by Len Deighton
The headmaster’s eyes popped open very wide, and the measured speech, and dignified tone, gave way to a gabble. ‘Is this about the Spode fellow? Wish I’d never given him a job. He’s been nothing but trouble, and I’m not sure he’s been loyal to me…’
‘Where is he?’ said Huth, still speaking as if to a small child.
‘Spode?’
‘Who else could I mean? Do you think I’d pop in and consult you about the whereabouts of Reichsmarschall Göring?’ – a long pause – ‘…or about the whereabouts of the King of England, the Queen and the two Princesses?’
‘No, indeed. Very amusing, Herr Colonel. The King…well, ha, ha! I know the King is at Windsor with the Royal Family and they are all in very good health. I read the bulletin about that, and I make sure that all my staff know I won’t tolerate the disgraceful rumours about His Majesty being confined in the Tower of London.’
‘Where’s Spode?’ said Huth, easing his hat back a fraction on his head, as though the head-band was constricting him.
‘Spode?’ A nervous smile. ‘Spode? Well you know where he is. He’s at the police station.’ Another smile that, as he watched Huth, became a frown. ‘Isn’t he? An official came this morning and asked for Spode’s home address.’ Huth raised an eyebrow at Douglas who nodded affirmation. The headmaster watched the exchange anxiously, and then continued, ‘Naturally I helped in every possible way, and don’t imagine that I pry into your way of doing things. I don’t. Before the war I had holidays in Germany. I admired the system – still do, of course, especially in Germany…or rather that’s not to say I don’t admire the system in England…’
Douglas moved across the hall to where PC Dunn was waiting. ‘Better pop back there and get that false arm, Jimmy, and the photos and stuff.’
‘Control yourself, you wretch,’ said Huth. ‘Where is this man Spode?’
‘I’ve told you, Herr Oberst. The police station phoned and wanted him. Of course I gave him permission to leave his class.’
‘Who took the phone call, headmaster?’
‘My secretary. I sent for Spode immediately and let the police talk to him. There is only the one phone, you see.’
‘How long ago?’
The headmaster looked at his watch, tapped it and put it to his ear. ‘About an hour ago.’
Huth went to the main doors, stepped outside and blew two short blasts on his whistle. Infantry doubled across the recreation yard with a loud clatter of tipped boots. They formed up before Huth as if on parade, their officer in front of them with his hand raised in what the English were learning to call the German Salute.
‘Take this fool into special custody and hold him apart from the rest.’
‘You mean the phone call was from one of his accomplices…Oh my God!’ said the headmaster. He grabbed Douglas Archer’s arm, and held on to him. ‘This man Spode tricked me,’ he told Douglas. ‘Tell them. You’re English, I know you are…Tell them I’m innocent.’
Douglas went rigid in shame. A soldier prised the headmaster’s fingers away. ‘Then at least let me phone my wife,’ implored the headmaster. But already the soldiers were hustling him away through the entrance. ‘Take all the teachers,’ Huth told the SS officer, ‘and take the older children too. We can’t be sure the children aren’t involved. We’ve had fifteen-year-olds killing our soldiers in the past few months.’
‘I’ll try and get some sort of lead as to where Spode went,’ said Douglas.
‘He’s well away by now,’ said Huth. ‘These people are damned efficient.’
‘Who’s “they”?’ said Douglas.
‘Terror fighters,’ said Huth using the official German term for the Resistance, armed or otherwise. ‘No. Go and see your son – he’s here today, isn’t he? Take him home. Explain to him.’
‘Explain to him!’ said Douglas. He knew no way of explaining the insanity of the world to his child.
‘Children are flexible creatures,’ said Huth. ‘Don’t try to shoulder all the guilt for your son being motherless.’
Douglas didn’t answer. They both watched the soldiers herding a group of teachers into the school yard. Lorries were being backed through the narrow gates.
‘We don’t need all this,’ said Douglas. ‘These teachers are innocent; they know nothing.’
‘Too late to stop it now,’ said Huth, ‘even if I agreed with you.’
There was a crash as a tail-board dropped. Then the first of the teachers climbed into the lorry. He was an old man, and needed the helping hand of a soldier. One of his colleagues gave a soft cheer and the old man smiled sheepishly. It was always like this with the mass arrests, thought Douglas. The prisoners were reassured to be together with people they knew. They felt that nothing too bad could come of it, and were always comforted by the thought that they had committed no crime. The arrest procedure became an outing, a picnic, a break from the monotony of everyday life. The soldiers knew this, and they encouraged the levity, knowing that their task would be easier, and less harrowing, if the prisoners smiled all the way to the detention centre.
‘Have you heard anything more from the girl?’ said Huth.
Douglas was disconcerted and didn’t answer.
‘I know about the Trafalgar Square business, you idiot,’ said Huth. ‘Has she contacted you again?’
‘You have me followed – but you don’t have her followed?’
Huth feigned a look of pain. ‘You touch a nerve, my friend. She was quick and clever – more clever than the man assigned to her.’
‘One man?’
‘The voice of the professional! Yes, my people have a lot to learn. They didn’t realize they were dealing with a very experienced agent.’
‘Sylvia?’
‘You didn’t realize that, eh? Yes, an important little girl. We should have put her in the bag while we had the chance – her sort can smell trouble coming.’
‘She smelled trouble coming?’
‘Or someone told her. There’s always someone to tell people. Someone phoned Spode and told him to lace up his walking shoes, didn’t he?’ He sniffed. ‘No matter, they’ll try again, because they desperately want to make contact with you, Superintendent.’
‘Do they?’
‘I think so – look at the risks they take…probably won’t be the girl next time. Could be anyone. Say yes to whatever they want. Get their proposition.’
‘Proposition?’
‘They are probably going to try another rescue attempt on the King.’
‘At the Tower of London?’
‘It’s not impossible. They tried early last month, from the river, and nearly got away with it.’
‘Good God!’ That explained a number of things to Douglas. The custody of the King was General Kellerman’s most important responsibility. Now Douglas remembered last month’s great upheaval amongst the SS security units, and General Kellerman’s subsequent shake-out of senior personnel.
‘They’d do better by negotiation than by terrorist attacks,’ said Huth.
‘You think so?’
‘It’s not an opinion,’ said Huth. ‘It’s the message I want you to deliver.’
‘I see my son,’ said Douglas.
‘Take my Mercedes. The boy will love the supercharger.’
‘It’s not far,’ said Douglas, ‘and walking will give me a breath of fresh air.’ But Douglas didn’t go. He stayed on, worrying that the children might be manhandled or that the whole thing might degenerate into violence.
He was still standing there when young PC Dunn came hurrying across the yard, red in the face and perspiring heavily. ‘It’s gone, sir. The arm is gone. And the paper bag with the camera stuff in it.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘He hadn’t even bothered to push the table back after getting it. He must have gone home while we were phoning the Yard.’
‘Quite a coincidence,’ said Douglas bitterly.
PC Dunn looked at him for a moment without understanding. Then he s
aid, ‘You don’t think someone at the Yard phoned him?’
‘I’d dearly like to know,’ said Douglas. ‘Well at least he’s still got a part missing,’ said Douglas, putting a finger in his waistcoat pocket to make sure he still had it. ‘That limb was the standard sort that the Ministry issue to war casualties, wasn’t it?’
‘It looked like it.’
‘A man would have to give his real name to get one of those, Dunn. The Ministry would check it against their records and he’d probably have to provide evidence of army service – name, rank and number – or produce his “panel” card if he’s a civilian. Get on to the Ministry, and see what you can find out. If he applies to them for that missing piece, I want to be told about it before they answer.’
‘He might think that’s too dangerous,’ said Dunn.
‘It is too dangerous,’ said Douglas, ‘and so is cutting back to your lodgings when there’s a police Superintendent on your tail. No, this fellow needs his arm, and I think he’ll go to a lot of trouble to get it working again.’ Then Douglas spotted his son and went over to him.
By now the mass-arrest teams had set up their folding tables and chairs and they were typing out the sheets and having them countersigned by the officer in charge. Not only were people being documented but the same diligence was given to the paperwork, books and files that the search-parties were bringing out of the building. There was boredom written on the faces of the soldiers, for they knew that this operation, and dozens more like it which took place every day, was unlikely to discover anything of importance. They were staged simply to emphasize the fact that any sort of opposition to the Nazi invaders brought inconvenience to the innocent and guilty alike.
The schoolteachers crowded into the lorries were more solemn now. Some were trying to see if friends or relatives were anywhere in sight but the soldiers were dealing roughly with any sightseers. One of the older children, in the nearest lorry, had tears in his eyes. A teacher was talking to him trying to comfort him. A grey-haired man with bent spectacles smiled at the boy and in a thin piping voice began to sing:
‘If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.’
He clapped his hands. The wavering tuneless voice could be heard in the parade-ground silence of the school yard. So could the lonely sound of the man’s hands clapping. A second voice joined in the old Boy Scout song,
‘If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands,’
and there was the sound of a dozen or more handclaps, and now the child joined in, still crying. The Germans looked round for orders to stop the singing but when no such order came, did nothing.
‘If you’re happy and you know it, then here’s the way to show it.
If you’re happy and you know it, clap your hands.’
And now all the prisoners clapped their hands.
‘Move out!’ yelled Huth. The lorries started their engines, and the first one began to move forward. By now the whole convoy of prisoners was singing. Theirs were not hearty voices, it was the unmusical chorus of frightened men, but there was no mistaking the note of defiance in these discordant voices, and it gave heart to every Englishman who heard them.
‘If you’re happy and you know it, stamp your feet.
If you’re happy and you know it, stamp your feet.
If you’re happy and you know it, then here’s the way to show it.
If you’re happy and you know it, stamp your feet.’
Douglas could still hear the men’s feet hammering on the floorboards of the lorries, as the convoy roared off towards Edgware Road. Douglas took his son’s hand, and held it as if it was the only thing in the world he had. Until now he’d found it possible to work with the Germans. After all, he’d been hunting murderers and he’d not had to search his conscience about that. But increasingly he found himself being drawn down into a deep, dark vortex, moving at a snail’s pace, as things always happen in a nightmare. And yet he saw no way of escape. Under the new regulations policemen were not permitted to resign from the Force, and men who tried to do so found themselves devoid of ration books and work cards and became little better than beggars. Douglas gripped Douggie’s hand tight. ‘That hurts,’ said the little boy.
‘Sorry,’ said his father. He wondered if his son was judging him with that merciless impartiality to which all men subject their father.
In Marylebone they passed a man selling fried turnip pieces. Young Douggie went to the stall to look at the fryer and his father followed him. The crisply fried vegetable chunks were filling, warming and un-rationed, and cost only two pence for a small bagful. The old man selling them put in an extra piece for Douggie.
‘Say thank you, Douggie,’ said Douglas automatically.
‘That’s all right, Mr Archer. It’s good to see the boy looking so well.’
Douglas looked puzzled. ‘It’s Mr Samuels, Dad,’ said the child. ‘You remember.’
Douglas was shocked to realize that this was the proprietor of Samuels’ Restaurant and Tea Rooms, a well known West-End meeting-place, famous for its fine bread and cream cakes before the war. Douglas had noticed that the restaurant had lately been converted into a Soldatenheim, a recreation centre for the German soldiers. Now he saw that the dispossessed Samuels had become an old man, his skin leathery and his eyes sunk deep into their sockets.
‘I’m getting so absent-minded,’ said Douglas in an attempt to explain why he’d not recognized Samuels. Before the war, he’d regularly taken his wife and young Douggie there to eat cream cakes. ‘Can I have a packet too? They look delicious.’
Mr Samuels shovelled the warm pieces of vegetable into newspaper and screwed the top closed. Douglas gave him a pound note. ‘I’ve no change of that, Mr Archer. I’m sorry.’
‘Give me the change next time I see you.’
‘No,’ said Samuels but he changed his mind and put the note into his pocket gratefully. As Samuels rummaged through the old sweaters that he wore under his overcoat, Douglas noticed the star of yellow cloth that he wore.
‘Your boy always says hello,’ said Samuels, as if not many others did.
‘It will all work out, Mr Samuels,’ said Douglas. ‘I promise you it will.’
Mr Samuels smiled but did not answer.
Douglas hurried on to catch up with his son, who had his nose pressed against the window of Benson the tailor. The cost of cloth had driven many tailors out of business but Benson – with a daughter who spoke a little German – was thriving, his window filled with German uniforms, buttons and badges. Young Douggie took his father’s hand and they continued together along the High Street. ‘Do you work for the Gestapo, Dad?’ said his son without any preamble.
‘No. I work at Scotland Yard. I’m a detective with the Metropolitan Police, just as I’ve always been – you know that, Douggie.’
‘The Gestapo are at Scotland Yard,’ said Douggie.
‘They are in the next-door building – Norman Shaw North – and they are nearly all Germans.’
‘But you work with the Gestapo…’ his son coaxed him.
‘Well, I…’
‘Sometimes you do, don’t you?’
‘Is that what you’ve heard?’
‘The boys at school said so.’ He tugged at his father’s hand. ‘Dad, me and some of the boys were wondering…’
The boy’s voice trailed away.
‘Well, come on, Douggie, out with it. We’re friends aren’t we?’
‘Could you get a Gestapo badge?’
‘The Gestapo don’t have badges; they have only special identity tags.’
‘Well, could you get one of those SS armbands…or one of the silver-wire SD badges?’
‘I don’t think so, Douggie.’
‘Oh, Dad,’ the child was desolated. ‘I bet you could, Dad. I bet if you asked some of the people at Scotland Yard, someone would give you one.’
‘What for, Douggie?’ said Douglas. ‘What would you do with it?’
‘Oh, I don’t know,’ said
the child. ‘All the boys collect them but no one’s got any SS badges yet. They asked me to ask you.’
By the time they got back to Mrs Sheenan’s home, the sky had darkened and the first few drops of rain had fallen. Douglas sneezed. He feared he was getting influenza. He sat near to the fire, now burning very low, hunched into his overcoat, with his hands in his pockets. Douggie sat at the kitchen table doing his homework. Occasionally he asked Douglas for help. But eventually the child heard the sound of deep breathing and knew that his father had gone to sleep in his chair. He didn’t disturb him. They had a small piece of boiled fish for the evening meal and after putting young Douggie to bed, Douglas turned in himself. He’d been guarding a tiny portion of Scotch whisky and now he poured a measure for Mrs Sheenan and took his glass to bed with an Agatha Christie book. But before he’d read more than four pages the detective was sound asleep.
Chapter Twelve
Douglas Archer started early next morning and worked hard. He tried most of his best informants but it soon became clear to him that his usual underworld grapevine could tell him nothing that would help his murder investigation. He realized too that there was an intensive drive for information, and some of the better-known informants had been taken into custody. By the end of the morning Douglas knew that the people involved in this murder case had kept themselves away from London’s vast army of informants.
That afternoon, Douglas Archer was one of the few British nationals present at Caxton Hall. A senior official of the Reichsleitung der NSDAP – the Nazi Party Supreme Directorate – was in London on the usual spree of shopping, eating, drinking and sightseeing. He paid for his supper with a three-hour speech to the senior officers of the London police and SS headquarters.
Even the wily Huth found no way of avoiding it, and Douglas watched him yawning and nodding and providing perfunctory applause with his gloved hands. It was interesting to compare this with Kellerman who was also on the platform. He was an old hand at such occasions, leaning forward and nodding at each oversimplification and half-truth, and uttering loud cries of excited enlightenment as all the old slogans were trotted out. And Kellerman was able to convert his yawns into smiles, and, by pinching the bridge of his nose while bowing his head, he could make his dozing look like the deep concentrated thought that requires closed eyes. And, at the end of the Party official’s long speech, while Huth was groping under his chair for his cap and stick and looking to see which was the nearest exit, Kellerman was at the podium, clapping his hands energetically and smiling at the guest. And it was Kellerman who, disregarding the programme, stepped up to the microphone and improvised a brief word of thanks ‘for a speech permeated with true National Socialist feeling and clarity of thought and purpose which admits no compromise’ – a verdict he’d pronounced upon dozens of equally dreary interruptions to the working day.