The Secret of Spandau

by Peter Lovesey

  ‘You believe it now?’

  Jane pointed to the wedge of Gruyère on the cheeseboard. ‘I believe it’s as full of holes as that.’

  ‘Ah. But you’re staying with it?’

  ‘To find out the truth.’

  Cedric nodded amiably. ‘That’s good enough for me. No prizes for guessing what I want you to research, Jane.’

  ‘The far right of the Conservative Party in the first years of the war?’

  ‘Spot on. There were people openly advocating a deal with Hitler. The Marquess of Tavistock was one. Lord Halifax pressed the case in the War Cabinet itself. Follow up the names in the Haushofer correspondence – Sir Samuel Hoare and Lord Lothian.’

  Jane frowned. ‘When you say “follow up”, do you mean compile dossiers, or what?’

  Cedric shook his head. ‘I’m not looking for a rehash of Who’s who. Get me the stuff that has never appeared in print, Jane. Use your contacts on the Diary. Talk to the families. Get them to tell you what Grandad was up to in 1941.’

  ‘Heavy on mileage,’ Jane warned him.

  ‘My dear, leave me to worry about the expense.’

  Interested glances were exchanged around the table.

  ‘Does that go for all of us?’ Red tentatively enquired.

  ‘Sorry to disappoint you, but I want you to work the patch you know: Berlin,’ Cedric told him. ‘Have another crack at Wolf Hess. Press him for chapter and verse.’

  ‘I already have.’

  ‘Try harder.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  Cedric gave Red a long look across the table. ‘There is something, yes. What we are going to need is a line into Spandau Prison. If this story is to mean anything at all, we have to try it on the one man left alive who knows what happened.’

  There was a moment’s stunned silence.

  Red began to laugh. ‘You think we can speak to Hess?’

  ‘You can,’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Cedric, Spandau isn’t an old people’s home. I can’t walk in there with a bunch of grapes and ask to see my Uncle Rudolf.’

  Cedric made it plain that he was unamused and unimpressed. ‘One way and another, some three hundred people are hired to run that place. If you can’t find one of them willing to earn a few Deutschmarks on the side, you’re not the intrepid journalist I took you for.’

  ‘Yea, but how many of the three hundred ever get near to Hess?’

  ‘Find out.’

  Dick was eager to come in. ‘Aren’t we overlooking something? Hess lost his memory at Mytchett Place. There’s no guarantee that it ever came back. He’s probably senile by now.’

  Cedric said firmly, ‘My information is that he is not. Can’t you people see that this will make our story the biggest thing since Watergate? The authentic voice of Hess from inside Spandau confirming that he was in league with half the British establishment. Imagine the sensation that will cause.’

  ‘It’s a voice now,’ said Red, squaring up for the counter-offensive. ‘You mean you want him on tape? You wouldn’t like me to smuggle in a couple of TV cameras and Sir Robin Day while I’m at it?’

  ‘All we want is his confirmation that our story is true,’ Cedric responded. ‘Have you read that book I gave you last night?’

  ‘The Loneliest Man in the World? I haven’t got around to it yet,’ Red was forced to admit.

  For the first time that weekend, Cedric barked out his annoyance. ‘What the hell have you been doing with your time? Do you think I flew you over from Berlin for the pleasure of your small-talk? So far as I’m concerned, that book is the Michelin Guide to Spandau. Eugene Bird was the American commandant of the place. Everything you want is in there: prison routine, numbers of staff, a description of the layout, pictures of the cell-blocks, even an aerial photo. Plus, of course, the only interviews with Hess in nearly forty years.’

  ‘Did the truth about the peace deal come out?’ asked Dick.

  ‘We wouldn’t be sitting here if it had,’ Red commented, quick to turn the fire on someone else.

  ‘True.’

  ‘Did Hess reveal anything of significance?’ asked Jane.

  Cedric pondered the question. ‘His loyalty to Hitler has never wavered, even though he admits that his Führer would probably have stood him against a wall and shot him if he had flown back to Germany. He repeats ad nauseam that the flight was his own initiative.’

  ‘Is it important?’

  ‘It obviously is to Hess. He was shown photocopies of the Haushofer correspondence and he stressed that even his friends the Haushofers didn’t know what he was planning.’

  ‘What about his intentions when he got to Britain? Does he say much about that?’ asked Dick, joining in the conspiracy to coax Cedric into a more genial frame of mind.

  ‘The usual stuff about being an emissary of peace. He admits that it was a mistake to try to overthrow Churchill.’

  ‘Nothing about the people he planned to contact?’

  ‘No. He confirms that he had never met the Duke of Hamilton. There was no reply from Hamilton to the Haushofers’ feelers. Time was running out for a peace deal, because the Germans knew America might line up with Britain any time.’

  ‘Not to mention the fact that Hitler was about to attack Russia,’ put in Jane.

  Cedric’s expression relaxed a little, as if somewhat reassured that his team was not entirely unreceptive. ‘Operation Barbarossa. Yes. Quite a lot is made of this in the book. For a long time, Hess insists that he knew nothing about Hitler’s invasion plan. Then, one evening in his cell when he has been reading through the manuscript of The Loneliest Man, he admits to Colonel Bird that he did know about Barbarossa. Later, he retracts the statement, but a day or two later, he wants it reinstated.’

  ‘Are you sure he isn’t gaga?’ asked Jane.

  Cedric shook his head. ‘Colonel Bird describes him as a very intelligent man, well read, and with a most inquiring mind.’

  Red cupped his beer-glass in his hands and stared into it. ‘Leave it with me,’ he said. ‘I’ll work on it.’

  ‘Discreetly,’ Cedric cautioned him. ‘And that goes for all of you. Be aware of the sensitive ground we’re about to disturb: over here, the security services and the establishment; over there, the most famous prisoner in the world, guarded by four nations. When Bird’s book was in preparation, the CIA got to hear about it. His home was put under twenty-four hour surveillance, his phone was tapped, he was placed under house arrest, interrogated for hours, asked to resign his job as commandant and flown to Washington to appear before a board of the State Department.’

  ‘Yet the book was published?’ said Jane in surprise.

  ‘Yes – with a signed statement from Colonel Bird that he was required to testify under oath.’

  ‘Heavily censored?’ asked Dick.

  ‘Bird states that his original manuscript amounted to 160,000 words. Anyone can do the arithmetic. The book is at least 50,000 words short. It’s still the only substantial account we have of life in Spandau.’

  ‘So watch out for the men with bulges under their jackets,’ said Red.

  Dick looked up bleakly. ‘I suppose that leaves me the cantankerous old sod from MI5?’

  Cedric reached for another chicken portion. ‘I’ll set up a meeting. I have a hunch about him.’

  ‘And after that?’

  ‘The Public Record Office,’ Cedric informed him with a reassuring beam. ‘We need cast-iron evidence. Documentation first; then corroboration from people who took part in the events of 1940 and ’41; and finally …’ He leaned back in his chair and beamed at Red. ‘… a word or two from old man Hess.’

  When lunch was over and the table cleared, Cedric invited Red for a stroll along one of the woodland tracks. It was not to admire the trees. He told Red candidly that he was worried sick. ‘… . and if you want to know why, it’s because of you. When I picked you for this job, I didn’t have much choice. I needed a fluent speaker of German who knows Berlin, and that’s
you. You’re a competent writer with a lively style. You’re also foolhardy, impetuous and you shoot off your mouth too much.’ Cedric paused, practically inviting a riposte from Red, but none came. ‘I knew that, of course. I knew I was taking a blind running jump with you. I tried to tell myself that your cocksure manner is an asset that you might even use to charm your way into Spandau. I just hope the charm works better over there than it has on me. I’m handing you the greatest assignment of my editorial career. If you blow it, Goodbody, so help me, I’ll see you never work on a newspaper again.’

  18

  Dick Garrick had not visited Brighton in years. The last time was in the early seventies with his parents. Then it had seemed to him a town in a time-warp, locked in the thirties with Woodbines and peep-shows, peppermint rock and characters from Graham Greene. It had its high-rise buildings and electronic games, but the pre-war atmosphere prevailed. So it was not inappropriate that Cedric’s veteran secret service agent had selected as a rendezvous the beach in front of the Old Ship Hotel, approximately midway between the two piers. The period charm of the encounter was diminished only by Dick’s dislike of early starts; he had to drive the fifty miles from London and be at the meeting-place by 7.00 a.m.

  There were compensations. At that hour he was able to park the Renault at a meter along the seafront, almost opposite the hotel. And Brighton beach in the low-angled morning sun, with a minimum of people – a jogger and a few dog-exercisers – was a postcard scene of glittering shingle and flashing water. The only drawback was that the stretch of beach in front of the Old Ship appeared deserted.

  Beside his car, Dick checked the time and found he had two minutes in hand. Possibly his contact was sitting at a window overlooking the beach and waiting for a positive move on Dick’s part. There was nobody within sight along the promenade. He picked up his copy of yesterday’s edition of the Daily Mail and sheepishly slipped the envelope Cedric had given him between the centre pages. This was pre-Greene in conception, he reflected, more out of Edgar Wallace or John Buchan. He was to carry the paper folded in his left hand, with the title prominent.

  The watch showed 7.00 a.m. and no one had made a move. He had not driven fifty miles just for a sniff of the sea. There was nothing for it but to go down on the beach and stand where he could be seen.

  He took the stone steps down and crunched across the pebbles. Within a few paces, he realized what he had not appreciated from the road above: that there was a steep shelf, where the beach dropped by all of ten feet. Standing on the finer stones at the foot of the shelf was the grey-haired figure in the white Burberry and black trilby Dick had been told to expect. He was facing the sea, holding his copy of the Daily Mail behind his back.

  Dick slithered clumsily down the slope, but the man ignored him until he was at his side. Mercifully, there was no secret form of words.

  ‘I’m Dick Garrick. Cedric Fleming sent me.’

  The man glanced at the paper in Dick’s hand. He had sunglasses and a neatly-trimmed white beard. The thought crossed Dick’s mind that perhaps, as secret agents in retirement got more remote from the trade, they compensated with this kind of role-playing.

  ‘Garrick.’ The man in the raincoat spoke the name thoughtfully and stared along the length of the beach, as if he were looking for a landing-craft. Apparently satisfied that Dick was not an enemy invader, he exchanged newspapers and thrust the one he had got from Dick into his raincoat pocket. ‘So far as you are concerned, my name will be, em …’ He stared around him again. ‘… Stones. Understood?’

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I thought it would not be long before the cormorant press descended on me. What morsels from my memoirs have whetted the appetite? I take it you have read my memoirs?’

  After an uncomfortable pause, Dick answered, ‘Not yet. Cedric Fleming isn’t letting the manuscript out of his office as far as I know.’

  ‘Sensible,’ Stones decided. ‘We’ll walk along the water’s edge.’ He set off briskly down the incline, shouting over his shoulder, ‘I’m happy to report that I’m in the pink of health, and I attribute it to walking by the sea. Brighton beach has a more invigorating air than anywhere else along the south coast. The locals tell you it’s the ozone, but of course it isn’t. Rotting seaweed is the secret.’

  When they had stepped over several fly-infested heaps of Brighton’s secret and reached the narrow fringe of damp sand, Stones said, ‘One of those pocket tape-recorders wouldn’t work too well down here by the waves.’

  ‘I haven’t brought one.’

  ‘You’re not making notes,’ Stones pointed out accusingly. ‘Why aren’t you making notes?’

  ‘I’m not looking for a statement. I simply want your version of certain things that happened in the war.’

  Stones gave a snort. ‘Your editor told me. Hess, isn’t it? Not much story to him.’

  ‘Did you have anything to do with him?’

  Stones appeared unwilling to answer directly. ‘He behaved like a madman, you know. Tried to kill himself barely a month after he arrived. He jumped over the stairs at Mytchett Place.’

  ‘Why was that?’

  ‘Stress, probably.’

  ‘You said behaved like a madman.’

  ‘Well, he was playing up, wasn’t he? Cunning old fox.’

  ‘To impress MI5?’

  ‘I dare say.’

  ‘There are suggestions that he was brainwashed,’ Dick ventured. ‘Is that possible?’

  ‘Brainwashed?’ The sunglasses flashed as Stones looked out to sea. ‘I don’t believe brainwashing had been thought of in 1941.’

  Dick said doggedly, ‘He was handed over to the psychiatrists as soon as the Foreign Office had extracted all the information it could.’

  ‘Psychiatric care.’

  ‘At Mytchett Place – the headquarters of the MI5 field security police?’

  Stones gave a thin smile. ‘Those whom the gods wish to destroy they first make mad.’

  Dick was silent for a few paces. ‘They said he was paranoid. Delusions of persecution.’

  Stones made a sound of amused contempt. ‘Delusions, my foot! Hess was persecuted by our people. I can tell you that for certain.’

  Without appearing as eager for information as he felt, Dick asked. ‘In what way?’

  ‘I’ll give you an illustration. You must understand that this was in time of war, mind. If he hadn’t been wearing a service uniform when he landed, we would probably have shot him as a spy. When did Hess arrive?’

  ‘On Saturday, May 10.’

  ‘Well, about that time, a secret unit known as GS1 was set up near Woburn by Sefton Delmer.’

  ‘The Express man?’

  ‘Yes, a journalist – but with a first-class mind,’ Stones added pointedly. ‘GS1’s contribution to the war effort was to produce black propaganda.’

  ‘What did that consist of?’

  ‘Basically, misleading information to confuse the enemy. The first assignment Delmer and his people were given was to produce an edition of the official Nazi newspaper, Volkischer Beobachter, to plant on Hess. They took a page from the actual issue of May 21, and grafted in a short paragraph of their own in similar type in the bottom right-hand corner.’

  ‘For Hess to read? What did it say?’

  ‘It was supposed to be a denial of certain rumours in the foreign press that Hess’s wife and four-year-old son were being held by the Gestapo. It said the truth was that Frau Hess and her son were in a mental hospital in Thuringia.’

  ‘Nasty.’

  ‘That isn’t all. They followed it up with this.’ Stones took a newspaper cutting from an inside pocket, unfolded it and handed it to Dick.

  ‘The Telegraph?’

  ‘Another fake,’ Stones explained. ‘Just three copies were secretly printed for GS1.’

  The piece was an account of statements allegedly made by Dr Paul Schmidt, Chief of the press section of the German Foreign Office, to John Cudahy, former US Ambassador to Be
lgium.

  ‘Most of it’s of no consequence,’ Stones told Dick. ‘Take a look at the paragraph marked with a pencil.’

  Dick studied it. Schmidt, like other intimates of Hitler’s circle, had taken great trouble in the talks I had with him to impress upon me that Hess was mentally deranged. Rudolf Hess, he said, had long been suffering from an incurable disease which had now affected his brain. His small son Wolf Rüdiger had inherited his father’s malady and was now undergoing treatment in a mental institution.

  ‘Totally without foundation, of course,’ said Stones.

  ‘Call it black propaganda – to me it sounds sick,’ said Dick. ‘When did we plant this on Hess?’

  ‘The date of the issue is on the reverse.’

  Dick turned the cutting over.

  20 June 1941.

  His voice was tight with outrage. ‘Five days after his suicide attempt! What were they trying to do to the man?’ After a moment, he said more evenly, ‘May I keep this?’

  ‘Certainly. It’s only a photocopy.’

  ‘I see the point of that quotation about the gods now. The treatment amounts to much the same as brainwashing.’

  ‘Destroying his mental equilibrium?’

  ‘And his memory of recent events,’ Dick said in the hope that disclosures on his part would encourage Stones to open up even more. ‘Highly sensitive matters.’

  Stones commented drily, ‘Which brings us round to your editor’s theory about the right-wing conspiracy.’

  ‘Cedric Fleming told you about that?’ Dick asked in surprise.

  ‘I have held an important position in the security service for many years, Mr Garrick.’

  ‘Sorry.’ But he still felt peeved, considering what a big deal Cedric had made about confidentiality.

  ‘You want the facts?’

  ‘Please.’

  Briefly, conversation gave way to the slap of waves against massive wooden piles as the two men passed under the delapidated structure of the old West Pier.

  ‘You’re in for a shattering disappointment, but here goes,’ Stones told him. ‘The pro-German people in Britain were very well known to us. The most extreme of them were detained in prison under the Emergency Regulations.’