The director of the interrogation center met them on the gravel driveway in front of the house, a brown folder held tight to his chest. A short, wiry fellow in service dress, Captain Toby led them around to the east wing, where they traveled along a chilly corridor that smelled of antiseptic and then climbed a flight of metal stairs. At the top stood an armed guard who gave a salute and stepped away from a heavy door.
“He’s in here,” Toby said.
Evelyn came forward and put an eye to the cell peephole. The room was gloomy, with only a glint of light from the high-set windows, but it was enough for her to make out the shape of a couple of chairs and a table, and the man—young, by the look of it—hunched over the end of it. He was dressed in brown overalls and his face, which he raised suddenly as if sensing Evelyn on the other side of the door, was swollen and bruised.
“He looks the worse for wear,” she remarked.
“I’d say so.” Toby handed Evelyn the folder and jammed his hands in his pockets. “You’ll see in there how he had the gumption to tell us he’d soon be in charge of everyone in London.”
Evelyn turned back to the peephole. The boy inside had stood up and begun pacing about the cell.
“Why did they send him over?”
“Same reason the Germans always do,” Chadwick said. “They want intelligence about land movement. Distribution of troops, armaments, planes, ships in the ports, civilian morale—as if they’d find all that out, for goodness’ sake.”
“These boys could have landed in a bucket of nipples and still come up sucking their thumbs,” Toby barked. “The Fallschirmjäger drop them out of their planes with absolutely no training. Most of them have been picked up around Berlin or Amsterdam by the Nazi talent spotters and then blackmailed, which of course makes it easier for us to turn them.”
“And is that our plan?” Evelyn asked, glancing to Chadwick for confirmation. “To make him one of ours?”
He smiled back at her dourly. “Ordinarily, yes. His friends have already been spectacularly forthcoming.”
“Forthcoming?” Toby laughed. “We only had to dangle a noose at them and they squealed quicker than I could say pannenkoeken. We know who sent them, their mission, their cover stories, their MOs. There’s never much originality to it—this lot were told to pass as Norwegian sailors shipwrecked near Bangor. They’ve got false papers, Norwegian kroner, but they can’t speak a word of the lingo. They’d have been found out in hours. All except for this one.” He tapped against the latch. “This one isn’t for turning.”
Toby put a key hanging around his neck in the lock and pushed open the cell door, motioning for Evelyn and Chadwick to follow him inside. He pointed to the wooden chairs at the table where he wanted them to sit.
The Dutch boy was frozen in the corner, half-crouched like a cornered animal, shivering violently. His auburn hair was matted with black blood, and his right arm, Evelyn now saw, hung limp, the shoulder bulging at an odd angle.
“Good morning, Jacob,” Toby said loudly. “Are we in the mood to talk today?”
Vermeer shuddered and stared at the floor. His lips were blue.
Toby sauntered over to the table and sat down on the edge of it, his legs dangling wide, facing the prisoner. “Now, Jacob, let me remind you of a few facts. Your friends have already told us a great deal about your mission. We know which German colonel put you on that plane, and we know you were ordered to spy on the Belfast ports. We even know how much they promised to pay you—about a thousand Reichsmark, wasn’t it?” He sat back, folding his arms, and made a tut-tut sound. “That’s not much money for a life, now, is it?”
The boy looked up with bloodshot eyes and spat on the floor.
“Fuck you,” he said in English. “You and your whore.”
Toby twisted around, his jagged eyebrows raised.
“Did you hear that, Miss Varley?” He tipped his head back and shouted, “Did you hear that, sparrows?” He chuckled, bringing his face down level with Vermeer’s. “We’re recording everything you say, Jacob. They’ll read it all back to you at the Old Bailey.” He stood up and clapped his hands together. “Rightio, I’ll leave you to it. I’m just outside if you need anything. But remember”—he peered down at Evelyn, and she could see each of his nose hairs, as coarse as twine—“this cretin was planted for the invasion. Don’t forget that when he bats his lashes at you.” With a laugh, he slapped Chadwick on the back. “I say this as much for Chaddy as you, Miss Varley. Everyone knows John’s soft. Come along, then?”
Chadwick looked at Evelyn, and after she had given him a brisk nod he stood up and followed Toby out of the cell door, which they slammed shut. Evelyn turned back to Vermeer, who was now staring at her with curiosity. His shivering had stopped. The air in the cell went still.
“Right,” Evelyn said. “Right.”
Her pulse fluttered. She could feel her color rising. Suddenly the idea of interrogating a suspect seemed mad. She wanted to laugh. What on earth was she going to say to this boy? How could she ever make him talk?
“Ah . . . sprichst du Deutsch?” she stammered.
The boy sniffed, hoicked. A gob of brown phlegm landed on the floor.
“Was ist, wenn ich es tue?” he said.
“I thought you might prefer to speak in German.” Evelyn nodded to the wall where she imagined the tiny microphone had been implanted between the bricks. “They won’t understand, anyway.”
Vermeer ran a hand across his swollen nose. “Dummköpfe,” he sneered.
“Yes.” Evelyn felt herself smile. “They are fools.”
She brought out her cigarettes and the boy’s gaze flickered across the silver case. She offered him one and he snatched it up greedily and waited for a light. Then he sat back, watching her as he smoked. The dossier said he was twenty-five, but he looked younger than that—barely out of his teens. On his chin were a few wisps of a soft beard, and where they weren’t cut and split and bruised his cheeks bore a rash of pimples. His eyes were pale, washed out, and his lashes were as long as a girl’s. But his hand was steady as he brought the cigarette to his plump lips. Perhaps Toby was right. Perhaps he wasn’t for turning.
“You are alone here, Jacob,” Evelyn said quietly. “Your friends have turned on you.”
Vermeer shrugged, sucking on his cigarette.
“And we have enough intelligence to secure a conviction in our courts. The judge won’t show leniency.” She paused. “Do you want to be hanged?”
Vermeer flashed his teeth. “Was macht es aus?”
“It matters a great deal. Your life has value, meaning.”
The boy swallowed, his Adam’s apple juddering. “What do you know about my life?”
“Why don’t you tell me?”
“Isn’t that enough?” He nodded at the dossier. “What else is important? Do you want to know when I first pissed the bed? The first girl I fucked? Hm?”
“No,” said Evelyn. “I’d like to know why you traveled to Ireland.”
Vermeer scoffed. “So you can trick me?”
“So I can understand you.”
Evelyn edged forward, her hands planted on the table. He glanced at her fingers, at her red nail polish, and she saw his eyes widen a fraction. She knew she had to walk a careful line to make him trust her, to affect him as she knew she could. She had heard that men on the gallows often cried not for their wives or lovers but for their mothers. Soft femininity was required. Powder, not rouge.
“I know what it feels like to be angry, Jacob,” she said quietly. “What it feels like to want to belong.”
He raised his eyes to hers, looked away.
“You’re English,” he said. “You always belong.”
“I don’t know if that’s true. I’ve often felt lost.”
“I’m not lost.” Firmer now, his shoulder turned toward the wall.
Evelyn sat back, picked up her cigarettes, lit one, and as she sat there smoking they both watched the purple trails of smoke drift toward the ceiling.
“But you’re away from your family, your friends, Jacob. You’re a prisoner in another country far from home.” She smiled, hoping her eyes were kind, because she did feel a rush of pity for him. “Doesn’t that make you just a bit lost?”
Vermeer stared at the floor. Beneath the baggy overalls, she could tell he was slight, fine-boned, and there was something oddly graceful about the way he leaned back and crossed one leg over the other. Not one of nature’s typical fighters then, Evelyn reflected. Not for the boxing ring. A brass-knuckle fight, perhaps, in the back lanes of the East End, the price of an underworld wager gone wrong.
“I never wanted to come here,” he muttered. “I never wanted to get involved in any of this shit. But I had to, didn’t I? I had to do what he asked me.”
Evelyn threaded her fingers together. She waited, listening to the sounds of Vermeer’s sodden breath through his mangled nose.
“My father . . . he owed money. He made some bad debts with some bad people. But the Gestapo, they promised to help. He promised to help our family . . .” Vermeer looked up, rage and despair flashing in his eyes.
“If you helped him in return?”
“Yes.”
She watched him suck on the cigarette like he was drawing air from it, and thought about her parents. Would she jump out of a plane for them? Captain Toby had sneered about these recruits, but Evelyn couldn’t help admiring their courage. To be faced with such a choice.
“This man,” she said carefully. “He was your handler?”
Vermeer nodded.
“And now he has betrayed you?”
Another flicker passed across his face. The boy swallowed, his lips a tight line. He looked for a moment as if he might cry.
“What is his name, Jacob?”
He shook his head.
“He’s not here to help, Jacob. He’s abandoned you, just like your compatriots. You owe him no loyalty.”
As Vermeer ground out the cigarette, Evelyn saw the slump in his shoulders.
“Where did he recruit you?” she asked quickly.
“I can’t tell you.”
He was retreating from her now, a carat of ice loose from the drift. She sat forward again.
“You know, Jacob, it is possible for us to change our way of thinking. To admit to our mistakes. We can find forgiveness if we’re open to understanding this about ourselves, if we’re willing . . .”
He snorted. “What are you, my priest?”
“No, but I am trying to help you. To make you see there is another way.”
He narrowed his eyes at her and she could see the fresh calculation going on behind them—an animal instinct.
“Where’s the next drop, Jacob?”
“And if I tell you, what then? You might catch those men and bring them here, but there will be more after that. Hundreds of us, thousands.”
The boy raised his good arm and looped it around the back of his battered head. He was gloating. Evelyn smiled tightly, but she could feel the first flutter of panic in her breast.
“You can still save yourself, Jacob. The people who put you here don’t care if you live or die.”
“And you do?”
Evelyn blinked back at him. The truth was she had no answer for that—not one she could speak, anyway.
“Give me a cigarette,” he said.
She passed over the case. He took one and put it behind his ear, then took another and waited for Evelyn to hold up the lighter. He inhaled deeply then sat back, his face concealed behind the smoke.
“I will be safe,” he said, “if I tell you?”
“You have my word.”
He scoffed. “Your word.” He pointed to his shoulder. “You English have always believed you have more honor than the rest of us. More decency. A gentleman’s handshake and all that bullshit. But your gentleman wouldn’t piss on most of his fellow Englishmen if they were on fire. You’re as depraved as the rest of us.”
He stared at her for another moment, his eyes flickering toward the door. He ran his tongue over his teeth and tapped some ash into the tray.
“The drop is tonight,” he muttered. “Firth of Forth. More Dutchmen, I don’t know how many. They are watching the docks.”
Evelyn breathed out, counting her heartbeats. Three, four, five. She had done it. Somehow she had made him talk, and now she had information that would make a real difference to Captain Toby’s operation. She watched Vermeer smoke for another minute, then she went and banged on the door, and after she had stood in the doorway and told Toby and Chadwick what she had discovered, Toby pushed his way back inside the cell.
“Scotland, eh?” He glared at Vermeer, hands planted on his slight hips. “Now that wasn’t so hard, was it?”
Vermeer only shrugged, silent once more.
“Right.” Toby clapped his hands. “I had better get back to the main house and telephone through to the Admiralty. And while I’m doing that, the sergeant outside will help you get scrubbed up for the Old Bailey, Jacob. Can’t have you looking like this when you come before the judge.” He glanced over to Evelyn, gave her a wink. “What do you think, Miss Varley, fancy a wager?”
“I’m sorry, Captain?”
“A wager. On the black cap for this one? Odds on, wouldn’t you say?”
Vermeer looked at Evelyn. He must have comprehended something in Toby’s tone because for the first time he looked afraid.
“Well, I don’t know . . .”
Evelyn tried to smile, clinging to the thread of hope that this was a joke, until she saw Chadwick’s eyes fall to the floor.
“He gave us the intelligence,” she stammered. “He told us about the next drop. I’m sure the judge—”
“I’d still put money on the noose,” said Toby cheerfully.
“What did he say?” Vermeer was now looking wildly from Toby to Evelyn. “What did that bastard say?”
When he tried to stand up, Toby pressed down hard on his injured shoulder, making the boy cry out.
“You stay there until I say you can move,” he snarled. “The rope’s too good for garbage like you.”
“Jasper,” said Chadwick, taking a step toward him. “Perhaps we should—”
But he didn’t finish. From the doorway, Evelyn saw a hard glint enter Vermeer’s eyes and she shrank back, struck by a pulse of hatred so swift and powerful it was almost visible across the width of the cell. Suddenly Vermeer bucked in the seat, the brute force of it knocking Toby aside, and he sprang to his feet, raising his good arm in a salute.
“Zum Glück sprichst du Deutsch, Schlampe!”
In a flash Chadwick had crossed the cell and pinned Vermeer against the wall. The boy thrashed against him, shouting and swearing, his teeth stained pink. Toby hollered to the guard outside, and when the young man rushed in, his pistol was out of the halter and he began beating Vermeer with it.
“I told you,” Toby cried, as though Evelyn were to blame for this. “There’s no point in softly-softly with this sort. No point!”
The sergeant was still belting Vermeer, who had by now slumped against the wall, one arm raised to protect his face, his body shuddering with each clock of the pistol butt. Evelyn was aware of Chadwick at her side, his hand on her shoulder, giving her a shake. There were tears in her eyes.
“Evelyn?” he was shouting. “What did he say?”
“What?”
“The boy—just now. What did he say?”
She could feel the fruitcake she’d eaten earlier that morning rising up the back of her throat. Glacé cherries, walnuts, brandy. Evelyn stared at Chadwick, at those deep lines etched into his face. She had believed she had come here to make a difference to the way these interrogations ran; to do a better, fairer job of them. But now she understood that any small victory would always be at the expense of others. That her success today had been paid for with this boy’s misery—and his blood. This was the terrible, inescapable equation of the work she did, and looking away from Chadwick, Evelyn squeezed her eyes sh
ut.
“He said, ‘Lucky you speak German, bitch.’”
Nine
AS SHE STOOD at the pristine basin in the Dorchester restrooms and stared at her waxy reflection, Evelyn hoped Julia wouldn’t sense death hanging about her like a bad smell. She had thought about canceling their afternoon tea, but she knew that was a dangerous route: it would only encourage her to bury herself deeper and deeper in her work. Conscious of her red eyes, Evelyn splashed her face with cold water and ran a coat of fresh lipstick over her lips, patting some powder on her cheeks to finish. Afterward, her eyes were a little brighter, and she thought about what Chadwick had said on the drive back from Latchmere House: that you could put an awful memory in a box and throw away the key. She wasn’t sure she believed him about that, but she would give it a try.
Julia was already sitting on a high-backed divan at the far end of the oval bar when Evelyn walked in from the lobby. She watched Evelyn peel off her gloves and sit down, then pushed a glass toward her. “You look quite done in,” she said. “Have you had an awful day?”
The patterned wallpaper behind Julia’s head seemed to shift as Evelyn swallowed some Scotch, afraid that she might cry.
“Yes, I have rather,” she said. “But let’s not talk about work or the war or anything else dreary. I want to hear about you.”
Afternoon tea arrived on a tiered stand. There were finger sandwiches with cucumber and cream cheese, chicken and mustard, smoked salmon and dill. Sweets were warm raisin and plain scones, with homemade jams and Cornish clotted cream, as well as pastries. Evelyn ordered Darjeeling tea, Julia had champagne. The food cheered Evelyn up, and they spoke a little about Sally and her parents. Hugh had been busy at the factory, while Elizabeth was presently ensconced at the manor, entertaining another party of friends. Julia didn’t eat or drink much but smoked a great deal, a pile of cigarette butts already overflowing from the ashtray. She had started at the Benevolent Society under the guidance of “a rather pious old duck from Glasgow” and had been put to work planning their annual gala, which seemed to cost more to host than it raised for the charity—“Which is why the rich should never be in command of other people’s money,” Julia concluded.
An Unlikely Spy Page 13
