The Interrogator

by Andrew Williams

  The warder nodded.

  Lindsay had reached the door and was on the point of closing it when he turned to look at Mohr again. There was something close to a sneer on his face: ‘I would feel sorry for you but I saw Lange swinging there. The crimes of one man can bring dishonour to many. To think that man would be you, a hero of the Reich.’

  The door slammed shut and the empty echo bounced round the hard walls of Mohr’s cell and reverberated in his mind.

  1500

  14 September

  King’s Cross Station

  London

  Lieutenant Samuels was the sort of man it was easy to spot in a crowd, even in an undistinguished business suit. He arrived in a hissing cloud of steam and smoke on the three o’clock from Doncaster. It was half an hour late. Lindsay saw him at once rolling awkwardly along the platform, a space opening about him, head a little bent, his face pasty and earnest. He managed a warm smile when he saw Lindsay at the barrier, grateful no doubt to be back in ‘the Smoke’ and to the man who was making it possible.

  ‘How was the racecourse, Charlie?’ Lindsay asked, taking his bag.

  ‘Heavy-going,’ he said with another weak smile. ‘I didn’t expect you to be here to meet me.’

  ‘We need to talk. We haven’t got long. Admiral Godfrey wants this wrapped up in twenty-four hours. He’s fending off a lot of people at the War Office who want to know about the riot at the camp.’

  Lindsay’s jeep was parked at the front of King’s Cross Station. He did his best to brief Samuels as he ground up and down the gears through the London streets. If they could not break Mohr quickly, then the police would take him off their hands: ‘And after the shambles at the camp, I will be hung out to dry somewhere.’

  Samuels grunted: ‘Again.’

  ‘For good.’

  They drew up at some lights in Fleet Street and Lindsay reached down for his cigarettes: ‘I saw Mohr this morning and showed him his picture in the paper. I think he was upset. Very gratifying.’

  ‘So the papers have it?’ Samuels was surprised.

  ‘No, no. We’re trying to keep it from the papers. It was my own special edition of the Daily Mail. The tricks people at MI5 came up with the idea.’

  The Security Service had tried the same thing on their prisoners. It was in the papers so it must be true. The Daily Mail had replaced a front-page story with the one that put Mohr on a murder charge, then run off half a dozen copies for Lindsay.

  ‘And Five are helping us with three of their chaps.’ He paused, then almost as an afterthought: ‘Two of them work for a man called Colonel Gilbert. They look a little rough.’

  Samuels frowned.

  ‘. . . Oh and we’ve got Dick Graham from the Park.’

  They stopped at a greasy-spoon café in Pimlico for precious eggs and some tomatoes, accompanied by bread and cups of tea. It was going to be a busy night. ‘Our last chance, really,’ said Lindsay, putting down his knife and fork and reaching for his cup.

  ‘You seem quite calm.’

  Did he feel calm? Perhaps something harder. Harder, yes. He knew he would risk anything. It felt almost as if life hung in the balance, hope and happiness, perhaps even his sanity in one scale and Kapitän Jürgen Mohr in the other. This was the time. There was no turning back.

  ‘We’ll try the Cross Ruff on all the prisoners but Mohr – play one off against another.’ He put his cup back on the table, then caught the waiter’s eye for the bill. ‘Oh and congratulations. You’ve been promoted to Captain. Your new uniform is waiting for you at the prison.’

  Samuels groaned, then laughed: ‘Do you think it will work, a Jewish captain?’

  ‘My God, it had better.’

  1700

  14 September

  ‘F’ Wing, Brixton Prison

  It was their own little Court of Honour. A badly lit windowless room at the end of the wing with the necessary degree of discomfort. The new captain – Samuels – was in the chair. Nazi officers showed slavish respect for rank and Oberleutnant zur See Dietrich was one of the true believers. He seemed a hard case, the chief interrogator of Heine, the leader of the little washroom band, not afraid to take the rope in his own hands. But a man who needed things to be simple, easily led so easy to confuse, and brittle. And he was not one of Mohr’s men but the first officer of the U-500 and Lindsay sensed he had not been schooled to keep his mouth shut as well as some of the others. Above all, if anyone was going to hang it would be Dietrich and he knew it. His fear was transparent in his face the moment the prison warders led him into the room. He stood before the table, his chin raised, his lips pursed in a show of defiance that was compromised by a clownishly baggy prison uniform. Perhaps it was a deliberate attempt by the warders to undermine his sense of self-importance and dignity. The bottom of his trousers hung in rolls over his shoes and he was obliged to keep a firm hand on the waist to prevent them from falling down altogether.

  Lindsay had asked one of Gilbert’s MI5 officers to be the other member of their court, a large muscular man called Robbins who looked as if he would ask most of his questions with his fists. He sat at the table in his dark suit with the face of a hanging judge. It was Samuels who began the interrogation in German: ‘You know why you’re here, Dietrich. You’ve been charged with the murder of two men.’

  There was a cold crisp authority in his voice that would not have been out of place on a parade ground: ‘Tomorrow you will appear before a court. If convicted – and you will be – you will be taken to a prison like this and you will be hanged. Do you understand?’

  Dietrich did not say anything but stared at a stretch of wall above Samuels’ right shoulder. He was struggling to keep his composure.

  ‘Do you understand? Answer me,’ Samuels barked.

  ‘Yes, Herr Kapitän.’

  ‘Your only hope of seeing Germany and your family again is if you co-operate. I make no promises, will strike no bargains but there is a possibility, I put it at no more than that, if you answer our questions the court will take your attitude into account. Do you understand?’

  Dietrich nodded.

  ‘Do you understand?’ asked Samuels sharply.

  ‘Yes, Herr Kapitän.’

  Samuels glanced across at Lindsay who, taking his cue, opened the file in front of him and pushed a sheet of paper across the table towards Dietrich.

  ‘Was it your decision to interrogate Heine?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Who gave the order?’

  Silence. Dietrich shifting his weight awkwardly.

  ‘Who?’

  Still nothing.

  ‘Who ordered you to interrogate Heine?’

  ‘I am not sure . . .’

  ‘Who?’

  The hand Dietrich lifted to his mouth trembled a little.

  ‘Your life may depend upon your answer. Who?’

  His lips seemed to form the words but there was no sound.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘. . . I don’t . . .’

  ‘Who ordered you to interrogate Heine?’

  ‘The Ältestenrat.’ Barely more than a whisper but Lindsay pounced:

  ‘Write this,’ and he leant across the table to place his fountain pen on the paper.

  ‘Write: “The Ältestenrat instructed me to interrogate Leutnant Heine.” Write it now.’

  Dietrich looked down at the paper. To speak it softly in a dark room was one thing; to commit it to paper in your own hand was an entirely different matter.

  ‘Don’t try our patience, Dietrich. We have the evidence to hang you.’

  Dietrich’s hand hovered above the paper for two, three, four seconds before he lifted it to cover his mouth once more.

  Samuels cleared his throat and began gathering the papers into the file in front of him. ‘All right, that’s enough. We know the answers to these questions. This was your opportunity to do something to help yourself, Dietrich.’

  And he lifted his hand to beckon the prison warders standing at the back of the
room.

  But the pen was in Dietrich’s hand before they could take a step.

  As his head bent over the paper, Samuels caught Lindsay’s eye and gave a slight nod and a smile.

  ‘Did Kapitän Mohr instruct you to extract a confession from Heine?’

  Dietrich muttered something Lindsay did not catch: ‘What did you say?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Write it down.’

  He wrote standing over the table, in an awkward schoolboy hand: the interrogation of Heine, the torture, his confession, the names of those who had played a part with him.

  ‘And after that you strung Heine up from the pipe.’

  ‘No. No.’ It rang round the room and out to the landing. ‘No.’

  Dietrich denied murder. And he was not to be shaken. He was adamant that Heine took his own life.

  ‘I was shocked.’

  ‘You all but handed him the rope,’ said Lindsay coldly. ‘And then, Lange. Tell me, did Kapitän Mohr order you to execute him?’

  Dietrich looked down at the paper and said nothing. The stuffing had been pulled from him, he was a sad figure, deluded, a weak man in the hands of the strong, a victim too in a way. And Lindsay could not help feeling some pity for him – a little. ‘Well?’

  He looked up at Lindsay and his eyes were a watery blue, then he shook his head slowly.

  ‘You can’t protect him. It’s too late for that.’

  ‘Kapitän Mohr gave no such order.’

  ‘But that’s what he wanted you to do.’

  Again a slow shake of the head: ‘No. We took the propaganda man.’

  ‘You’re protecting him.’

  ‘No,’ he said quietly. ‘No. We only wanted to scare Lange. He was going to give evidence against us. Somehow it got out of hand when the soldiers, when you broke the door down.’

  ‘I heard Kapitän Mohr give you the order myself.’

  ‘No.’

  Lindsay sat down at the table again and looked at Samuels who gave him a knowing look. Was he betraying his disappointment? But what difference if Mohr did give the order? His guilt or innocence was neither here nor there. It would have been neater, that’s all.

  ‘All right take him away,’ said Samuels, signalling to the prison warders.

  Dietrich looked surprised and a little distressed: ‘And you will speak to the judge? It was an accident, a mistake. We didn’t mean to hurt Lange. Just an accident. That’s the truth.’

  Samuels gave him a withering look and turned to one of the guards: ‘Get him out of here.’

  The door slammed behind them and Samuels got to his feet rubbing his hands with satisfaction, then leant across the table for the statement. Two sheets and Dietrich’s signature.

  ‘That went rather well. I like Captain Samuels, don’t you? Who’s next?’

  ‘I think I’ll see the navigator from Mohr’s boat on my own,’ said Lindsay, collecting his papers together. ‘Why don’t you take a break? There’s a small hotel a few hundred yards from the prison.’

  Samuels looked puzzled: ‘But it worked well. Don’t you want to try again?’

  ‘Not with Bruns. I’ve spoken to him before. I want to see him alone in his cell. I think that will be better, Charlie.’

  The MI5 man was on his feet and preparing to leave. He offered both men his large hand and a promise that he would be close by if needed again in the course of what was going to be a long night. Lindsay watched him leave, then turned to Samuels again: ‘Can I have that?’

  Samuels glanced down at the statement quivering slightly in his hand: ‘This?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Are you planning to do anything with it now?’ Samuels sounded a little suspicious.

  ‘Reference.’

  ‘Ah.’ He leant forward with the document and Lindsay clasped the top of it between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. Samuels did not release the bottom. They stood holding the statement together and Samuels’ soft brown eyes were searching his face:

  ‘Don’t do anything stupid, Lindsay.’

  He said it softly and very deliberately.

  ‘Please. Nothing stupid.’

  2030

  14 September

  ‘F’ Wing, Brixton Prison

  Obersteuermann Bruns was pacing his little rectangle of floor like a bear in a cage. Three steps to the wall and a smart turn to the door. There was a dark frown on his face, more belligerent than anxious. The little disc slipped back over the viewing window and with a jangling of keys the door swung open. When he saw Lindsay he snapped smartly to attention.

  ‘Easy, easy. How are you, Georg?’ Lindsay asked in German.

  Bruns raised his eyebrows in surprise. A friendly ‘How are you?’ was not at all what he was expecting. A moment later and his features settled into a stiff scowl and Lindsay could almost hear the cogs of his mind slowly turning over: it was a trick, it must be.

  ‘Sit down, Georg.’

  ‘I want to stand.’

  ‘All right, if you feel more comfortable,’ but Lindsay sat at the bottom of his bed. He leant down to take a file from his briefcase, conscious that Bruns’s little brown eyes were following him closely. He had a curious face, long, with high cheek-bones and brown skin that would not have looked at all out of place in Zanzibar, his birthplace. But that was not an observation that would endear him to a devout Nazi like Bruns.

  ‘You know you’re in a great deal of trouble, Georg? Two charges of murder.’

  Bruns was clenching and unclenching his hands as if he wanted to relieve his anxiety by taking a swing at something or someone.

  ‘Well, Georg, what will you tell the court?’ Lindsay asked him softly.

  ‘I will say I am not guilty.’ His voice shook a little. The defiant teenage scowl on his face was not enough to hide the fear growing deep inside him.

  ‘I feel the court should know the full facts, Georg. Would you like to write a statement?’

  ‘I have nothing to say.’

  ‘Your comrade Oberleutnant Dietrich had plenty to say. I have his statement here,’ and Lindsay opened the file to show him the confession written in a round childlike hand. ‘Yes. Listen to this: Bruns found the rope in the yard at the camp. It was his idea to use it on Heine . . .

  Oh and here’s another bit: we talked about what we should do. Bruns was for executing Lange as a traitor, he had confessed to betraying us . . .

  ‘You see. Oberleutnant Dietrich has been very frank with us.’

  Bruns was biting his bottom lip nervously, his dark skin a shade paler. He was clearly at a loss to know what to say: was it possible that Dietrich had betrayed him to the enemy?

  ‘Sit down here,’ said Lindsay, patting the bed. ‘It must be a shock. Yes, he has told us everything and not just about Heine and Lange. He’s answered all our questions. He could see it was in his best interests.’

  Bruns did not move but stood with his back to the wall, clenching and unclenching his big hands. Always at the edge. And schooled by Mohr to say nothing. A simple order. Duty and loyalty to the Fatherland. Yes, a simple order to be followed even if he was left swinging from a rope.

  ‘Think about it,’ said Lindsay, slipping Dietrich’s confession back in the file. ‘Help me and I can help you. Your life depends upon it.’

  He got to his feet and rapped on the door. It opened at once. Standing outside was the Security Service man, Robbins, his muscular frame a little too snug in his dark suit, black shoes polished with military perfection. The door clanked shut and he stepped forward to shake Lindsay by the hand.

  ‘We’re ready for you. The room’s on ‘C’ Wing where we keep the troublemakers.’

  ‘Thank you, Captain. One by one, starting with Bruns. Leave them for half an hour before you fetch Dietrich.’

  ‘And Lieutenant Samuels?’

  Robbins’ knowing smile brought the colour to Lindsay’s face: ‘No. Lieutenant Samuels doesn’t need to be informed.’

  2100

  14
September

  The Citadel,

  London

  There was a Sunday church hush in the Tracking Room and those not important enough to be at the table were bent over their desks in something very like prayer. The First Sea Lord was standing at the plot. His entourage was stirring the smoke into a restless pea-souper that lent mystery and a strange urgency to every small movement. Admiral Sir Dudley Pound did not visit the Citadel often. He preferred its product to drop into his in-tray on neatly typed sheets of yellow paper. But the Prime Minister was not as patient. The Admiral was expected in Downing Street with an explanation for the disaster within the hour. Winn was taking him through some lines at the plot, his arm planted just south of Iceland, gesturing at a cluster of black flags.

  ‘Dönitz deployed a pack of fourteen U-boats here to the south-west of Iceland at the end of August . . .’

  At her desk, Mary picked up a pencil and ran it down a report on something rather technical in an effort to appear busy.

  ‘Of course we were tipped off by Bletchley. We knew their boats were in a search line somewhere here,’ and Winn’s hands swept across the flags again. ‘We were able to use that intelligence to route our convoys away from the pack.’

  But after a time Dönitz had drawn a new search line on the big wall chart at U-boat Headquarters. They had learnt that from the special intelligence too. The first little piece of rip-and-read with fresh orders to the U-boats had landed on Mary’s desk.

  ‘. . . unfortunately Slow Convoy 42 was forced south by a storm and the ice. It was picked up by the U-85 five days ago. Of course, once contact was made Dönitz was able to direct the rest of his pack to the convoy and the rest is . . .’ Winn did not feel he needed to say more. The details had already begun to appear in the papers. The pack had set upon the convoy and sunk twenty ships loaded with timber and steel, wheat and sugar and flour. A third of the convoy was lost and with it hundreds of seamen.

  The awkward silence was filled with the shuffling of feet and the ringing of a telephone at the far end of the room. All heads were turned to Pound. He was standing on Winn’s right, small, stooped and grey, resting on a stick, his eyes almost lost beneath his heavy brow. The clock ticked on and Mary began to wonder if he had fallen asleep on his feet. It was the Director, Admiral Godfrey, who came to his rescue: ‘Perhaps, sir, Winn can tell us if there is anything to suggest the enemy knew of the convoy’s movements from our signals?’