He’d chosen the latter, and by the time he discovered to his horror what this entailed, it was too late. You’ll make a good agent. You’ve already demonstrated you have many of the skills we require. And you speak good English. Some of the agents we’ve sent over there have been less than reliable and also unlucky. We hope you’ll be neither. It shouldn’t be too difficult, not once you get to Portsmouth…
He couldn’t help thinking they were mad: why on earth would anyone think he’d make a good spy? It was like he was reading a bad book, but he had no alternative but to go along with it. The training was exhausting, and he began to be quite fearful, regretting choosing this over the Eastern Front. By the time he boarded the U-boat – that voyage was a nightmare in itself – he’d determined that given half a chance, he’d avoid the journey to London and Portsmouth and instead find a quiet life for himself in England. It couldn’t be that hard.
When he discovered that the German agent who’d be looking after him when he landed would be a woman, he’d hoped she’d be the kind who’d fall for his charms, but the moment he saw her that plan went out of the window. Now he was just delaying the journey to London while he thought of something. He was even beginning to wonder what the consequences would be if something happened to the woman: would anyone miss her?
* * *
By Tuesday, Lillian Abbott couldn’t ignore an unmistakable menace about the German. Despite his frequent smiles and apparently relaxed manner, she felt thoroughly intimidated. Even aside from harbouring a German spy, there was also the fact of having a stranger in her house. Apart from his bath on the first morning, he never seemed to wash, so had a foul odour, and he was eating so much she was buying more than was wise on the black market. She was concerned she could be drawing attention to herself, even in an area where people apparently didn’t indulge in gossip.
As she was about to leave on Tuesday morning, he announced that he’d need another day at least before he could consider moving on, and as she cycled to work, the realisation that he might have no intention of ever going to London began to dawn on her.
That afternoon, on the way back, she stopped at Peascombe cricket club. It was situated between the two villages, and when she’d moved to the area, she’d attended their matches, partly because it seemed to be the right thing to do and also because she enjoyed cricket, certainly more than attending church. Now the ground was abandoned. The low metal railings that had skirted the boundary had been uprooted and sent to aid the war effort, probably now being turned into tanks. The outfield was also serving the war effort, having become a series of vegetable patches, though inevitably there’d been bitter disputes between the two villages as to who was responsible for maintaining them, and as a result most had gone to seed. The clubhouse was boarded up and the large roller, which required two men to pull it, lay rusting on what had been the batting strip.
She propped her bicycle against a tree and sat on the one bench remaining on the boundary, its paint peeling. Leaning back against a barely legible plaque commemorating a member who’d once scored a century, she lit a cigarette and in the silence tried to gather her thoughts. What would be the worst that could happen if she cycled back to Mablethorpe, to the police station on Victoria Road, and told them there was a German spy staying at her house? She’d tell them she’d found him in her cottage when she’d returned home that afternoon, and of how he’d threatened her, but she’d managed to escape. Of course, they might believe her story – who would trust a German spy posing as a Dutchman rather than a respectable English schoolteacher? But then they might delve into her past, which was the last thing she wanted. Maybe he was telling the truth; maybe he would leave the following day after all, or the one after that.
That night he told her his ankle was still stiff but assured her he’d go by the end of the week. He told her that she needed to buy some more beer, and that he preferred meat to vegetables. He didn’t like rabbit, he told her: beef was his favourite meat. As she’d washed up their meal, she noticed her large carving knife was missing from the drawer by the sink. She had very little in the way of jewellery, but that morning she’d discovered that a brooch that had belonged to her mother wasn’t in the metal box in her bedside table.
She would, she resolved, definitely go to the police the next morning.
She never had the chance.
Early the following morning, she was woken by the sound of cars stopping outside her cottage, followed by footsteps on the path. The German hammered on her door and asked what was going on, panic in his voice.
She told him to hide in the hall cupboard as she’d shown him and to remember to cover himself with the coats. By then there was loud knocking on the front door and the German looked terrified – the first time she’d seen him like that since he’d arrived. He pushed past her and opened the back door. As he did so, he found himself face to face with two large policemen.
The police officer who arrested them both introduced himself as Superintendent Prince. He was somewhat younger than she’d imagined someone of that rank to be, but he was very civil towards her – even quite pleasant, if the truth be told. In the few hours she had to herself in the cell at the main police station in Lincoln, she had plenty of time to reflect on her predicament and refine her story. She knew she had to ensure it was consistent, and by the time she was escorted into the interview room, she felt she was prepared. She was going to tell how the man had broken into her cottage; how he’d threatened her and prevented her from leaving. She would tell them she couldn’t describe how relieved and grateful she was that they’d come to rescue her. She would also address the inevitable question before it was asked: of course she had never been involved in politics. She was not a Nazi sympathiser. She was a British patriot. Her husband had been killed at Passchendaele, after all. She had no idea whatsoever why her cottage had been targeted; perhaps because of its proximity to the beach.
Before she could speak, however, the polite young superintendent calmly set out the evidence against her. He told her how they knew the German had landed by U-boat the previous Monday morning. They knew a call had been made to a contact in London later that day to signify his arrival; that call had been traced to a telephone box very close to the school where she worked, and the caller had been a woman. He believed that woman to be her. The phone call, he said, checking his notes, had been made at a time when the headmistress of her school confirmed she’d left the premises. He pointed out that she’d had plenty of opportunity to go to the police but had failed to do so, and he told her they knew she’d previously been involved in the British fascist movement.
She tried to hold her nerve: it looked bad, but she wasn’t sure if that amounted to much in the way of hard evidence against her. She felt her story still sounded feasible. She was about to recount it when Superintendent Prince held up his hand – one minute, please.
‘Clearly, we wish to hear your side of the story, but let me tell you this, Mrs Abbott. If you confess now and tell us everything, I can promise you will be treated with a degree of leniency. We would consider a lesser charge than treason.’
He paused to let the words sink in. She felt sharp prickles of sweat and fear all over her body.
‘Treason carries the death penalty, as I’m sure you’re aware. With a lesser charge and a guilty plea, you’ll be surprised at how relatively short the prison sentence could be.’
* * *
‘A word, sir? Only if you have a moment, of course – I can always come back later.’ The Scotsman who’d told Prince to call him Douglas was hovering uncertainly, even nervously, in the doorway of the man he’d addressed as ‘sir’. Normally such an approach would have come through his own superior and worked its way up the organisation, but he’d taken advantage of the open door.
The man he’d spoken to slowly peered up from behind his desk and removed his spectacles. He was frowning; almost certainly unsure of the name of the man in the doorway.
‘Hendrie, sir, I worked with yo
u on the Belgian case.’
‘Ah yes, of course. Come in, Hendrie, and do close the door behind you. We don’t want the whole world wandering in, eh?’ Tom Gilbey had a reputation for being blunt, even rude, but he was also one of the few senior people in the organisation willing to make a clear decision rather than setting up a committee to answer any questions asked of him. He was rumoured to be distantly related to the gin family. He’d been known to joke, somewhat bitterly, that they were the tonic branch of the family.
‘You’re aware of the German spy we caught last month in Lincolnshire?’
‘Wolfgang Scholz, awaiting the hangman’s noose at Pentonville. I hear you had some trouble catching him.’
Hendrie nodded. ‘Indeed, sir, devil of a job: we feared we’d lost him somewhere between Lincolnshire and London, and you’ll appreciate what the repercussions would have been, a German spy on the loose.’
‘I would have been one of those repercussions, Hendrie.’ Gilbey had closed the folder in front of him and adopted a pose indicating that he’d become interested in what the other man had to say.
‘We had precious little in the way of clues, sir. I went up to Lincolnshire and had to reveal our hand to the local constabulary, which we try to avoid, as you know. I shouldn’t have worried: the Chief Constable gave me the services of a detective superintendent, a young chap called Prince who turned out to be quite marvellous. We’d drawn a blank, but he was convinced the German hadn’t got very far and he felt someone must be hiding him. He had a hunch it would be someone with far-right sympathies but a low profile. He had the bright idea of looking for people in the area who’d previously been members of the British Union of Fascists, and found a woman who fitted the bill perfectly. He managed to get confessions out of both of them before we could even get our hands on them: a breach of protocol, but shows he has initiative.’
‘That’s an uplifting story, Hendrie, but I’m not sure why you’ve come to tell me about this chap.’
‘I think Prince is wasted in the police. He ought to be working for us.’
‘Shaw looks after recruitment: have a word with him.’ Gilbey opened the folder again and picked up his spectacles, a sign the meeting was over. Hendrie coughed. He was determined not to waste this opportunity.
‘Denmark’s one of your responsibilities, isn’t it, sir?’
Gilbey nodded. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I hope I’m not speaking out of turn, but I understand it may be proving troublesome.’
Gilbey looked slightly surprised at the impertinence of Hendrie’s question, but only fleetingly. When he spoke, he sounded pleased to be getting the matter off his chest. ‘It’s the bane of my life, if the truth be told. We always thought Norway would be the difficult one in that part of the world, but Denmark is indeed proving most troublesome.’
He hesitated, unsure whether to carry on. ‘Look, erm… all this is confidential, Hendrie, even inside this building – you understand that, eh?’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘For one thing, the Danes can’t even make up their minds whether they’re actually occupied by the Germans in the same way most of the rest of Europe is. And then they think they can handle everything themselves; they seem reluctant for us to help. The SOE are more involved there than we are, but that’s the problem: a fundamental failure to distinguish between resistance and intelligence. The Danes seem to think they’re one and the same. Their idea of intelligence is to see it as an extension of sabotage. It doesn’t feel safe sending people out there at the moment: too many of the SOE chaps we’ve dropped there have been captured more or less straight away. May be just sheer bad luck, I don’t know… but having said that, it is essential I have my own intelligence operation in Denmark. Essential!’ He banged his desk with his fist. ‘I simply can’t get people to take Denmark seriously, Hendrie. Mention the place around here or in Whitehall and it’s dismissed as some quaint backwater where they’re all terribly decent sorts who produce butter and bacon and we really don’t need to worry about it. But we do, we most certainly do! And do you know why?’
Hendrie shook his head and was about to hazard a guess when Gilbey replied to his own question, sounding quite angry as he did so.
‘I shall tell you why: because Denmark is of considerable strategic importance. For a start, it shares a bloody land border with Germany, and more importantly, not far from that border is where we think the Germans are producing some of their so-called secret weapons, the ones Hitler is supposed to have up his sleeve and which will win the war for him. Are you aware of these, Hendrie?’
‘One hears rumours, sir.’
‘Unfortunately, we need to turn what we hear from rumours into hard intelligence. There’s talk of them coming up with rockets that can be fired from the Continent at targets in England. I hope I don’t need to tell you how critical it is that we get on top of this. I sometimes fear I’m a lone voice, but I think if there’s any truth in this rumour, then it could turn the tide of the war against us. And Denmark is crucial: not only is it near where we believe the rockets are being developed, but it seems to be the place where what little information there is on them gravitates to. Sorry to ramble on, Hendrie: what’s this got to do with a policeman in Lincolnshire anyway?’
Hendrie opened a file and read from it. ‘“Richard Marius Prince, thirty-four years of age, born Nottingham.” His father was also born in Nottingham, but his mother, Elsebeth, was born and brought up in Denmark, hence Prince’s middle name. And, which is why I’m here, sir, I’m told Prince speaks Danish fluently.’
Gilbey nodded approvingly and reached out for the file. When he’d finished reading it, a broad grin crossed his face. ‘Well I never… fancy that. Good show, Hendrie. Who was it who spoke of the long arm of coincidence?’
‘I don’t recall, I’m afraid, sir, but I’m pleased to see you’re smiling.’
‘That one may smile, and smile, and be a villain. At least I’m sure it may be so in Denmark.’
‘I beg your pardon, sir?’
‘If I recall correctly, that’s from the end of Act 1 of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark, eh?’
Chapter 2
Denmark; London, October 1942
Not for the first time since the start of the war, Aksel felt there was a distinctly biblical dimension to the decisions he was required to make as leader of the small resistance cell based in Vorning, a rural area north of Randers. He was no longer a religious man, but he’d had enough of the Bible drummed into him when he was younger to be familiar with the story of the binding of Isaac, when Abraham was instructed to take his son to Mount Moriah and leave him there to be sacrificed.
Now it was as if he was preparing to sacrifice his own son. Gunnar was just eighteen, eager to be involved in resistance activities beyond running the occasional errand, and he was about to get his chance. The message from London was clear: on this particular night they were to post lookouts throughout the area and see if there were any Germans around when an RAF plane flew over. There was a small but dense wood spread over a hillside north-east of the village, and Aksel felt this offered the best view of the area. But because of the curfew and the wood’s distance from the village, placing lookouts there would be dangerous.
The plan was for Gunnar and Inger, a girl the same age as him, to go to the wood this afternoon and stay there until morning. They were to hide and watch out for German patrols. If caught, they were to pretend to be lovers who’d gone to the woods to find some privacy.
‘You and, erm, Inger…’ Aksel was finding the conversation with Gunnar awkward. ‘Have you ever, um…’
‘Have we ever what, Father?’
‘Come on, Gunnar – have you ever been boyfriend and girlfriend? You know what I mean.’
‘Not as such,’ replied Gunnar, smiling and enjoying his father’s obvious discomfort. ‘But I’m prepared to try if it helps defeat the Nazis!’
* * *
Gunnar and Inger spent much of the evening enthusiastic
ally ensuring that their efforts to defeat the Nazis were as authentic as possible. They’d created a hideaway in the undergrowth that gave them a good view of the fields beyond the hillside. Their enjoyment came to a sudden halt at a most inconvenient time, Inger suddenly clamping her hand across Gunnar’s mouth as he leaned into her again. She raised her head and whispered into his ear.
‘Can you hear?’
‘No – what?’
‘Footsteps, behind us.’
The footsteps could not have been more than ten yards away, pausing before being joined by more. Very carefully, Gunnar and Inger disentangled themselves from each other and edged further into the undergrowth, pulling more branches over them.
‘Kannst du etwas hören?’
It was a German voice, young and nervous, asking, ‘Can you hear something?’
Gunnar and Inger lay as still as possible, convinced that their breathing, heavy from their exertions, was echoing around the hillside and across the fields beyond it. A series of distinct sounds rose behind them: branches snapping as they were stepped on; the strike of matches as cigarettes were lit; the metallic clicks as the catches on sub-machine guns were released.
Prince of Spies Page 3