The Interrogator

by Andrew Williams

  ‘That’s why I have to stay,’ she said. ‘I feel responsible.’

  ‘It wasn’t your fault. Of course it wasn’t.’

  ‘Perhaps it doesn’t make sense but I feel responsible and I want to do my best to make sure it doesn’t happen again. If our . . .’

  She cursed herself for being so stupid.

  ‘If our?’

  ‘Never mind, it’s something I’m working on but I don’t want to talk about it now.’

  Lindsay raised a knowing eyebrow: ‘I see. And does this “thing” you are working on have anything to do with our codes?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk about it, Douglas, please don’t press me.’

  He must have recognised the weary note, the pleading in her voice, because he gave her hand a comforting squeeze: ‘All right, but does this “thing” explain why Winn was so unwelcoming?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ she said with a shrug.

  He frowned but only for a moment: ‘Come here,’ and he pulled her tightly to himself again and they stood in silence beneath the rustling canopy of the plane. From time to time a blackout taxi crept past in search of a fare and a night bus rattled under Admiralty Arch into Trafalgar Square but the city seemed strangely empty and still. Mary was in danger of falling asleep on Linday’s shoulder when after many minutes he spoke again: ‘Will you tell me? Not now but later.’

  ‘Why?’ she asked, taken aback.

  ‘You know why.’

  She groaned wearily, ‘Please.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘. . . there is nothing to tell. Look, I have to go,’ and she pulled away from him.

  She was not going to be bullied and was too tired to think it through clearly. There was nothing yet to justify another breach of Winn’s trust.

  42

  I

  t was Geoff Childs who turned up the signal and the ship. He had set about the files with the relish of a natural archivist until two fruitless days blunted even his determination and patience. But at a little after two o’clock on the Saturday afternoon he let out a mighty whoop of triumph that rang round the Tracking Room and the corridor too. All heads swung towards him and for a moment there was a stunned silence. He was half rising from his desk, still bent over the slip of paper.

  ‘It’d better be good, Geoff.’

  He turned to look at Mary: ‘I think it is.’

  Lieutenant Childs was older than his thirty years, with a reputation for being something of a dry stick, but he had taken off his glasses and his eyes were shining with boyish enthusiasm.

  ‘It’s an old signal, sent from U-boat Headquarters to the U-201 on the sixth of May,’ and he stepped out from behind his desk and handed it to her:

  1849/6/5 ACCORDING TO SAILING SCHEDULE SHIP WILL BE IN GRID AK22 EAST BOUND AFTERNOON OF 7/5

  ‘They must have got that sort of intelligence from our signals.’

  His voice was husky with excitement and Mary felt guilty that she was too tired and jaded to share it. A single scrap of rip-and-read was not conclusive proof that the Navy’s codes were compromised; the intelligence could have come from a German spy or from a captured document. And the reference to the ‘shipping schedule’ seemed a little neat:

  ‘Would U-boat Headquarters betray its source in a signal?’

  Childs frowned, irritated by the scepticism in her voice: ‘It’s entirely possible. The Germans believe Enigma is the cipher that cannot be broken. Dönitz has no inkling we’re reading his signals. Of course that sort of intelligence should be need-to-know only but from time to time his people will make mistakes.’

  Childs leant over his desk to check the Trade Division’s report on shipping movements for the day: ‘According to our records, the Clan Innes was at 60°45 North and 33°02 West at a little before four on the afternoon of the seventh of May – that would put her in grid square AK22.’

  ‘All right, anything else sent on the seventh or eighth?’

  Childs picked up a shabby brown cardboard file and shook it at her: ‘If you want to know, help me look.’

  And it was Mary who found the next signal. She held it in her right hand and the paper trembled as a tingle of excitement passed through her whole body. Childs was right; he had found something, something very important. For a few days in May, U-boat Headquarters had been very careless. It was an update on the progress of the freighter, Clan Innes:

  1440/7/5 B REPORT. SHIP IN GRID AL14 ATTACK WITHOUT FURTHER ORDERS.

  It left little room for doubt about the source – the B-Dienst. The Kriegsmarine’s signals intelligence service was intercepting and reading British wireless traffic. She passed the signal to Childs who looked at it and at once began bouncing in his chair with a smile like a Cheshire cat on his face.

  ‘What happened to the ship, Geoff?’

  ‘Sunk the same day, the seventh of May.’ He opened the Trade Division file on the desk in front of him and flicked through the reports until he found the one he was looking for. ‘Here we are, Clan Innes, lost with all hands, 145 men. Bastards.’

  He glanced at Mary: ‘Sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be.’

  And there was more in the file. The same two days in May yielded three signals with intelligence on a homebound convoy that was sourced to ‘B-Reports’:

  1805/6/5 B REPORT. EASTBOUND CONVOY HX 121. GRID AL22. COURSE SOUTH SOUTH EAST. EIGHT KNOTS.

  And the following afternoon another position report and an injunction:

  1445 /7/5 B REPORT. CONVOY HX. 121. GRID AM13. PRESS HOME ATTACK.

  But it was the last signal sent to the U-boats pursuing HX121 that was the most thrilling – and disturbing:

  AT 0230 TODAY ADMIRALTY ISSUED WARNING OF A U-BOAT IN GRID AM13

  Five small pieces of paper in total, five small pieces out of the hundreds of signals sent to Merchant and Royal Navy ships every day that suggested some at least were being read by the Germans. But they were the only five in the many files of decrypted messages they had read, and with so few in so many weeks it was impossible to tell if one code or many had been compromised.

  ‘What a bloody mess’ said Childs. Why didn’t someone pick up on this before? And it’s not the first time the Germans have penetrated our codes, is it?’

  Mary could not help a half-smile as she thought of Lindsay.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve got much to smile about.’

  ‘No,’ she said with a defensive shake of the head, ‘no, we haven’t. I think it’s time to show this to Rodger, don’t you?’

  But Winn was not in his office and he had left word with one of the clerical assistants that he would not be back until late in the evening.

  ‘Look at us,’ Childs said at his door, ‘like children waiting to show teacher their treasure.’

  The pleasure Mary felt at their discovery was blunted by the delivery of more files from the Registry. Hawkins dropped them on her desk with a sly smile, as if to say, ‘so you think you’ve finished, do you?’Amidst the smoke, the trilling telephones, the soporific murmur of voices, her thoughts began to drift from the dry sentences of the signals to Lindsay, the joy she felt in his arms, intense and shameless, a warm wistful haze of memories. She had promised to make up for their last unsatisfactory meeting and he had promised with a mischievous smile to hold her to it. They were to rendezvous in front of Victoria Station at eight o’clock that evening and have dinner at a restaurant close by. But now she would meet him only to excuse herself and he would be cross and would want to know why. The thought troubled her for the rest of the afternoon and was still hanging over her when she left the Citadel to keep her appointment.

  They met at a newspaper stand on the filthy concourse, steam and soot belching from the engines beyond the barrier, the station ringing with the shrill whistles of the guards on the platforms, raised voices and the heavy slam of carriage doors. She let him kiss her, a long, tender, conscienceless kiss that only ended when the grumpy newspaper seller began barracking them for spoiling his trade. They shuffled on
a few feet without protest and kissed again. Then she told him that their evening was going to have to end in the noise and squalor of the station, in the company of bored commuters and rowdy squaddies.

  ‘Aren’t you disappointed?’

  He laughed and squeezed her tightly: ‘You’re cross with me for not putting up a fight but would it do any good to protest?’

  ‘You have to care enough to try.’

  ‘I do care. Of course I do. Do you have to go back right away? May I walk you back?’

  They left the station and crossed the road into Victoria Street and on past the rubble and dust of what had once been a tidy row of shop fronts. It was a strange sight. The blast had demolished the shops at random, leaving those that remained like broken teeth in the mouth of a pensioner. They walked quickly and in silence. Lindsay was lost in thoughts he did not want to share. When they reached the piazza in front of Westminster Cathedral Mary shook her arm free. ‘Have you been inside?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I want to light a candle.’

  He looked at her, then rolled his eyes up to the striped campanile. ‘I thought you needed to be at your desk.’

  ‘It won’t take long,’ and she set off towards the front of the cathedral.

  She was not sure he would follow until his hand fell upon hers as she pulled the handle of the heavy door. A late Mass had just finished and the dark Byzantine interior was rich with the sweet perfume of incense. Beneath the baldacchino, the servers were clearing candles and cloths from the high altar. And for a moment the smoky gloom, the low lights reminded her of the Tracking Room and those who served with monastic discipline at its table.

  Lindsay bent forward to whisper in her ear: ‘Popery. My Mother wouldn’t approve.’

  She turned her head to glare at him and began walking down the aisle towards the Lady Chapel, her shoes clicking on the bare stone. The chapel was empty but for an old woman in a heavy threadbare coat mechanically working her way along her rosary. It seemed brighter than the rest of the cathedral, a bank of votive candles burning before the altar, the gold ceiling shimmering with light which reflected off the glass tesserae depicting Christ in majesty upon the tree of life.

  ‘Why are you lighting a candle?’

  ‘Oh, for those people lost with the Imperial Star.’

  She leant forward to place it at the back of the stand and gasped as a flame caught her wrist.

  ‘Let me,’ and he took it and pressed the wax home. Then he lifted her hand and turned it over and was on the point of kissing her wrist when she pulled it away: ‘Not here.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  They stood in silence for a minute, mesmerised by the flickering light, then, with his eyes still fixed on the candles, Lindsay said: ‘Why do you need to talk to Winn again this evening?’

  She did not reply but concentrated on the small yellow flame of her candle.

  ‘If it’s about our codes, I think you should tell me.’ His voice was calm but insistent, even steely.

  ‘Not now,’ she whispered sharply, ‘this is neither the time nor the place.’

  ‘Is there a time and a place?’

  ‘No. I don’t know.’ Why was he pressing her? Hadn’t she risked enough already? ‘For goodness sake, Douglas, we’re in a church. I didn’t come in here to be interrogated.’ She turned quickly from him and began striding back along the aisle, careless of the noise she was making, the rough echo of her footsteps resonating through the cathedral. A young priest in a cassock stopped to watch her pass, his hands on his hips in a show of disapproval.

  Lindsay caught up with her in the piazza. ‘Look, sorry, but you know what this means . . . how much I’ve risked already.’

  ‘Just find me a cab, would you?’

  He stopped suddenly to look at her, hoping she would turn back, but she walked briskly on and this time he did not follow her. A taxicab was crawling down Victoria Street and she hailed it from the kerb. At once she regretted her haste and turned to look for him. He was gone.

  ‘Where to, dear?’

  ‘Oh no,’ and she pressed her hands to her temples and cursed herself for handling him so badly.

  ‘The Admiralty.’

  It was too late and she was left with the frustration and the bitter disappointment and the doubt. When would they talk again or touch?

  Winn was standing at his office door. As soon as he saw Mary he called to her: ‘Come in, I’ve got something to show you’, and for once his cool barrister voice betrayed his excitement.

  ‘You’ve seen Geoff Childs then?’ she asked flatly.

  ‘Childs? No,’ and he waved a dismissive hand, showering ash from the cigarette he was holding on to the desk of his secretary.

  ‘So no one’s told you? We’ve found something important.’

  ‘All right, you tell me,’ and he stood aside to let her into his office.

  Lieutenant Childs slipped back into the Tracking Room as she was beginning her brief. He had enjoyed what only he could describe as a ‘satisfactory’ canteen supper. Unlocking his desk drawer, he took out the decrypts and presented them to Winn with the hushed reverence of a wise man before the manger. Winn dragged his anglepoise over and switched it on with a purposeful click, then began reading and shuffling the little pieces of paper in its light.

  ‘B-Reports,’ he muttered after a minute and glanced up at Mary, then across at Childs.

  ‘There isn’t much doubt, is there?’

  He looked at the flimsies again then with an exasperated grunt tossed one back towards them: ‘My favourite: “Admiralty issued warning of a U-boat”. That’s us, here, the Tracking Room. What a mess.’

  Reaching for his cigarettes, he lit one, then said:

  ‘And I have news too. I’ve been at Bletchley and the Naval Section there has done some analysis of the Bismarck operation. There are some indications that the enemy was able to follow the British hunt for the battleship.’

  Winn picked up a file from his desk and removed a report stamped ‘Most Secret’: ‘There’s a long list of German signals here that seem to draw on our own. Here, for instance, sent on the twenty-fifth of May:

  ENEMY AIRCRAFT OF SQUADRON ZB6 REPORTED TO PLYMOUTH AT 1405: AM IN CONTACT WITH ENEMY BATTLESHIP.

  ‘I’m going to ring the Director tonight. He knows about Bletchley’s work but he’ll want to know about yours too. The maddening thing is our Code Security people at Section 10 were given some of this stuff a fortnight ago. Sheer bloody incompetence.’

  Winn sighed and eased himself back in his chair: ‘It isn’t clear how far this goes. The enemy will be working on all our codes and ciphers, the question is, which ones has he broken – one, perhaps two or more? And how can we be sure?’

  Mary looked at her hands, neatly folded in her lap, and the angry mark on her wrist, still smarting from the candle burn. And she wondered for a fanciful moment if it was a sort of punishment, a stinging reminder: Lindsay, the codes, the Imperial Star and all those ships setting out in ignorance across the Atlantic.

  ‘Marvellous. They’re reading ours and we’re reading theirs,’ said Childs with a small dispassionate smile.

  Winn gave him a disapproving look: ‘We don’t know how many of our signals they’re reading yet but one is too many. One signal sank the Imperial Star.’

  Childs wriggled uncomfortably.

  ‘All right, I’ve a call to make to the Director,’ and Winn picked up the green phone on his desk. ‘Go to bed. And thank you.’

  They both got up and Childs moved towards the door but Mary hovered at the edge of his desk: ‘There’s Jürgen Mohr, of course.’

  Winn did not bat an eyelid but kept dialling. Only when he had finished did he look up at her, his face impassive, the receiver to his ear: ‘I hadn’t forgotten.’

  It was nearly midnight when Mary left the Citadel. As the Admiralty’s doors swung open into Spring Gardens she touched the tightly folded square of paper in her pocket. Fine summer rain was beading her brown wool
jacket. Her wrist was throbbing lightly. A strange comfort. She set off across the Mall and did not stop walking until her finger was on the bell of Lindsay’s apartment. She felt purposeful but calm, as she had done when they had met in Trafalgar Square all those weeks before. Why? Was it her need or his? Did she need him more or less than he needed her? Did it matter? She could hear him thumping wearily down the carpeted staircase to the door. What was he thinking? Then it opened and without speaking he reached out to brush her cheek with his fingers.

  Later she lay small and naked beside him in bed, the sweet smell of his sex on her body, the sheets and blankets hanging in shameless folds on the floor. And she tried to concentrate and hold those moments when past pain and fear and the future were lost in the strange stillness she felt in his arms. And she reached over to touch his hard shoulder and run her fingers lightly across his chest to his stomach. Then she rolled quickly on to her side and stretched down to the floor and felt in the darkness for where her jacket must have fallen. And when at last she found it she lifted it, crumpled, by the sleeve and reached into the pocket with two fingers.

  ‘Here.’

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘What you want.’

  He unfolded it carefully, then leant across to switch on the bedside light: Admiralty issued warning of a U-boat . . .

  43

  T

  he bell rang in the grey half-world that was always his just before dawn, at the edge of consciousness when memories and images form and shift and dissipate like clouds at a front. An uncomfortable but familiar place, a rattling place, a place Jürgen Mohr could smell and taste in his sleep, and the faces always the same. Sometimes they were smiling, more often wide-eyed with fear and screaming, and then that tight grey world shuddered until it was lost in an impenetrable blackness. But at such times he was calm, he was careless, he knew that darkness so well, knew its deep, deep emptiness. Perhaps one day he would be caught and it would hold him for ever. Twice now he had been drawn from it by a small red light. Groping towards it, clutching at nothing, he had found himself between the smoking engines of his boat. And Heine’s slight frame was bent over the starboard diesel with an oil can. He had reached out to touch his shoulder. The engineer had turned with a smile of recognition and pleasure. But his face was the beaten face of Lindsay’s photograph, one eye closed, his cheeks purple and the weal about his neck scarlet and black. And then the roll-call bell had rung in the hall below, as it was ringing now, and there was the comfort of boots on the boards outside the room and the sharp knock of his batman at the door.