The Nazi Spy

by Alan Hardy

  “Fiona…”

  “He’s—He’s set us up,” stuttered a distraught and plaintive Mary. “Hear me out…”

  “She’s raving,” said Matthew dismissively, giving Mary a contemptuous glance. “Clutching at straws…”

  “Well… I…” murmured Fiona, putting her free hand to her head.

  “He’s betraying you,” blurted out Mary, red-faced and wild-eyed, her pent-up emotions on the point of bursting, “as he’s betrayed everybody else… Wentworth, Paula, Turnbill, me… and you…”

  “Fiona…”

  There was something wrong here. Fiona felt all the old terrors flooding back into her mind. The sense of betrayal. The secrets she kept from others, and others kept from her. The doubts she always had. Doubts even about Matthew. Especially about Matthew. Was he the same as everybody else? There was something wrong here. But what was it? Who was tricking her? Who was playing her for a fool? Whoever it was, they would have to pay.

  “It won’t do any harm to hear her out, Matthew,” stated Fiona robotically, her eyes blank and staring, her body unmoving.

  “I’m a British agent,” said Mary. “I’m trying to save the flotilla from being attacked tomorrow. I—”

  “She’s lying, Fiona,” interjected Matthew. “You know she is. She’s—"

  “You’re a double agent, I know that,” countered Fiona, staring at Mary.

  “Yes, I’m a double agent,” Mary admitted, breathing deeply and slowly in an attempt to regain some composure. “But my loyalties are to my own country. I’m not a German spy. Matthew is.”

  “This is ridiculous,” said Matthew angrily, moving forward.

  “Keep back!” commanded Fiona roughly.

  Her voice wasn’t hysterically high-pitched, but it was unsteady enough for Matthew to stop still in his tracks, swallow hard, and stare at her.

  “You’ve come here just now,” said Fiona more calmly, turning to Mary, “trying to get me to contact Berlin, and warn them of a possible trap. I’m not stupid. How were they the actions of a loyal British agent, and not a German agent?”

  “I didn’t know where your loyalties lay,” explained Mary, looking frantic, but relatively earnest. “I was trying to check what you knew. I was trying to get you to talk. I know you’re a double agent. I suspect your loyalties are to yourself foremost, then possibly to Germany, and then to the country you were born in… But I don’t think you’re the type who would stay loyal to a man who’s deceiving her, and who will think nothing of discarding her when he doesn’t need her anymore…”

  Fiona flashed angry eyes upon Matthew. Her head was clouding up again. That mist was descending. Those fears were coming back. Fears that she was being betrayed, that they were keeping secrets from her. He was keeping secrets from her… She glowered at him.

  “Don’t listen to her, Fiona,” Matthew advised, a tremor in his voice. “She’s playing mind-games with you.”

  “Get over there with her!” she ordered, waving the revolver in Mary’s direction. “Go and stand next to her!”

  “Fiona…”

  “Do it!” she screamed.

  Matthew did it.

  Fiona stared at them. Mary, looking pressurized but curiously energized. Matthew, looking extremely peeved, but nervous. He stared at her with his beautiful, blue eyes. Pleading. Persuading. Demanding.

  She shook her head. She had to keep it clear, free of any attempt to hoodwink her. Any attempt to do her harm.

  “So, Mary Wilkinson,” she said, “you came here today with the intention of finding out if the flotilla is leaving at its original time of ten o’ clock, or whether it’s been put back to three o’ clock, as you’d heard. Is that—”

  “No, that’s what I made it sound like,” interrupted Mary, her face looking both earnest and sincere. “I came here to find out if you, and, by association, Matthew here, had also informed Berlin of the change of time, or if you were still reporting the time of departure as ten o’ clock. Matthew has told you nothing. I could never prove it before, but now I’m one hundred per cent certain Matthew is a German spy. Why else—”

  “But, as you said earlier, you’ve informed Berlin that the flotilla is leaving at three o’ clock, and that preparations are being made by the RAF to defend it from attack once it’s out in the open seas. I don’t see how your actions can be read as anything other than in support of Germany.”

  “But the flotilla will still be leaving at ten o’ clock!” shouted Mary, her eyes ablaze with passion. “The departure time hasn’t changed, only my orders from London have changed. I was ordered to report there had been a change, and the flotilla was leaving at three o’ clock. I’m sure Matthew has been ordered to do the same. Don’t you see? By the time the German bombers arrive the flotilla will be long out of range, and the RAF will have a field-day picking them off. It’s London’s plan to make sure the flotilla, and its important American passengers, stay safe. Can’t you see I’m telling the truth? I had to find out what you knew, and what he, Matthew, had told you. I had to play the part of the German spy. That’s how you see me. That’s how he’s painted me to you. But he’s been lying. He’s been cheating on you. He’s the German spy.”

  “This is nonsense, Fiona!” exclaimed an irate Matthew. “She’s making it all up! Let me talk—”

  “Keep back!” Fiona ordered.

  Matthew kept back.

  “Don’t you see, Mrs MacIntosh?” came Mary’s insistent, nervous voice again. “If he hasn’t told you to inform Berlin of the change of time, it means—”

  “But he has contacted me today,” cut in Fiona, in a disembodied tone.

  “To say what?” Mary almost vomited out.

  “He reconfirmed his original information. Just that Roosevelt and Wallace weren’t here, but the time was the same. Ten o’ clock.”

  Fiona turned her bland and blank eyes upon Matthew.

  Matthew stared back, unflinching.

  “That proves it!” shouted Mary triumphantly. “He’s the spy! He wants the bombers to attack the flotilla as it’s putting to sea. That’s the message he told you to send and confirm. It’s—”

  “But I am a German spy too, aren’t I?” Fiona interjected. “Why would he keep it from me that he was a German spy? Why would he pretend to be what he isn’t? What would be the point?”

  “But all men are like that!” snarled Mary viciously.

  A dawning, scary look of recognition flashed upon Fiona’s face.

  “But, Fiona, this is all—”

  “And what’s your story, Matthew?” Fiona cut in. “What’s the message you want sent to Berlin?”

  Matthew didn’t reply. He looked pale, even guilty.

  “Do you want me to tell them there’s been a change in the time of departure?” asked Fiona.

  “No.”

  “You want the German bombers to arrive over Scapa Flow in time to catch the flotilla?”

  He didn’t reply.

  “That proves it!” exclaimed Mary, her face sweaty and shiny. “He’s been tricking you all along! Once he’s got what he wants from you, he’ll get rid of you. He’s probably always planned to kill us both. Wentworth, you, me… He’ll claim those were the three spies. He’ll be left in the clear, to carry on with his work unmolested. He planned it all. He’s been playing you for a complete sucker!”

  Fiona turned her revolver upon Matthew. He swallowed once or twice.

  “You want the bombers to hit the flotilla, Matthew?” she asked gently, although the wildness in her burning eyes belied her apparent calmness.

  “Yes,” he finally replied.

  “Why, Matthew?”

  “Don’t let him sweet-talk you, don’t—”

  “You keep quiet!” hissed Fiona, glaring at Mary. “Now we’ll hear Matthew’s story…”

  She turned back to him.

  Her head was on fire. Images were crowding in. Her anger was mounting until it seemed her head would burst. But she had to hear him out.

 
“Fiona, I’m no German spy. I haven’t been deceiving you. You believe me, don’t you?”

  “Do I?” intoned Fiona flatly.

  “Fiona,” began Matthew, staring nervously at her, “there are about ten German spies in Britain. British Intelligence has turned all of them… well, apart from Mary here… just like I have turned you. They’re all being run as double agents, primed to send to Berlin whatever information London sees fit to send. Obviously, a fair amount of that information will be false. We’ll try to get them to believe things which are not true. But, Fiona, in order for Berlin to trust their spies, to act on the information they’re sent, every now and then the German spies will have to send information which is correct, and even harmful to the British war effort. You see that, don’t you? If they always sent lies, they would blow their covers. Well, that’s what’s happening now. We want the Germans to have faith in you. We want the information you send to them to be proven true, and the information sent by Mary to be false. She’ll be a busted flush. You’ll be Berlin’s golden girl. Their best agent. You’ll be the one they’ll always listen to. You see, war is a long game. We have to do today what might help us in years to come, what—”

  “So, London is willing to sacrifice God knows how many lives tomorrow… even many American lives… but for what purpose?” asked Fiona.

  “Fiona, there’ll come a time, if Germany is not to win this war, when we will launch the invasion of Europe. It’s 1941 now. Who knows? Maybe it will happen next year. Maybe 1943. Maybe 1944. It’ll depend when, and if the Americans enter the war. Without them, it might never happen, or it might take ten years. The code name has already been given for that invasion. It’s D-Day. And when that day comes, whenever it is, its success or failure will depend on the Germans’ resistance. The first few hours will determine the invasion’s outcome. The Germans won’t know where the troops will land. Pas de Calais? Normandy? Brittany? Directly on the German coast? But, if, say, the invasion site is the Pas de Calais, then you, and other double agents, will tell them it’s going to be Normandy, or vice versa… Do you understand? That way the invasion force will gain a valuable foothold. The Germans will have been hoodwinked… They will have dispersed their forces to cover non-existent landing-sites… But they’ll only believe what you say if you have a proven track record. If, for example, you were right about the Anglo-American flotilla leaving Scapa Flow on May 18th at ten o’ clock. That’s why—”

  “But American lives as well as British will be lost,” exclaimed Fiona. “If the British want America to enter the war, how—”

  “The Americans are in on it, Fiona. Roosevelt and Churchill have discussed it. One thing about the two of them is that they’re both ruthless. They’re already planning for America’s entry into the war, and the eventual joint invasion of Occupied Europe. This is total war, Fiona. You have to sacrifice hundreds of lives to save thousands, possibly millions. They know that. Roosevelt knows that…”

  “He’s lying, Fiona!” burst out Mary, looking agitated and furious. “He’s tricking you! He’s deceiving you! Just like he always did!”

  Fiona turned the revolver upon her. Mary looked aghast. She seemed to stop breathing. Fiona’s head started to clear. Mary looked desperate, opening her mouth, searching for words.

  “Just like Freddie!”

  Mary didn’t really speak those words, or shout them out, or even spit them out. She hurled them out. Her last throw. Her last, retching throw of the dice.

  It was like Fiona had been thumped in the stomach. Her body stiffened. Her eyes narrowed.

  In response, Mary’s eyes widened in savage hunger, in a selfish, primeval instinct for survival.

  “Matthew’s treating you like Freddie did!” she choked out. “He’s treating you like dirt! He’s keeping secrets from you! He’s not being straight with you!”

  “Is that true, Matthew?” asked Fiona, her eyes empty and scary again.

  “Fiona…”

  “He’s cheating on you, Fiona, he always has. You know he has. He’s slept with Paula! He’s slept with Belinda! He’s slept with me! You know he has! He’s betrayed you again and again!”

  Mary was practically slobbering over her words, and was forced to stop, almost choking on her own saliva, and intemperate rush to vomit out as many words as she could. Open-mouthed, she stood there, next to Matthew, staring at Fiona, and gasping for breath.

  Fiona felt that rage building up in her head again. That blackness which filled her without respite, and which she could only escape from by hitting out.

  “Freddie betrayed me. He was a dirty beast. He wanted to do terrible, filthy things to me. He…”

  “Matthew’s just the same,” said Mary. “He’s dirty, disgusting… He’s the same as Freddie. He wants to do to you what Freddie did… He does terrible things with other women… You can’t trust him…”

  Fiona felt her head was going to burst. Images of filth, betrayal and blind hatred flooded her mind. She had to punish somebody. She had to hit out.

  She aimed her revolver, her hand shaking uncontrollably, at Matthew.

  Matthew flinched.

  She slowly, unsteadily, moved the revolver along to point at Mary, who drew in her breath. Fiona moved the revolver back towards Matthew. She wavered, her hand appearing limp, as if the revolver would fall from its grasp.

  Then she realized something, and almost immediately, something else.

  She squeezed the trigger.

  The explosion reverberated in their ears, their bodies, their very souls.

  Mary screamed in anguish, and her body fell back on to the sofa.

  She lay there, writhing in torment, her left leg bloodied and horribly twisted.

  Matthew rushed up to Fiona, taking the revolver hanging from her lowered hand, and embraced her.

  “All right, darling?” he whispered, kissing her on the cheek.

  “I’m fine, darling,” she replied groggily, swaying on her feet.

  “Was it really necessary to shoot her?” he asked, turning around towards Mary’s moaning and groaning figure, twitching gruesomely on the sofa, with her blankly-staring pale face turned heavenwards.

  “She deserved it,” commented Fiona roughly. “She’s a bitch.”

  “Fiona,” said Matthew, with a loud sigh, “I thought for a moment it was going to be curtains for me. Were you really in two minds as to what—”

  At that stage, James, the butler, and Molly, the cook—always aware of their place—overcame their reticence and, tentatively, burst into the room.

  “It’s all right, James,” said Fiona, her natural social demeanour re-asserting itself.

  “Better call an ambulance,” added Matthew, with a casual sideways nod towards the heaving figure of Mary, whose right hand was gripping the edge of the sofa as she attempted to raise her head slightly.

  “Very good, sir.”

  “She made two mistakes,” remarked Fiona in a cold and calculating manner, once the servants had left.

  “And what were they?” queried Matthew, gazing at her with intrigued and amused eyes, and then glancing down at her hands.

  “She overplayed her hand.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes, in comparing you to Freddie, in trying to mess with my mind, as you described it, she made you out to be like Freddie in all things. You know, in wanting to make me do beastly, dirty things… Well, I knew that was a lie. You’re not like that. You’re decent with me. That meant she didn’t know what you were like in bed… It wasn’t true that you’d betrayed me with her…”

  Fiona relaxed into his arms, looking up at his beautiful blue eyes, and rested her forehead on his warm cheek.

  “And what was the second mistake?”

  “That came to me immediately I realized she was lying about you. My mind cleared a bit, and I could see things properly… It was John Granville. When she came here to find out what I knew, and you knew, and what you’d told me to report to Berlin, she came as what she is, the third
German spy. She mentioned Granville’s meeting with me at the Lyons tea-room in Baker Street. She wouldn’t have known about that if she wasn’t in cahoots with him. And she knew what he’d said to me.”

  “Yes, that was careless…”

  “And she said he’d confirmed to her that preparations were being made which strongly suggested the flotilla would be leaving in the afternoon… They were obviously the two members of the third cell. When she switched afterwards to pretending she was a double agent loyal to Britain—to save herself—those references to Granville damned her. By mentioning Granville, she had compromised herself. It was a bad mistake. It took me a long time to see it, though… I couldn’t see straight…”

  “Yes, she shouldn’t have mentioned Granville, if she didn’t know what the situation was with you, and me,” said Matthew.

  “When she switched her story, it didn’t fit… When she accused you of being a German spy, it meant that you and Granville would have constituted the third cell, and she should have known nothing of my meeting with him, let alone have had any contact with him… She nearly turned the tables on me, but…”

  Matthew’s attention was taken by a sudden upsurge in the heaving and writhing of poor Mary’s body, as she tossed this way and that. Groaning. Even gurgling. Indescribably agitated and convulsed, as if her whole body was on fire.

  “What the…” he murmured, as he approached her.

  Her body gave a final convulsion, and remained as still as a stone, frozen in an awkward, twisted, distorted shape.

  “My God, I do believe…”

  Fiona joined him, and they looked down at her pale, mask-like face, her blank, dead eyes, and liquid oozing out of her opened mouth.

  “Cyanide capsule, I would say,” commented Matthew dispassionately.

  “Shall we cancel the ambulance?” asked Fiona, quite cruelly.

  “Well… Someone will have to take her away… Although there’s no need as yet to report her death…”

  “Why not?”

  “We don’t want Granville to hear of it, do we?”

  “Don’t we?”

  Matthew glanced down at her hands again.

  Fiona looked at him, puzzled.