsay held her hand across the table:

  ‘Thank you for today. I feel calmer. You know sometimes I worry I’m imagining those men in the car outside my home. They are there but perhaps they have nothing to do with Special Branch. They may be thieves going quietly about their business. Am I going mad?’

  She smiled and gave his hand a squeeze: ‘Stark raving.’

  He laughed and rolled his fingers over his bottom lip like a halfwit.

  But in the car on the way home, silent except for the rhythm of the road, she wondered if he was right – was he a prisoner of his own imagination? In their secret world of possibilities and lies, wild thoughts would perhaps come easily to a fevered mind. They reached St James’s Square at dusk and there was no sign of a black Morris Eight or men in soft hats and raincoats.

  ‘Will you come in? I’ll drive you home later,’ he said tentatively. ‘If you have to go, I mean.’

  She did not feel able to refuse.

  There was a letter from the Admiralty waiting for him in the hall.

  ‘It’s from Fleming. The Director wants to see me first thing tomorrow.’

  ‘Good. You can sort things out.’

  ‘And he’s sent a cutting from today’s Sunday Times.’

  It fluttered to the floor and he picked it up without glancing at it and put it in his jacket pocket. ‘I’ll read it later.’

  In the apartment, he drew the blackout curtains, then switched on the sitting-room lights while Mary made some tea. She was loading his mother’s bone china on to a tray when he shouted through to the kitchen:

  ‘Hey, come here.’

  He was standing at his desk holding the newspaper cutting beneath the lamp. It was only a short piece, no more than the length of his index finger.

  ‘Listen to this:

  A prisoner is reported to have committed suicide at a camp for enemy officers in the North Country. Camp guards found the body of the nineteen-year-old U-boat officer hanging from a pipe in the washroom last Tuesday. The camp for captured German naval and flying officers is known locally as ‘the U-boat Hotel’ because the prisoners enjoy special privileges. An MP who recently visited it described the rooms as ‘luxurious’ and claimed the prisoners were better fed than his own constituents. Military Police officers are still interviewing prisoners but are understood to be satisfied that the dead man took his own life.’

  ‘And that’s it,’ he said, looking up at her.

  ‘Why has he sent you that?’

  He turned slowly away from her and drew back a curtain to look down into the square.

  ‘I don’t know. Perhaps because I interrogated him.’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘The dead man, of course.’

  He held his fist to his mouth, tapping his lip thoughtfully with his knuckles, and when he turned to her again his eyes were their brightest blue: ‘Do you think this is something to do with Mohr?’

  She slammed the tray on the table so hard that a cup jumped on to the rug: ‘Would that make you happy?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said and there was the old smile again, dry, a little supercilious, ‘I’m afraid it would.’

  34

  T

  he Director of Naval Intelligence was in no hurry to see Lindsay the following morning. He was directed to a hard wooden chair next to the kettles and milk bottles in the messengers’ room and left to slide up and down it for an hour. The whispers, the grim faces and sideways glances suggested it was common knowledge that he was in for a ‘roasting’. No secret travelled faster.

  He was shown into Room 39 at the Admiralty a little before nine. A meeting of Section heads had just broken up and a small group of officers was chatting and smoking around the large marble fireplace. There was no sign of Fleming and he stood there for a moment unsure whether to wait or knock at the Director’s door.

  ‘Sit down, Lindsay.’

  It was Commander Drake, the Admiral’s slow-moving, easy-tempered doorkeeper, except that this morning he sounded uncharacteristically brusque.

  ‘Admiral Godfrey will be with you shortly.’

  Lindsay took a chair by the baize partition in the corner of the room and watched the traffic come and go. After a few minutes the door to his right opened and Ian Fleming came out holding an Admiralty docket. He nodded curtly: ‘Step inside, Lieutenant.’

  Rear-Admiral John Godfrey was sitting at his large mahogany desk. He did not speak, he did not smile, not a muscle in his face moved as Lindsay walked smartly across the carpet to pre-sent himself in front of it. He was a distinguished-looking man, fifty-three, severe, with a lantern jaw, thin lips and the bright eyes of a hawk. They did not leave Lindsay’s face. Fleming took up a position on his right, his arm resting on the black marble mantelpiece behind the Admiral’s desk. He looked as if he was at a funeral. When the Director spoke at last his voice was clipped and cool:

  ‘Do you want us to win this war, Lindsay?’

  ‘Yes, sir. I
am a . . .’

  ‘“Yes” or “No” will suffice.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Then it is hard to understand your behaviour. You put our codes at risk, disobeyed a direct order from a senior officer and you have been hiding your family’s connections to the Nazis.’

  ‘The Kriegsmarine, sir.’

  ‘Don’t fence with me,’ he barked. ‘If it weren’t for Commander Fleming you would be shovelling coal on a trawler somewhere between Rockall and St John’s.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  The Admiral leant back in his chair and picked up a thin cardboard file marked ‘EYES ONLY’ in red.

  ‘You’ve seen this, haven’t you?’ He waved it lazily at Lindsay. ‘Commander Fleming says you opened it, although you didn’t have the authority.’

  ‘Yes, sir, but I was sure Commander Fleming wanted me to read it.’

  ‘So you know that both Military Counter-Intelligence and MI5 recommend your immediate transfer from the Division.’

  He glared at Lindsay for a few seconds, then tossed the file back on to the desk.

  ‘Can you give me a good reason why I shouldn’t transfer you?’

  Lindsay hesitated. His heart was bumping furiously.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘I am good at my job, sir.’

  ‘You haven’t proved that,’ he snapped.

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Thank goodness, humility at last.’

  The Admiral looked at him closely, hard wrinkles about his eyes. Someone was giving orders on the parade ground below his window. A clock ticked lamely on the mantelpiece.

  ‘All right, sit down.’

  And he pointed to the leather library chairs on the other side of his desk. Picking up the file again, he took out a closely typed sheet of foolscap.

  ‘This is the transcript of Mohr’s letter in full.’ He pushed it across his shiny black desk. ‘Read it.’

  It was in German, unremarkable but for the references to Lindsay’s cousin and the evening at the jazz club with Mary and Lange. Mohr asked his friend to reassure his family that he was in good health and he wrote of shared memories, of days sailing on the Wannsee in Berlin, of walks and dinners. At the end of the letter he had added a few awkward words of love, dry and conventional, nothing that would offer comfort to a lonely sweetheart. Lindsay slid the paper back across the Admiral’s desk.