The Age of Treachery

by Gavin Scott

  “Peter Dorfmann to the life,” said Forrester. “Well done, Mr. Bannister.”

  “Thank you,” said Bannister.

  “He isn’t finished yet,” said MacLean, like a proud parent showing off the achievements of a talented toddler. Bannister slid an even greater enlargement of a small proportion of the original photo, in which the men in the dinghy filled the frame. “In this one you can make out the cut of their clothes too,” said Bannister, and Forrester looked again. It was true; the enlargement even revealed that Dorfmann was wearing a sort of canvas jacket of vaguely nautical cut. By contrast the man with his back to camera was wearing a striped blazer and a panama hat.

  “Impressive,” said Forrester. “I just wish the chap in the striped blazer would turn around.”

  “Never mind him,” said MacLean, “we’ve got Dorfmann there in 1937, and it gets better. Show him what you did with the yacht, Bannister.”

  Bannister took yet another enlargement from the pile and slid it under the magnifier. This time the dinghy was out of shot, and the stern of the yacht filled the frame. It was clear that the name had been carved into a wooden plate curving around the stern – but only the first two letters, thrown into shadowed relief by the sun, were visible.

  They were “G” and “I”.

  “Interesting,” said Forrester. “Does that help much?”

  “It certainly does,” said MacLean. “Tell him, Bannister.”

  “We calculated the length of the yacht,” said Bannister, “and that made it possible to calculate the size of the stern-plate. When we factored in the size of the letters we can see, we were able to work out that the name had just five letters in it.”

  “Very good,” said Forrester.

  “You can see the yacht had a motor,” said MacLean, “so we got in touch with the Norwegian Ministry of Shipping and asked them for the list of motor yachts registered with them in 1937. There were three with five-letter names beginning with ‘G’.”

  “Which presumably narrows down the candidates considerably,” said Forrester.

  “They were only able to come up with pictures of one of them, which unfortunately wasn’t this one. Which left two remaining possibilities: one was a yacht called Gitta and another called Gimli.”

  “Gimli,” said Forrester.

  “Gimli,” repeated MacLean. “In Old Norse it means ‘golden roof’, and it referred to the place to which the gods retreated after the end of the world.”

  “Ragnarök,” said Forrester automatically, remembering that night in the Master’s Lodge when everything had changed. “Interesting.”

  “More than interesting,” said MacLean. “Because we know the name of the owner of the yacht Gimli.” He paused for a moment, clearly savouring the revelation to come. “Gimli,” he said, “was registered to a gentleman named Vidkun Quisling.”

  Forrester blinked. Vidkun Quisling, the former ruler of Norway, had been executed by firing squad just months before as a traitor to his country. Indeed, for years now his very name had been synonymous with the worst type of Nazi lickspittle. Son of a country pastor, he had become part of the General Staff of the Norwegian Army before the Great War and been sent on missions to Russia just after the revolution. There he had worked with the famous Arctic explorer Fridtjof Nansen to relieve famine in the Ukraine; it was also rumoured he had acted as a spy for the British, for which he had been made a Commander of the British Empire.

  And then the Norwegian Army had dispensed with his services, and he found himself back home and unemployed. Inspired by the radical politics he had seen in Russia and funded by the sale of the many valuable antiques he’d been able to pick up there from fleeing aristocrats, he set up a national paramilitary organisation in Norway dedicated to anti-Bolshevism and racial purity. This led to him being invited to join the government, where he made himself popular with the right by attacking trade unions and the communists. He then founded a party of his own, the Nasjonal Samling, and though it had little electoral support in Norway he was soon meeting with Italian fascists and Nazi ideologues and spouting the anti-Semitic rhetoric he picked up from them.

  Not long after Kristallnacht he sent Hitler a fiftieth birthday greeting, thanking him for “saving Europe from Bolshevism and Jewish domination”. As his party faltered in the polls he began taking secret donations from the Nazis to keep it going, and gave Nazi intelligence officials information of Norway’s defences. When Hitler invaded, Quisling became head of the puppet Norwegian government, and participated in the deportation of Jews as part of Hitler’s Final Solution.

  The previous year, when Hitler was defeated and Norway was freed, Quisling had been arrested by his furious countrymen, and taken to the Akershus Fortress to be tried for treason. Not long after, he was executed.

  “Well, if Dorfmann was travelling around Norway on Vidkun Quisling’s yacht in 1937 there’s a strong case for concluding he was a Nazi sympathiser from way back,” said Forrester.

  “Absolutely,” said MacLean. “Bringing us this photograph was a considerable coup. It won’t be forgotten.”

  “Thank you,” said Forrester, still staring at the photo. Then he said, “Could I have a look at the other one again? The one of the chaps in the dinghy?”

  Bannister slid it back under the magnifier. Forrester glanced at the image of Dorfmann again, but his interest was in the man with his back to camera – the man in the striped blazer.

  “Would you agree with me,” he said to MacLean, “that this is probably the Englishman the caption to the missing photograph referred to?”

  “There’s certainly something very English about the blazer and the panama hat,” said MacLean. Forrester turned to Bannister.

  “It’s quite a distinctive pattern of stripes,” he said. “Look, three thin, one thick, two thin. Is there any way you could identify the blazer?”

  “Shame we can’t see the colours,” said MacLean.

  “We could make some intelligent guesses, though, sir,” said Bannister, “depending on the degree of light and dark.”

  “And possibly make some enquiries in Savile Row,” said Forrester. “There’s got to be someone in those elegant gents’ outfitters who’s an expert on striped blazers.”

  “I’ll look into it,” said MacLean, “but the main thing is we’ve got something to show the Americans. They’re going to find it very hard to make Dorfmann their man now.”

  “Why were they so keen on him in the first place?” asked Forrester.

  “Oh, you know,” said MacLean. “He’s sound on communism. Hates the Bolsheviks, that sort of thing.”

  “Yes,” said Forrester. “Hitler was pretty consistent about that too.”

  * * *

  Forrester got them to give him the copy of the photograph at its original size – they wouldn’t release any of the blow-ups – and made a phone call before he left the War Ministry, which resulted in an immediate invitation for pre-lunch drinks at the Café Royal. MacLean had proposed the War Ministry canteen, but with insincere regret, Forrester explained he had another offer, and MacLean grinned, shook hands and ushered him out, promising to let him know if there were any further developments.

  Forrester was heading north through the fog towards Trafalgar Square when he realised an indistinct figure had fallen in step with him. So thick was the fog that it was a moment or two before he realised it was Charles Calthrop, the man from the Foreign Office.

  “Dr. Forrester, I think,” said Calthrop. Forrester nodded. “To say we met under very unpleasant circumstances would be an understatement, would it not?” As always, he was the essence of urbanity. “Have matters progressed significantly since the police arrested Dr. Clark?”

  “I’m not sure,” said Forrester, remembering Calthrop’s conversation with Dorfmann. Was it coincidence that today, when he was in London to see the final nail put in Dorfmann’s coffin, Calthrop had happened to run into him? “You may have heard Gordon Clark is a friend of mine, and I’ve been trying to prove his
innocence ever since he was charged.”

  “Any luck?” said Calthrop.

  “Too early to say,” said Forrester. Every instinct told him not to mention what MacLean had just discovered about Dorfmann.

  “No new suspects?” said Calthrop.

  “Nothing concrete,” said Forrester.

  “Pity,” said Calthrop. “One always likes to help a friend in need. As long as it doesn’t distract you from your studies of Linear B.”

  Forrester looked at him in surprise. “I wasn’t aware you knew of my interest,” he said.

  “I didn’t, until very recently. Then by the most extraordinary coincidence your name appeared on a list that came across my desk only yesterday.”

  “Oh, yes? What sort of list?”

  “It’s not really my field, but the Empire Council wanted to know if you were a suitable chap to send to Crete.”

  Forrester’s step faltered. “Really?”

  “Yes, I gathered you’d applied for a grant to excavate there.”

  “I had. But I’d rather given up on it, actually.”

  “Oh, never say die,” remarked Calthrop lightly. “It’s not my decision, of course, but with resources so limited for sending people overseas, they wanted to know you were a fit and proper person to represent your country in a foreign land. Especially one where the communists are making so much trouble.”

  “May I ask if you answered in the affirmative?”

  “You may ask, old chap, but I couldn’t possibly answer without breaching the Official Secrets Act. But I have to say, from everything I know about you, I’m sure you’d be a credit to the nation wherever we sent you. What is Linear B, exactly?”

  “A written language used by the ancient Minoans. You know, Knossos, the Labyrinth, that sort of thing. When I was there with Leigh Fermor’s lot I came across a set of inscriptions which may be the key to understanding it.”

  “Sounds fascinating. I’d imagine there’d be great kudos for anyone finding out what King Minos had to say for himself. Let alone the Minotaur. Let’s hope your detective work doesn’t get in the way of a great scholastic coup. Well, lovely to run into you. Hope the Crete trip comes off.”

  And he was gone, vanishing into the fog along Piccadilly, as Forrester stood, looking after him.

  * * *

  Ian Fleming was already holding court in the Café Royale, and the bottle in his champagne bucket was well breached by the time Forrester got there. “I’m sorry I can’t invite you to an actual lunch, Forrester,” he said, “but I’ve got to talk to a man who says he knows when the Russians are going to start World War III.”

  “Bit soon for a sequel, isn’t it?” said Forrester.

  “I agree, but it’ll sell papers, and that’s what counts for me right now. Anyway, have some of Lord Kemsley’s champagne and tell me what I can do for you. At Ann’s party Archie MacLean was bending your ear. What did he bamboozle you into this time?”

  “Berlin and points north,” said Forrester, “to investigate Peter Dorfmann.”

  Instantly Fleming was all ears, and Forrester knew he had to swear him to silence until he gave him clearance to use the story.

  “Of course, of course,” said Fleming, “but this is very good stuff. It’ll set the cat among the pigeons with the Yanks, you can be sure of that. Dorfmann’s their blue-eyed boy; I’ve heard they see him as a future chancellor.”

  Then Forrester told him about his odd encounter in Whitehall with Calthrop, and Fleming lit another of his gold-ringed cigarettes, drew in a deep lungful of smoke, and chuckled.

  “You realise you’ve just been offered a bribe, don’t you?” he said.

  “Seriously?”

  “Yes. Calthrop wants you to back off exposing Dorfmann. If you do, he’ll recommend you get your grant to go to Crete. If you make trouble, you’ll never set foot there as long as you live.”

  “But why?”

  “Oh, why do these Foreign Office chaps do anything? They have so many agendas they can’t keep up with themselves. He’ll have his own game to play with the Americans. He may hand Dorfmann over to them himself, he may let them put him in place and then put pressure on him for something we want, he may suppress the whole thing for the sake of Anglo-American relations.”

  “Devious bastard.”

  “He’s in the Foreign Office. What do you expect?” Fleming drank some more champagne. “By the way, what I told you about your Master last time we met – it seems to be coming to fruition.”

  “Intelligence?”

  “Absolutely. The word is he’ll be the new ‘C’. Calthrop’s very much behind that too. Has Winters dropped any hints?”

  “None whatsoever. Although he’s clearly becoming distinctly embarrassed by my efforts to clear Gordon Clark.”

  “Not trying to stop you?”

  “No, no, on the contrary – he’s been very helpful. But we put our foot in it the other night while searching for evidence and he’s gone off us a bit.” And he told Fleming the story of the dirty picture in the light fitting. Fleming was delighted, and was only with difficulty persuaded to keep the yarn to himself, at least until later. As he was chuckling, and saying how much he wished Forrester had kept hold of the saucy postcard, Forrester offered him another photograph instead.

  Fleming snatched it up like a hungry seagull.

  “Not for publication at this stage,” said Forrester, “but there’s Dorfmann, facing camera, and that’s Vidkun Quisling’s yacht. What I want to know is who the man in the blazer is. From the caption in the original album, I suspect he was English.”

  Fleming examined the photograph carefully. “And probably a member of Henley Sailing Club,” he said. “If I identify the blazer correctly.”

  “MacLean’s people are looking into that,” said Forrester. “I’ll pass the suggestion on. But here’s the point: if this chap was English, and a pal of Quisling, and associated with Dorfmann, I wonder if their association ended when the war began.”

  “How do you mean?” asked Fleming.

  “Whether this pro-fascist Englishman kept in touch with a German literature professor who was working with Nazi intelligence after war was declared.”

  “I see what you’re getting at,” said Fleming.

  “Was there ever any suggestion during the war that there was a traitor in British intelligence?”

  “There was almost certainly someone – perhaps several someones – passing information to the Russians.”

  “The Russians?”

  “Oh, yes. They clearly knew all sorts of things they shouldn’t have known. For example, when Roosevelt sprang news of the atomic bomb on Stalin at Yalta, he showed not the slightest surprise. Someone had told him, and I think that someone was in British intelligence. My personal belief is it was the Cambridge lot. They were all communists in the thirties, you know.”

  “Of course the Russians were our allies.”

  “That’s what made it so difficult. There were people in the intelligence services who felt we weren’t treating them as allies, but as potential enemies.”

  “Which they were.”

  “Exactly.” Fleming emptied the last of the bottle into their glasses and signalled the waiter for another.

  “But what about people passing information to the Germans?” Forrester persisted. “Was there any hint that was happening?”

  “All the time,” said Fleming, and leant closer. “But it was supposed to. We rounded up most of Jerry’s agents as soon as the war began, and those we didn’t hang, we turned. They were sending stuff back to the Abwehr and the S.D. that we wanted Jerry to believe.”

  “And only stuff we wanted them to have?”

  “As far as I know,” said Fleming. “Do you have any reason to think otherwise?”

  “I was just wondering if the other man in the photograph was in British intelligence,” said Forrester.

  “Why?” said Fleming. “Because he’s wearing a striped blazer?”

  Forrester grinned back
. “Absolutely,” he said. “I mean, if he was a member of the Henley Sailing Club he was clearly a wrong ’un, wasn’t he?” Fleming chuckled appreciatively.

  “You chaps from the lower orders,” he said. “You don’t trust your betters, do you?”

  “Absolutely not,” said Forrester, and raised his glass across the table. “That’s how we survive.”

  He saw a large, smooth man in a well-cut suit striding purposefully towards the table; Fleming’s lunch partner, he guessed. Getting up, he retrieved the Bjornsfjord photograph and slipped it into his pocket. Fleming looked wistful, and Forrester decided to give him a consolation prize.

  “While I was in Berlin I came across a misfiled page in a bunch of Abwehr documents which talked about two agents, one codenamed ‘Erik’ who I think may have been Dorfmann, and a second codenamed ‘Saint’ who was giving Jerry information on things like the timing of the Murmansk convoys and Soviet plans for Stalingrad. They seemed to be using some kind of Norse saga in their communications.”

  “Good God,” said Fleming.

  “I wondered if Saint might have been one of the German agents we didn’t round up. Someone who managed to keep in touch with Berlin throughout the war.”

  Fleming blinked. “I’ll make some enquiries,” he said.

  “It may not be easy,” said Forrester. “I asked Archie MacLean at the War Ministry to do the same thing, and all he’s got is the run-around. I get the impression this is a bit of house-cleaning which for some reason the powers that be are reluctant to undertake.”

  “Well it may be one of their own,” said Fleming.

  “Anyway,” said Forrester, “if you can find out anything about bad eggs in wartime intelligence, people who might have been in touch with the Nazis, the chances of my being able to let you have the photograph for publication are that much higher.” Fleming looked at him wryly.

  “I see you’ve learned something from Brother Calthrop,” he said.