by Peter Hey
The reality had been one of incompetence, exposure and betrayal. Nazi agents had often been ill prepared with a poor command of English. When they arrived in Britain by parachute or submarine, or posing as refugees, they did not blend into the landscape. They stood out: they looked and acted like spies. They became even easier to spot when Bletchley Park cracked the Enigma code. MI5 monitored radio traffic from German military intelligence, the Abwehr, which gave them prior notice of incursions. Some of the would-be moles surrendered themselves on arrival; the rest were simply rounded up. They were all interrogated and then either imprisoned, executed or turned.
The ones who turned, that is, agreed to act as double agents, fed back misleading information to their controllers in Germany. This was the Double Cross system.
At the Tehran Conference in 1943, the leaders of America, Britain and Russia met to discuss the strategy of the war, including the opening of a second front. Winston Churchill famously remarked to Josef Stalin that, ‘In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.’ Operation Bodyguard was adopted as the name of the deception plan to disguise the date and location of the D-Day landings. As part of Bodyguard, one of the main achievements of the Double Cross system was to help confuse the Nazis into thinking that the Allied assault was likely to be focussed in Calais rather than Normandy. Even after the invasion, the Abwehr still trusted one of the double agents and his fictitious network of subagents to the extent that he was radioed congratulations for a job well done.
This much was vaguely familiar to Jane. What she had never realised was the completeness of Double Cross. From their deciphering of Abwehr transmissions, British intelligence believed they effectively controlled the entire German espionage system in this country. They were right: analysis of post-war records confirmed that only one agent had escaped MI5’s attention and he was a failure, committing suicide in 1941 when he ran out of supplies and money.
Jane closed the lid on her laptop and leant back in her chair. Tommy had been correct. To all intents and purposes, there were no Nazi spies operating in Britain, certainly not by the stage of the war when James Smith was supposedly gathering information on US air force movements. It had been a tall story all along. Assuming it wasn’t habituated to lying, Mary Smith’s aged mind was muddling memory with mirage. Her husband hadn’t been a spy, just as he’d never appeared on the silver screen. But what had planted the idea? There was something about the way the narrative held together, the logical sequence of events, the names, dates and places, that made Jane think there was some kernel of truth at its heart. She was still intrigued. She felt compelled to visit Mary again.
The shoe box
Once again, Jane phoned ahead. She was met by some initial hesitation, but the call was transferred to the nursing home manager, who was cautiously positive.
‘She’s been asking when you were coming back, Ms Madden. She said she hadn’t finished her story. It seems very important to her. I said she could tell me, but I won’t do, apparently. She’s…’ There was a heavy pause on the line as the manager considered her words. ‘Let’s just say she’s not feeling her best. But, at this stage, if it’s going to make her happy then who am I to stand in the way.’
Before she left her house, Jane checked her emails. Nothing new of interest had arrived, but there was one existing item in her inbox that made Jane’s heart sink. It was the message from Herb Jensen asking for a DNA sample from Chris Aimson to prove the blood link between them.
Jane had heard once of a swimmer denied an Olympic gold medal by the precision of modern clocks and the fact he’d cut his fingernails. Technology might lead to increased accuracy, truth even, but it didn’t always result in justice.
Jane felt a wave of doubt that broke into resentment. She knew she couldn’t ignore Herb Jensen’s request for much longer.
As on her previous visit, Jane was shown into the room by the South African care assistant. This time, Mary Smith was still in bed, propped up by pillows. She was wearing a thick, knitted cardigan in a bright shade of pink that seemed to emphasise the cold ashen-grey of her face. She looked deathly tired.
Life flickered in her eyes when she saw Jane and her thin lips smiled.
‘My dear, thank you for coming back. Forgive me, I can’t remember your name.’
‘It’s Jane. And you said I could call you Mary. Because we were friends, which was kind of you.’
‘Yes, Jane. I remember that much. I also remember not finishing my story. I got sidetracked into that silliness about my husband being a film star. When you’re old and you’ve wanted to believe something for so long, you can talk yourself into it. I am a silly old woman aren’t I?’
‘Not at all. It must be difficult when things happened so long ago.’
‘Yet some things come back to you so clearly, as if they were yesterday.’
‘Mary, I wanted to ask you about one of the things you told me. About your husband, your second husband, and what he did in the war.’
‘Yes... sorry, I’ve forgotten your name again, dear.’
‘It’s Jane, but don’t worry. It’s just that you told me he’d been giving information to a German spy and I just wondered if that was, well, similar to you getting confused about him being a film star. You see, what we know now, what people weren’t told at the time, was that they were all captured. All the German spies who came to Britain. Before they could do any harm.’
‘But what about his medal, Jane? That Iron Cross he was so proud of?’
‘You never actually saw that, did you, Mary?’
‘He kept it hidden under the floorboards. His dying wish was to be buried with it, under that black marble headstone he wanted so much. But I think I told you, I had him burnt. And I kept it as a reminder that I’d got my revenge, petty as it was.’
Jane’s eyes narrowed in confusion. ‘You’ve actually got the medal?’
‘Under the bed. In my little box of mementoes.’
Jane bent down and surveyed the carpeted shadows beneath the pine bed frame. At the head end, against the wall, was a cardboard shoe box. She got down on her knees, stretched her arm past the bedside cabinet and pulled the box out. It had a layer of dust and she could feel her eyes begin to itch. She was about to open it when she abruptly stopped herself.
‘I’m sorry, Mary. I should have asked. Do you mind if I look inside?’
‘It’s too late for secrets, dear.’
Jane removed the lid and placed it on the floor beside her. Inside the box were postcards, letters and photographs, two of which immediately caught Jane’s eye. One was very familiar: it was the black-and-white image she’d come across two or three times before. It showed Woody Jensen, Mary’s first husband, and his crew of in front of Mary Mine, the US air force bomber. The other was a snap in the grainy colour of a cheap Instamatic camera from the 1970s. The angelic though plain-looking toddler with straight blond hair was instantly recognisable. It was Mary’s grandson, the now far from innocent Dean Smith.
‘Look for a manila envelope, dear,’ instructed Mary. ‘You can keep it if you like. It’s no use to me anymore.’
Jane found it doubled over at the bottom of the box. It was starting to become fragile with age and she opened it out carefully. Somehow it was an odd size, like A4 but slightly longer and narrower. Something heavy lay at the bottom and she slipped it out onto her lap. On a ribbon of red, white and black, hung a metal cross of unmistakable shape. Within an outline of silver, it was painted black and embossed at its centre was a Nazi swastika. The medal and ribbon were pristine as if never worn.
Jane stared at it for a few seconds before she realised there was something else in the envelope. She gently slid her hand in and retrieved a folded piece of yellowing paper.
She had started to dismiss the medal as a trophy purchased by James Smith sometime after the war, perhaps from a returning soldier who had stolen it from a corpse or bought it for a few cigarettes from a disillusioned capt
ive. This second item was harder to explain. It was a note, handwritten in neat copperplate using fountain pen. The letterhead featured an imperial eagle holding a garland in its talons. Within the garland, the swastika once again announced its sinister presence.
Incongruously, the writing was in English. Jane read it twice.
To my old comrade,
I wanted personally to write to you in gratitude for your heroic efforts in the war against International Jewry and the contagious putridity of the Bolsheviks with their subhuman Slavic hordes. When we met those few short years ago, I saw in you a mirror of myself, a patriot prepared to stand for the greater good and not fall in behind a myopic, spineless British Government owned and manipulated by the Jewish financiers who caused the wholly unnecessary conflict between Germany and her natural friend, England.
It gives me great pride to see that my faith in you was well founded. I salute you and congratulate you on your award of the Iron Cross, an honour you share with the Führer himself!
Do not believe the propaganda peddled by Churchill and his lickspittles in the BBC. German strength grows daily and her forces remain unvanquished. I look forward to meeting you again when the Reich triumphs and we can stand side by side as victors.
Your friend,
William Joyce
Jane looked up from the note and towards the old lady lying in the bed beside her. ‘When did you first see this, Mary?’
‘It was after my sister’s wedding. When he’d been beaten up by the sergeant-major. James was angry and hurt, emotionally as well as physically. He showed it to me as evidence of his… courage, I suppose. He wanted to prove what a big man he was.’
‘So that was just after the war?’
Mary said something affirmative, but Jane wasn’t listening. Her attention was focussed on how James could have forged such a document back in the 1940s. Nowadays, with modern computer technology and rudimentary IT skills, anyone could download symbols representing the Third Reich and generate convincing-looking headed paper. But this note had age. Could it be genuine? Could James and the Nazi agent he worked for possibly have slipped through the net of accepted history?
Mary interrupted Jane’s ruminations. ‘That wasn’t the worst thing he did. Well maybe it was – I guess I don’t know how many American airmen died because of his spying. But it wasn’t the worst thing he did to me. It wasn’t the worst thing he did to my children. They could have grown up, happy and decent, in America. Their lives would have been so different. That’s why I wanted to talk to you again. There’s more I have to tell you, while I still can.’
Adders’ nest
Despite her frailty, Mary Smith had talked for over an hour, though she once again went round in circles of repetition and occasionally contradicted herself. Unlike Jane’s first visit, Mary hadn’t drifted into obvious fantasy, yet some of what she said was still very difficult to believe. When Jane left and climbed into her car, she found herself fixated on one revelation. It, at least, was more than plausible: it was convincing. And it threatened to affect the future, not just the past.
Jane knew she should drive home. She should calmly digest everything she had been told and think carefully how to proceed. There was one thing she should not do.
She pulled her phone out of her bag, scrolled through the list of contacts and dialled. The call was answered after three rings.
‘Yeah?’
‘Is that Dean Smith?’
‘Who wants to know?’
‘It’s Jane Madden, Dean. We met in the pub in Dowley, if you remember. You gave me your number.’
‘And then you told me to fuck off, pet.’
‘You were coming on a bit strong, Dean. That’s all. I didn’t mean to cause offense. I am a married woman, you know.’
‘I didn’t see no ring.’
‘Look, let’s have another go at getting on. There’s something I need to ask you. I’m pretty close by in Chesterfield and I wondered if I could buy you another pint. Hopefully we’ll separate on better terms this time.’
‘That landlord and me aren’t on the best of terms at the moment. I’m doing my drinking at home. But you’re welcome to bring a few tins of Stella round. Then you can ask me whatever you want. Pet.’
Jane hesitated. A bad idea was in danger of becoming an act of irresponsible stupidity, like walking up to an adders’ nest then taking off your boots.
‘Okay, give me the address,’ she said.
It was an estate of 1960s social housing, whose narrow roads were bordered by wide grass verges planted with stubby cherry trees. The architecture was uniformly functional and plain, with only a few properties embellished by extensions and non-standard decoration that advertised their transfer to private ownership. Jane pulled up in front of a two-storey block that could have been taken for a row of terraced houses were it not for the single entrance centrally positioned and surrounded by six brown wheelie bins. The UPVC window frames looked relatively new, but the wood cladding around the first floor appeared to be stained with damp and starting to decay.
Jane pulled a transparent polythene envelope from the glove box and put it and its contents into her handbag. The tins of lager were still cold from the corner-shop fridge, and she lifted them off the passenger seat and climbed out of the car.
There was evidence of hinges in the door frame, but there was nothing barring access to the communal hallway. Hanging heavily in the air was the unmistakable sweet-herb, burning-rope aroma of marijuana that Jane felt she’d been catching everywhere since the police softened their attitude to possession. She took the bare concrete stairs to the first floor and found the entrance to Dean’s flat immediately on the left. She remembered it was actually his friend Steve’s apartment and wasn’t sure if it was better that the two of them were home or just Dean. Either way, she did know the sensible thing was to go back to her car and drive away.
There was the sound of loud, angry voices coming from inside, but then applause broke out, indicating a TV programme rather than a live argument. Jane pressed the bell; nothing seemed to happen, so she knocked sharply three times. There was abrupt silence and the door opened almost immediately.
‘Jane, thanks for popping round. Please come in. Sorry we’re in a bit of mess. Steve’s an untidy bugger. I keep telling him to sort it out, but you can’t get the staff these days, can you?’ Dean smirked with appreciation at his own joke.
‘Is Steve in?’ asked Jane.
‘Nah. Told him to fuck off. You didn’t want to talk to him, now did you?’
Dean stood back and Jane walked into a small sitting room with a window overlooking a graffitied yard at the back of the block. Immediately facing her was a battered sofa with what appeared to be a duvet roughly crammed into the gap between it and the wall behind. As well as a matching armchair, there was one side table and a huge flat-screen TV that would have dominated a much larger space. It was still on, showing a channel Jane didn’t recognise, but the sound was muted. Dean’s assessment of untidiness was accurate and there was a pile of clothes dumped in one corner, partially hidden by the chair. The room smelt of body odour and cigarettes, half-heartedly disguised by a recent blast of air freshener. There was also an undertone of pot, but Jane felt that had probably drifted in from outside.
Jane sat in the armchair and handed the tins of lager to Dean. He cracked one open and offered it back. Jane declined and he shrugged, then slumped down on the sofa and took a swig.
‘So?’ he asked.
‘I’ve just been to see your grandmother,’ replied Jane.
‘How is the silly old cow? Still in the land of the fairies?’
‘She’s had some tests at the hospital. I don’t think they went terribly well. I guess there’s not a lot they can do for a woman her age, and she seems to be going downhill rapidly. If you want to see her again, let’s just say I’d go sooner rather than later.’
‘Is that what you wanted to see for me for? To tell me to visit my barmy old gran? Fuck off!’
Dean’s tone was one of amusement rather than aggression.
Jane shook her head. ‘No. I just thought you should know. The reason I wanted to see you was to do with some of the things she told me. About your family.’
Dean became defensive. ‘You don’t want to believe everything that silly old woman says. She lives in a dreamworld most of the time. Did she give you the one about my grandad being a film star? Was he on tele last week? How about him winning the Iron Cross?’
‘You told me that one, Dean.’
‘Maybe I was just winding you up, pet.’
Jane leant forward. ‘Look, she said a lot of things and I don’t know what to believe. Some of it seemed very far-fetched, but there was one thing that rang true. When you look at old photographs it’s very obvious. I’d been explaining it away, but when she told me how it happened, the pieces slotted into place.’
‘What do you mean, “old photographs”?’ Dean was beginning to sound irritated.
‘Your father looked very different from your grandfather,’ said Jane, cautiously.
‘What are you inferring?’
‘Your grandmother was married twice. Her first husband, an American, was killed in the war. She had a young baby and so she married James Smith. Only she was pregnant again—'
‘Big deal! Woman being knocked up on her wedding day. Never heard of that before.’
Jane ignored Dean’s sneer and continued. ‘She was pregnant with her first husband’s baby. James Smith either pretended or wanted to believe it was his, but when it was born he couldn’t pretend the child, your father, looked anything like him. The way your grandmother explained it, James Smith became very resentful of your dad and treated him badly. Your dad’s reaction was to try ever harder to be like him, to please him. Maybe your dad would have had a different life, not gone to prison for example, if things had been otherwise.’