One Law For the Rest of Us

by Peter Murphy

  ‘I hear you,’ Julia said. ‘Look, Mary, I didn’t tell you about Emily to try to make you feel bad. I told you because, unless you give evidence, there’s every chance that Father Gerrard will walk away from this case.’

  Mary looked up sharply.

  ‘Walk away? Why should he walk away? Audrey and Em – Girl A – give you a history of sexual assault going back thirty years, and they provide corroboration for each other. You’ve got a solid legal case.’

  ‘Well, yes and no,’ Julia replied. ‘Audrey’s evidence consists entirely of recovered memory, and that’s something not all experts support. There are those who think a witness in that position, even if she’s being honest, is creating memory, not recovering it. There are some judges who wouldn’t allow it to go to a jury. And Emily is eight, going on nine. Technically, a nine-year-old is a child of tender years. She’s legally capable of being a competent witness, but it’s up to the judge to decide. The judge will have to examine her to see how far she understands the duty to tell the truth in a court of law. In front of the wrong judge, we could lose her evidence too. So, yes: on paper, the case is legally sufficient, but the reality is another matter.’

  They were silent for some time.

  ‘But you must have other evidence. There must be other girls who’ve come forward…’ Mary’s voice trailed away.

  ‘I’m afraid not. We assumed that we would have a lot of women and girls coming forward, especially with all the publicity. But it hasn’t happened. It’s as though everyone is taking the same line as your parents did. DI Walsh and DI Phillips, and other officers, have spoken to everyone Audrey and Emily identified, or their parents, but it’s almost as if there’s a conspiracy of silence.’

  Mary held her head in her hands for some time.

  ‘There is,’ she replied.

  13

  ‘Is there something you want to tell me?’ Julia asked.

  Mary did not reply for some time.

  ‘If I tell you this, you have to agree that you didn’t hear it from me.’

  ‘Agreed,’ Julia replied at once.

  ‘I’ve never told anyone about this, and I wouldn’t say anything now, except for the fact that you’re representing Audrey.’

  ‘I understand.’

  ‘All right.’

  There was another lengthy silence. Julia watched as Mary wrestled with herself.

  ‘Those three men, the three who’ve been in all the papers…’

  ‘The men we’re calling Lord AB, Sir CD and the Right Reverend EF?’

  ‘Yes. Those three men molested me, in the same way they molested Audrey. But in my case, once or twice, there was also a fourth man…’

  ‘Go on,’ Julia encouraged, quietly.

  ‘He was German.’

  Julia caught herself holding her breath. It took her a moment or two to speak.

  ‘German? Are you sure, Mary? Remember, this was 1941, 1942; it was wartime.’

  ‘Yes, I know. It seemed strange to me at the time.’

  ‘How do you know he was German?’

  ‘I heard him speak German to Bishop EF. My father was a German scholar, and even before I went to school, I’d heard the language spoken at home often enough to recognise it. My father had even taught me a few basic words and phrases. I didn’t understand what this man and the bishop were saying, but in fairness, I was rather distracted at the time.’

  ‘Distracted?’

  ‘I was rubbing the German man’s penis.’

  Julia nodded. ‘I see.’

  ‘But I’m sure he was German. I have no idea who he was, but I know he was German.’

  ‘Did you tell anyone about this?’ Julia asked after some time.

  Mary nodded. ‘I told my parents at the time. But it was never mentioned again until last year, when my father was dying. I’d made the trip over from Canada to see him, because we knew he didn’t have long to live. And one evening, when there were just the two of us, he suddenly brought it all up again. I tried to stop him, to tell him it didn’t matter, that it was water under the bridge; but he insisted that there was something he had to say to me.’

  She took a sip of water from a glass on the table.

  ‘My father had worked for the Home Office during the war, doing God knows what, secret work of some kind – I’m sure his knowledge of German was useful to them. Anyway, after I’d told my parents about the abuse, apparently my father went to see someone high up in the Home Office – I have no idea who – and reported it to them. He had never told me until that night.’

  ‘What happened?’ Julia asked.

  ‘He said the Home Office had ordered him to drop it, and never mention it again to anybody.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They said the security services knew all about what was going on at Lancelot Andrewes, and had some kind of interest in it. It was a matter of national security. He was to drop it and say nothing to anyone.’

  ‘The security services?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Which service? Did he say? Domestic, MI5? Or foreign, the Special Intelligence Service, MI6?’

  She thought for a moment. ‘MI6… or was it MI5? MI6, I think… but I’m not absolutely sure whether I’m remembering that, or whether that’s what I assumed because the man was German.’

  ‘Please, Mary, try to remember. It may be important.’

  ‘MI6. Yes, I think it was MI6.’

  Julia sat down and leaned back in her chair.

  ‘And did your father do what he was told, and drop it?’ she asked.

  ‘Yes. So he said… but that wasn’t the end of the story.’

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘They promised him that I wouldn’t be molested again.’

  ‘The Home Office promised that you wouldn’t be molested again? And you weren’t?’

  ‘And I wasn’t. And that wasn’t even the end of it. After that time, my parents never received a single bill for my school fees: not once, even though I stayed at the school until I went to university at eighteen.’

  Julia’s jaw dropped.

  ‘They bought your father off by giving you a free ride at school?’

  She nodded. ‘Apparently. And I don’t suppose I’m the only one, Julia, do you?’

  Julia got to her feet again and stood behind her chair, leaning against it, her hands in front of her.

  ‘So,’ she said quietly, as if to herself, ‘it’s really no great surprise that no one’s coming forward, is it? Many victims, or their parents, would react in the same way yours did. They would feel embarrassed, ashamed.’

  ‘And even if they came forward,’ Mary added, ‘at the end of the day, it would be their word against the word of Father Desmond Gerrard, wouldn’t it? Father Desmond Gerrard, education guru to the government, who has the ear of some very powerful people.’ She shook her head. ‘Most people would keep their heads down, wouldn’t they? They would think they were on a hiding to nothing: easier just to let it go.’

  ‘And those who did complain, they bought off,’ Julia said quietly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How did your father feel about that?’ Julia asked.

  ‘He sounded ashamed of himself. I tried to reassure him; I told him that it was all right, that I was OK, but I think it had been on his conscience all those years. I think he felt as if he’d sold me to pay my school fees. It wasn’t like that at all, but…’

  Julia advanced to stand in front of Mary, took her hand, and gave her a light kiss on the cheek.

  ‘I won’t keep you any longer, Mary,’ she said. ‘Thank you for confiding in me. I know it wasn’t easy.’

  Mary smiled. ‘Is there anything else you want to say to try to persuade me to give evidence?’

  ‘No,’ Julia replied. ‘I’ve said all I can.’

  On her way ba
ck to the office, Julia stopped off at her house, where she made a phone call. The person she wanted to speak to was in a meeting. Julia left a message asking that person to return her call as soon as possible.

  14

  Thursday 25 April 1974

  It was a familiar routine, a staple of service practice, which was why he had chosen it: the walk was a proven safe route. But if the truth be known, the choice was made mainly out of habit. After so many years with the service, his tradecraft had become as much a part of him as the suit and tie he selected from his wardrobe each morning. Another advantage was that she knew the routine also. They met as if by chance and started walking along the Embankment, opposite Temple tube station, towards Charing Cross.

  ‘This is a pleasant surprise, Julia,’ Baxter said. ‘I haven’t seen you since the Digby case.’

  ‘Has it been that long?’ Julia smiled.

  ‘And, according to the newspapers, you’ve got Mr Schroeder and Miss Castle, who were also involved in that case, prosecuting the unfortunate Father Gerrard for you. A coincidence, I wonder?’

  ‘The Director of Public Prosecutions has them prosecuting Father Gerrard, on behalf of the Crown.’

  He smiled. ‘Of course. Well, whoever chose them made a good choice. You learn a lot about people when you spend a couple of days with them in a foreign safe house. I would say the case is in good hands.’

  They stopped to look out over the river.

  ‘I assume I’m right in thinking that you want to talk about Lancelot Andrewes?’

  She smiled again. ‘Are you reading my mind, or have you been intercepting me?’

  He returned the smile. ‘Let’s try not to get too paranoid, Julia, shall we?’

  ‘I’m sorry, but just at the moment I feel that a healthy dose of paranoia isn’t necessarily a bad thing.’

  He nodded. ‘Fair enough, but the answer to your question is: neither. I read newspapers, not minds; and no, we haven’t been bugging you – well, not as far as I know, and I probably would know.’

  They were silent for some time.

  ‘Are you authorised to talk to me?’

  He hesitated. ‘Pass. Let’s say I’m prepared to answer some questions – probably not all the questions you’d like me to answer – but some.’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘Without attribution, of course.’

  She nodded. ‘Of course. All right: the prosecution is having difficulty in getting witnesses to come forward. Part of that seems to be related to – well, let’s call it compensation, shall we? – paid out covertly by the Home Office to some of the victims and their families.’

  He smiled. ‘I’m glad to see you haven’t changed. You’re still your father’s daughter – never one to beat about the bush, either of you.’

  ‘The compensation being related in part to the activities of a German man who visited the school while we were at war with Germany – which is odd, to say the least. I’ve heard whispers that the service may have had something to do with that. Is there anything you can you tell me?’

  Baxter nodded, but did not reply immediately.

  ‘If you can’t answer, you can’t answer.’

  Baxter resumed his walk, and Julia fell in at his side.

  ‘His name was Hansdieter Köhler – Father Hansdieter Köhler, actually; he was a priest.’

  ‘Lutheran?’

  ‘Roman Catholic. From Stuttgart originally, but he’d been over here, in London, since the mid-1930s.’

  ‘Doing what?’

  ‘Ostensibly just being a priest, but there was something about him that didn’t quite fit, and somewhere along the way he attracted the attention of our friends at Five.’

  ‘Because of his proclivity for little girls?’

  ‘That, and his close friendship with the man the newspapers are calling Bishop EF. I’m sure you know his real name as well as I do, so I won’t make you dance around that – just as I’m sure you know that he has the same proclivity.’

  ‘Yes,’ Julia nodded.

  Baxter stopped again, to watch the river. She stood by his side.

  ‘That alone would have been enough for Five to keep an eye on him, but they soon discovered that there was more to Father Köhler than they’d first thought, and they told us about him. By early 1939 we already suspected that he was passing valuable information to Berlin. Sources we had in place there reported that Köhler had high-level contacts within the Reich’s security apparatus, and his friendship with EF had opened a lot of doors for him in the higher echelons of government here. Alarm bells were ringing. So we put him under close surveillance, and towards the end of 1939 we duly caught him at it.’

  ‘How was he doing it? Was someone handling him?’

  ‘No. It was the good old wireless set, no less, tucked away in the attic of his priestly residence. Madness, really. He must have known we had all the wavelengths covered; we were bound to catch him eventually.’

  ‘What did you do with him?’

  ‘We almost didn’t get the chance to do anything. The Home Office wanted to intern him as an enemy alien. We told them that would be a wasted opportunity. We asked them to give us a chance to turn him: they agreed, and turn him we did.’

  ‘How?’

  Baxter smiled. ‘In the traditional way. We explained to him that he had a choice: he could either work for us, or we would have him shot as a spy. He chose to work for us, and he spent the rest of the war supplying Berlin with a lot of highly misleading information that we fed him; in addition, we took immediate possession of whatever he got from Berlin. We made him tell Berlin he’d been spared internment in return for acting as a chaplain for our internment and POW camps. It was a brilliant cover. Berlin never worked it out.’

  Julia nodded. ‘You had a very valuable asset.’

  ‘You have no idea,’ Baxter replied. ‘But that’s under wraps for several generations. Suffice it to say that he was like gold dust. We were with him night and day, never let him out of our sight. Well, the Home Office insisted on that, as a condition of not interning him, but we would have done it anyway. We also gave him a British identity, by the way, so that he didn’t attract suspicion.’

  ‘Name?’ Julia asked.

  ‘Pass.’

  They resumed their walk.

  ‘Where does Lancelot Andrewes come into the picture?’ Julia asked.

  ‘Five told us that Köhler visited Lancelot Andrewes from time to time with EF,’ Baxter replied. ‘They didn’t know why, at first, but when they started to suspect him of passing information to Berlin, they called on EF one day and persuaded him to spill the beans about what was going on.’

  Julia smiled grimly. ‘Did they threaten to shoot him, too?’

  ‘No. They just explained to him that they knew all about his interest in little girls, and gave him a choice between, on the one hand, scandal and imprisonment, and on the other, working with them to make sure Köhler never left their radar. He chose to work with them.’

  ‘So Five recruited EF?’

  ‘In a manner of speaking, yes. That was before they made him a bishop, of course. I can’t say any more about that.’

  ‘What happened to Köhler after the war?’

  ‘Ah, well, that’s an interesting question. I don’t know. His file is less than specific about it. It just says that arrangements were made for him to assume a new identity somewhere abroad. I assume it wouldn’t have been safe to return him to Germany, and it wouldn’t have been a good idea to let him stay here. But beyond that, I have no idea where he went, or what name he’s using there.’

  ‘And you wouldn’t tell me even if you knew?’

  ‘Correct.’

  This time, it was Julia who stopped.

  ‘So, the service knew all along what was happening to those little girls.’

  ‘Yes,’
Baxter replied after staring into the river for some time.

  ‘And you let those men keep on going to Lancelot Andrewes, knowing what you knew? In the eyes of the service, those little girls were expendable?’

  Baxter paused again. ‘I would like to think that we would handle him differently today,’ he replied at length. ‘But try to understand, Julia, we were at war, and Köhler was giving us direct access to the nerve centre of the Wehrmacht –’

  ‘But –’

  ‘I understand what you’re saying, and I only wish I could tell you how much Köhler gave us, how many lives he saved, how many enemy agents he betrayed, how many of their operations he sabotaged for us; but I can’t – none of that will be in the public domain in our lifetimes.’

  ‘But surely to God, there must have been a way to handle him without letting him loose on those little girls?’

  ‘We didn’t let him loose on them. He was doing that long before we knew about him.’

  ‘Even so: you could have stopped it.’

  ‘With the benefit of hindsight, and in the calm of peacetime, yes, I’m sure you’re right. But at the time, we had to do whatever we could to survive. A judgment was made, for security reasons, that he should be allowed to continue the way of life he’d established. You know the service, Julia, and you know that there are times when we have to work with the dark side, embrace it, even. It’s always been that way, and always will. You’re family, Julia. You know that.’

  ‘What do you know about Lord AB and Sir CD?’

  ‘Pass. Nice try.’

  ‘Was my father involved with Köhler?’ she asked suddenly.

  ‘Pass.’

  ‘Come on, Baxter, you can’t do that to me. You just said I was family.’

  ‘He wasn’t involved in decision-making about Köhler,’ Baxter replied after some time, ‘or if he was, there’s nothing on the file to that effect, and he never suggested anything like that to me. In any case, as you know, he was stationed in Vienna until just before war broke out, so he couldn’t have been involved in the early days.’ He paused again. ‘But he was involved in handling Köhler and EF at various times. Most of us were, Julia. That level of handling is very labour-intensive, and we had limited resources. A lot of us had to pitch in when we weren’t involved in other operations.’