‘Don’t worry, Lieutenant. This is just a chat.’ Gilbert must have seen him flinch. There was a supercilious little smile on his face.
‘No unpleasantness,’ then, as if an afterthought, ‘for now.’
The door opened behind Lindsay and light from the landing crept across the floor and under the table. Lindsay turned his back on Gilbert and walked towards it.
‘Goodbye, Lieutenant. We will be seeing each other again, I’m sure. Oh, and there is a delivery – pick it up on the way out, would you.’
Lindsay did not reply but brushed past the thug at the door and began to thump down the wooden stairs. The angry rhythm of his feet echoed through the shop. Verdammter Mist! He gripped the banister and muttered it to himself. What a mess.
It took him more than an hour to walk home. He was glad of the time and the cool air and the darkness of the blackout, its emptiness and anonymity. It felt unfamiliar, as if he was walking through a New World city, roughly planned, a vast building site of half-finished streets, the sidewalks criss-crossed in the moonlight by broken shadows. At the Tower of London he was stopped by a policeman who wanted to know his business at that hour. More than once he looked back to see if he was being followed, without expecting to see anyone. And slowly the anger he felt, with Gilbert, with Fleming, with Checkland, with the Navy, was replaced by a sadness that glowed deeper, like the wooden heart of a fire.
The apartment in St James’s Square was empty. He had given Mary a key but she never used it and there was nothing to suggest there had been uninvited visitors. Lindsay flung MI5’s parting gift – a large manila envelope – on to the couch and walked over to the mahogany sideboard to pour himself a whisky. Before he could reach it the telephone on the desk by the window began to jangle. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning, late even for Mary to call.
‘Douglas?’
His father’s voice was strained with anxiety.
‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘The police were here to speak to your mother. I’m afraid she’s in a bit of a state. They want to know about our family.’
Two of Glasgow’s finest had presented themselves at the engineering works and accompanied his father home. They wanted photographs of the Clausen family, their ages, occupations, correspondence and last contact details.
‘They were especially interested in Martin. They knew a good deal about him already.’ There was a cautious note in his father’s voice and Lindsay wondered if it had occurred to him too, that someone might be eavesdropping. His mother had told them she had heard nothing from her nephew for two years but that was not enough to satisfy them. They had wanted to know if anyone in the family was in contact with Martin.
‘They asked about you in particular, Douglas.’
‘Yes.’
‘They were a little unpleasant to your mother.’
‘How unpleasant?’
His father did not answer.
‘How unpleasant?’
‘Very unpleasant. But I will speak to the Chief Constable about it tomorrow.’
There was some concern about ‘Mrs Lindsay’s status’, they said. ‘Nazi connections’, they said. She was a ‘low-risk Category C’ alien but that might change and they had spoken of new restrictions.
‘The wee buggers had the nerve to talk of internment.’ His father’s voice shook with emotion. ‘I pointed out that our sons were fighting for their country.’
‘They threatened her?’
‘In so many words. Honestly, Douglas, we are beginning to behave like the Nazis.’ His father had asked the policemen to leave at once and they went without protest.
Lindsay did his best to be calm and reassuring, to talk of ‘misunderstandings’ and ‘silly mistakes’, but there was no mistake. When his father hung up he lit a cigarette and sat at the desk with his glass. He had heard that the Security Service interrogators at Camp 020 called it ‘the game’. One old player had told him that ends always justified means in war. His rules permitted everything but the rack and the thumbscrew and perhaps there would be a time when those would be necessary too. And in such a game your friends could sometimes become enemies.
The little carriage clock on the chimneypiece struck two. He got wearily to his feet, took off his jacket and draped it over the couch. It slipped down the back on to the envelope he had been given at Five’s little shop. It was addressed to Room 39 and stamped MOST SECRET. Lindsay picked it up, rubbing the rough paper between his fingers. Then, on an impulse, he reached over to the desk for a paperknife and slit it open with ruthless precision. There were two sheets of foolscap inside. The first was a cover page with a circulation list that included DNI – the Director of Naval Intelligence. Subject: ‘A Breach of Security in the Division’. He turned to the second page.
1. The following extracts are from a letter sent by a German prisoner at Number One Officer’s Camp. The prisoner, Captain Mohr, is well known in his own country and has achieved some notoriety in this. In the early months of the war he sent a signal to the First Lord of the Admiralty with the position of survivors from a ship his U-boat had sunk. He is the most senior Kriegsmarine officer in our hands and a possible source of important intelligence.
2. The letter was sent on 12th July 1941 and is addressed via the usual channels to a Marianne Rasch. From its tone and content it can be assumed that Miss Rasch is intimate with Captain Mohr.
3. It contains the following passage:
‘By an extraordinary coincidence I have had the unexpected pleasure of conversing at length with a cousin of my old comrade Schultze. Do you remember Schultze? His cousin is an interesting young man who shares many of our ideas. He entertained one of our officers at a jazz club and introduced him to his girlfriend. My meetings with him made me even more convinced that this war between Germans and Anglo-Saxons is some sort of madness. It will be over soon, I am sure. In the meantime, please write to Schultze and let him know his cousin prospers, although he looks tired and must be working too hard.’
Lindsay gave a short humourless laugh. It was impossible not to admire the audacity of the man. He closed his eyes for a moment and rumpled his fingers through his hair. Mohr had the instinctive cunning of the true hunter. It had let him down only once and he had become a prisoner but now it was serving him well.
4. Further investigation with the co-operation of ADNI and personnel in NID sections 8, 10 and 11 has revealed the identity of Schultze to be that of a U-boat commander, Lieutenant-Commander Martin Schultze. His cousin has been identified as Lieutenant DAC Lindsay RNVR Until recently Lieutenant Lindsay has been serving as an interrogator at C.S.D.I.C. and he was responsible for questioning Captain Mohr. Although something of his family background was known to the relevant sections in the Division, this close connection to the German Navy was not, nor his apparent sympathy with ‘Nazi ideas’. It is the opinion of this officer that further inquiries should be carried out at once to prevent any risk of a damaging breach of security and that the Security Service should be asked to investigate.
The report was signed by a Major Macfarlane of Military Counter-Intelligence Western Command. At the bottom, someone else – perhaps Gilbert of MI5 – had scrawled in pencil: Concur. Recommend removal of officer at once and immediate follow-up.
Lindsay slipped the report back into the envelope. He wondered if Colonel Gilbert had expected him to read it. Perhaps the report was part of the game too? It must stop, stop at once. This spiral of suspicion was not malicious, it was cold policy, but his mother and Mary were in danger of being caught up in it too. He dropped the envelope on the couch and walked over to the window, stepping carefully behind the heavy blackout drapes. His lip was throbbing.
The black Morris was parked in the north-east corner of the square again. It was too dark to see behind the wheel but he felt sure the same ugly driver was there. He was too tired to care any more. His file could be stamped ‘Security Risk’ and sent to the Admiralty Registry for burial
.
32
Number One Officers’ POW Camp
Stapley,
Lancashire
A
shaft of soft light was pouring through a crack in the shutters on to the yellow wallpaper above Lange’s head. It was close to five o’clock. He had woken with an anxious start. His skin was damp and cold and the pulse in his neck throbbed. He pulled the rough blankets to his chin, wrapping them like a cocoon about his body. His room-mates were still sleeping, he could hear the steady rise and fall of their breathing. He could hear voices in the corridor too and a floorboard creaked close to the door. Someone was rattling the handle. Lange knew with stiff cold certainty, in a frozen second, that something was very wrong. Heads at the door, light striking a steel bed-end and the first harsh whisper.
‘Schmidt. Are you ready?’
Schmidt was ready. He was in the bed closest to the light from the door and as he pushed his blankets away Lange could see that he was dressed in the shirt and trousers of the evening before. Everyone in the room was stirring now.
‘Who’s there?’ It was Bischoff from the bed beneath the window.
‘Shut up. Shut up and stay where you are,’ someone whispered harshly.
‘Schmidt. Lange. Come with us.’
He could not move. They were going to hurt him. But if he lay with his head on the pillow he would be safe. They would leave him if he said nothing, if he did not move a muscle.
‘Come on, Lange.’ It was the first officer of the U-500, Dietrich. ‘Help him, Schmidt.’
Schmidt took two steps across the room and grabbed Lange’s blankets.
‘Get up,’ and he jerked them roughly from the bed. ‘Get up.’
He was lying on the bed in only his shorts. ‘Sweet Mary, help me.’ His lips moved as he chanted the prayer silently. ‘Sweet Mary, help me.’ Schmidt bent down and shook him roughly by the shoulder.
‘What’s the matter with you? Bruns, help him.’
But Lange swung his legs from the bed and reached for his shirt.
‘And quick about it,’ Dietrich hissed. ‘The rest of you – back to sleep. This is none of your business.’
There were five men in the corridor. Oberleutnant zur See Dietrich was in command. A nasty piece, short, heavily built, ideologically pure, twenty-three. He had made his contempt for Lange crystal clear in the weeks they spent together aboard the 500.
‘May I speak to Kapitän Mohr?
Someone shoved Lange from behind.
‘Shut up.’
Where are you taking me?’
Bruns held him by the arm: ‘This way.’
They followed Dietrich quickly and quietly down the corridor and on to the landing above the hall. A Luftwaffe lieutenant Lange did not recognise was acting as lookout at the top of the stairs. He nodded curtly to Dietrich to indicate that it was safe to continue. The British guard posted in the vestibule at night must have left the house already.
Down the stairs at the double and across the inner hall with Bruns’s grip bruising his arm. He was breathless with anxiety and his knees were shaking so hard he was sure he would collapse. At the end of the long corridor another Luftwaffe officer stepped out of the shadows to signal that the coast was clear and they hurried on into the West wing of the house.
On the right of the dark passage the kitchen and the servants’ hall, the prisoners’ washroom on the left. Dietrich led them to the kitchen door. He was reaching for the handle when it opened from the inside. Someone shoved Lange hard from behind and he stumbled through the door. Bright light was reflecting off the cream tiles that covered the walls from floor to ceiling and it took a few seconds to adjust. The kitchen was crowded. He was shocked to see the faces of some twenty men turned towards him, cold and silent. The ones he recognised he knew to be good National Socialists. The large wooden table the cooks used for food preparation had been pushed back against the wall and in its place was a single wooden chair. Sitting on the chair was a white-faced and crumpled August Heine, his eyes wild with fear. Lange looked away.
They had chosen well. The kitchen was perfect. Twenty-five foot square with a cold stone floor, one door and no windows looking on to the rest of the camp. There was a large Edwardian range to the left of the door and on the opposite wall shelves of copper moulds and pots and pans. Some ugly-looking meat hooks hung from a thick bar that ran just below the ceiling. Lange’s arrival had interrupted some sort of public interrogation – or humiliation. The second officer of U-112, Koch, was bending low over Heine, his face an intimidating scarlet, one hand gripping the back of the chair. But it was Dietrich who took command, his voice echoing in the tiled kitchen: ‘This swine has betrayed his captain and his comrades. He has betrayed his Führer and his Fatherland.’
For a few terrifying seconds Lange was sure he was the one – they were accusing him of treason. But Dietrich took two very deliberate steps towards the chair and sweet relief washed through him and another prayer: ‘Thank you Lord, thank you, thank you Lord.’
There was an ugly air of expectation in the kitchen and hard, hard faces. The line of Dietrich’s jaw was tight and there was a hollow look in his eyes. He was slowly clenching and unclenching the fingers of his right hand. Then he lashed out at Heine, hard, with the flat of his hand, and the noise was sickening. Heine reached up to brush his red cheek with trembling fingers, his mouth a little open, his eyes full of shock and puzzlement. A small balding Luftwaffe officer with the sharp features of a rat leant forward to shout in a high-pitched voice: ‘You deserve that, you bastard.’
There were embarrassed coughs and the shuffling of feet, but from some a murmur of approval.
‘This is a copy of the evidence collected by the Ältestenrat.’ Dietrich held a yellow file above his head to be sure they could all see it. ‘This swine volunteered important information to the British that could compromise our U-boat comrades at sea. He has . . .’
‘No.’ Heine’s voice cracked with emotion. ‘No, never.’
‘Shut up or you will get the same again.’
‘He has been examined and the evidence is clear. Now he will confess in front of you all.’
Tears were rolling down Heine’s face and his mouth and chin were trembling uncontrollably. And yet Lange could see a certain glassy determination in his eyes too. Heine was going to fight. His comrades, his captain, the U-boat arm, these were his life.
‘Please, I told the English nothing.’
‘We have proof,’ Dietrich shouted, the colour rising in his face. ‘Proof, here. Your own words and a witness,’ and he flapped the yellow file in front of Heine’s face.
‘Confess.’
Heine shook his head: ‘I’m innocent.’ He shuffled round the chair to look at the men standing on either side of him. ‘Please. I’ve said nothing.’
His words bounced emptily about the kitchen. No one spoke. Then Dietrich turned to look at someone standing close to Lange.
Bruns was wearing gloves. Heine must have noticed too. He shook his head and groaned: ‘No, please.’
And Lange was trembling. Was this what the Ältestenrat wanted? He wanted to shout, to scream: ‘No. Stop. Stop now.’ The words were there, on the tip of his tongue, but his mouth was sticky with fear. It was impossible to make a sound. He stood transfixed and helpless. The first blow sent Heine crashing to the floor. For a moment he was lost behind arms and legs as he was pulled upright. Then a second blow and a third blow. And the kitchen was silent but for the clatter of the chair and the shuffle of feet and the low groans of the man prostrate on the floor.
Heine was still conscious when they hauled him upright again. There was a deep cut in his lip and spots of blood on the front of his nightshirt. His right eye was puffy and closing and his cheek blue and swollen. The pride and courage in his eyes had gone. And Lange’s face was wet with tears. He knew, yes he knew, the pain, the humiliation, and the memory of Lindsay helping him from a pool of vomit. What sort of patriots were these? How could this happen? B
ut he was guilty too, guilty, yes. And more than just a silent witness – a sort of Judas.
Someone was holding a thick rope with a noose knotted at the end. Koch was tightening it, squeezing, squeezing the air from Heine. He was writhing, thrashing on the chair. It toppled sideways again but this time no one helped him to his feet. They were kicking him, grunting and cursing, and Lange could hear the scuffing of boots on the stone floor.
‘Stop. Don’t kill him.’
It was Dietrich. He pushed impatiently through the shoulders that had closed over Heine’s body: ‘Get him up. He must sign.’
The rope was still hanging obscenely from Heine’s neck. Someone pressed a pen into his hand. Grazed, dirty fingers closed around it and letter by painful letter he wrote his name in the yellow file. Did he know what he was doing? Did any of them know what they were doing?
Dietrich held up the sheet of paper in triumph. Everything was in order. Justice must always be seen to be done.
‘The swine . . .’
And Heine’s confession was met with a chorus of abuse.
‘We should hang the bastard.’
‘No, the bastard should hang himself. He would if he were any sort of man.’
And someone yanked the rope beneath Heine’s chin, dragging his head from his chest.
‘There’s a meat hook in here. String the bastard up from the ceiling.’
The rope cut deeper. Heine’s lips were drawn tightly over his teeth and he gasped and whooped for air, his hands tearing at the noose. And in his tortured face there was a desperate plea for help. He seemed fleetingly to look at Lange, beseeching him, begging, ‘Please, please.’
‘Stop it. Stop it.’ The words came to Lange at last, breathless and shaking with tears. ‘Let me help him.’
But someone was holding him down, twisting his arm behind his back. It was his room-mate, Schmidt.
‘Shut up,’ Dietrich barked and he pushed his face close to Lange’s. ‘Why do you want to help a traitor?’
The Interrogator Page 20