The Interrogator

by Andrew Williams

  ‘They’ve probably got some scruples, sir,’ said Checkland tartly.

  ‘Then they should have left them at the prison gates.’ Godfrey turned to glare at him: ‘Yes, he’s been insubordinate and a little unscrupulous but he’s not training for the priesthood here. This intelligence may save thousands of lives.’

  He sat back in his chair and looked to Fleming for agreement: ‘Lindsay has a nose for this business. Finally, we’ve got something first-class from a prisoner.’

  Fleming nodded vigorously.

  ‘Don’t you think it would be a good idea to have him back?’

  It was not a question Checkland was expected to answer.

  ‘There are going to be changes at Trent Park.’ There was a coldness in Godfrey’s manner that suggested the changes might involve the appointment of a new head of section. At least Checkland must have thought so because he flushed a deep shade of crimson.

  There was an uncomfortable silence as the Director stared at each of them in turn like a hawk sizing up a meal. It was Winn who eventually spoke: ‘Lindsay has done well, sir, but he’s dangerous. He’s a rule-breaker who encourages others to do the same.’

  Winn balanced his copy of the report on the edge of the desk: ‘I know Fleming has spoken to you about Mary Henderson. I’ve asked her to stand down.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘She was suited to the work, thoughtful and meticulous. It’s a pity.’

  ‘Yes.’

  The Director pushed his chair away from the desk, then walked round it to the window. The first leaves of autumn were fluttering across Horse Guards.

  ‘Was it necessary?’

  The officers at the desk exchanged glances. The Director turned to look at them: ‘Well?’

  ‘Lindsay was very tired when he wrote his report, sir, he may not have realised he’d let it slip,’ said Fleming.

  ‘Let’s not make excuses. It was a filthy thing to do,’ said Winn coolly. ‘But as you say, sir, he doesn’t have to be a decent human being to be of service.’

  Fleming frowned: ‘You know, Rodger, I’m sure he’s got no idea what he’s done to Henderson.’

  ‘I think perhaps he does. He’s too clever. But tell him, to be sure. Didn’t you say he was waiting outside?’

  ‘Yes, you can tell him, Ian,’ Godfrey said sharply. ‘For God’s sake let’s move on from this.’

  Lindsay had tired of the bustle and noise of the messengers’ room and was pacing and cursing under his breath in the corridor outside. It was after eleven o’clock and he had been there for more than an hour. Everyone else seemed to move with purpose but he had spent the time smoking and brooding on his exchange with Samuels. You had to draw a line somewhere so it was worrying that someone whose opinion he respected thought he had drawn it in the wrong place. And Mary would surely think the same. She had helped him in so many ways, with support and understanding and confidence and love and, yes, with information too. And he should have thanked her, should have told her how much he felt for her. He knew he had always taken more than he had given in their relationship and had been cavalier with her trust. He must find her and tell her so. When Fleming had finished with him he would arrange for a note to be delivered to the Tracking Room.

  He was about to scribble something on a scrap of paper when he saw Winn lumbering awkwardly towards him, file under one arm, head bent in contemplation like a monk in a cloister garden. He did not seem to notice Lindsay and it looked as if he might pass without a word but, an arm’s length away from him and almost as an after thought, he turned and said: ‘I suppose I should congratulate you.’

  But I don’t want you to, Lindsay thought, and the unspoken words seemed to hang in the air between them.

  ‘Thank you, sir.’

  Winn stared at him for a moment, his eyes lost behind the reflection in his glasses, then he turned and walked on without another word. Mary. He knew it was Mary and the little knot of anxiety he had been trying to ignore tightened in his stomach. He was on the point of following Winn but footsteps were echoing along the corridor towards him: ‘Sorry to keep you.’

  Fleming gave him a friendly slap on the arm: ‘Let’s stretch our legs, take some air, what do you say?’

  The knot in Lindsay’s stomach tightened even more.

  ‘Is this something to do with Mary?’

  Fleming took his arm: ‘Come on, let’s walk.’

  It had rained heavily and yellow plane leaves were floating in the pools still forming in the gutters. A fitful sun was breaking through the grey, glinting in the fine spray thrown up by traffic sweeping up the Mall towards the Palace. They crossed Horse Guards and walked in uneasy silence until they reached the white stone memorial to those of the Household Division who had died in the Great War.

  ‘I never tire of this view,’ said Fleming, nodding towards the parade ground opposite, ‘even the bloody balloons can’t spoil it. Horse Guards, the Admiralty, Downing Street and Whitehall. Can you imagine that lot goose-stepping here? I’d do anything to make sure it never happens.’

  He reached into his jacket pocket for his cigarettes: ‘Would you like to smoke one of these?’

  Lindsay shook his head. Why was he taking so long to get to the point? A special torment. He watched as Fleming tried to protect his lighter flame from the stiff breeze. It was some time before he managed to light his cigarette and sensing Lindsay’s impatience he held out a hand as if to steady him: ‘You did well in the end. You took some chances and this time they were worth taking. But if you’d got it wrong the Director would have hung you out to dry. You know that, don’t you?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Mary took chances too. She got it wrong.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘Oh, please,’ and Fleming gave a short cynical laugh. ‘Please don’t play the innocent. You know perfectly well that Mary told you we were reading the German Enigma ciphers. She also slipped you a piece of special intelligence that suggested at least one of our own codes was compromised. You’re not going to deny it, are you?’

  The answer was evident in Lindsay’s face. It was one of the signs he never missed across a table from a prisoner. What was it American card players called it? ‘A tell.’ He felt hot with guilt.

  ‘You betrayed her in your report, but you know that, don’t you? And Winn has confronted her and she admitted it at once and told him she gave you help with our codes too. That little piece of paper?’

  ‘For God’s sake, what does it matter whether she helped me or not?’ Lindsay made no attempt to disguise his anger. This was madness. Both of them had taken risks, yes, but they were worth taking, Fleming had just said as much: ‘Mary broke the rules to help me and it was the right decision to take.’

  ‘The Director and Winn don’t agree,’ he said with a little shake of the head. ‘It was not information you needed to know. And she should have known better . . .’

  ‘She wasn’t handing it over to a spy . . .’

  ‘Mary knows how precious special intelligence is to us, to this . . .’ and Fleming gestured theatrically to the scene before them. ‘She was one of just a handful at the heart of our operations with access to the most secret intelligence. If we lose special intelligence we may lose the war at sea. Do you think Winn goes home and talks to his wife about it?’

  ‘She doesn’t work for Naval Intelligence.’

  Fleming stepped forward to drop his cigarette in the gutter, then turned again to look at Lindsay: ‘I’m fond of Mary but her position was impossible. She couldn’t go back to the Tracking Room. She understood that perfectly.’ He spoke sharply and quickly, clearly anxious to bring the conversation to a close. ‘No one wants to take it further, thank God. Ah, you shake your head – people have been sent to prison for less.’ He glanced at his watch: ‘Look, I must be getting back.’

  ‘So what will happen to Mary, sir?’ Lindsay’s voice cracked a little.

  ‘She’s left the Division.’ He paused for a moment as if in two m
inds whether to say more. There was the distinctive little frown again: ‘You know she feels badly let down.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lindsay flatly. ‘I expect she does.’

  When Fleming left, the old panic gripped him again. Lindsay stood at the foot of the memorial breathing slowly and deeply, trying to clear his mind. What had possessed him to be so reckless with Mary’s trust? Careless, careless, unnecessary words and Fleming was right, he could not play the innocent, he had understood the risk he was running. He had dictated his report to a Wren, short hard sentences, the brutal click of the typewriter keys, blind to any loyalty or feeling beyond duty to the war effort. At least, ‘duty’, ‘the greater good’ was how he chose to present it to others. But he knew it was guilt too. Guilt gnawing at him always, that desperate craving for release from the burden of being a man who was dragged from the Atlantic the night two hundred lives were lost. It distorted, warped his perspective like a fairground mirror. Mary could see that, understood and loved him none the less. He had to find her to try and explain and tell her he was so very sorry.

  Nobody answered the bell at Lord North Street. The shutters were open and he wondered for a moment if Mary was in the house but had resolved not to see him. He pulled the bell again but no one came. But she was not the sort of woman who would skulk behind curtains to avoid a painful conversation. Perhaps she had left London for a few days. He would have to chase her by phone, and the nearest and most convenient place to begin was at the interrogators’ office in Sanctuary Buildings. It was a short walk across Dean’s Yard where builders were trying to salvage what they could of the Abbey’s domestic range damaged in the Blitz.

  Dick Graham was the only interrogator in the office. He had been sent to the prison but given nothing to do and it rankled.

  ‘The hero of the hour,’ and he glared at Lindsay over his pince-nez. ‘I expect they’ll give you another medal.’

  Lindsay ignored him. First Mary’s uncle. Settling at the desk by the window, he picked up the telephone and began chasing the number for Parliament round the dial. The operator put him through to a stiff assistant who refused to say when she would see Sir David next and only reluctantly promised to say he had called. He was about to try the house in Lord North Street again when Checkland’s secretary presented herself at the edge of the desk: ‘The Colonel said you would want to see this right away,’ and she handed him a plain blue envelope. He took it and slit it open at once. There was a smaller envelope inside and a note in Checkland’s own hand:

  Enclosed a note from Leutnant Lange. He is making a good recovery and will be discharged from hospital in the coming week.

  He held Lange’s envelope in his right hand and stared at it for what must have been a minute. It was Graham who finally broke into his thoughts: ‘A billet-doux from one of your many admirers in the Division?’

  ‘Go to hell.’

  ‘I probably will. And you’ll be there too.’

  It was not the time or the place. Lindsay dropped the little envelope into his pocket. There was still no reply from the house. Perhaps he should ring Mary’s brother? It was surely a measure of his desperation that he was even prepared to consider it. What about her parents in Suffolk?

  ‘Do we have a copy of Debrett?’

  Graham was dictating interrogation notes to one of the clerical assistants. He looked up at Lindsay with a dry smile and stretched a hand over the typewriter to indicate that she should stop hammering the keys.

  ‘I don’t think they’ll offer you a peerage, old boy.’

  ‘Do we have a copy of Debrett?’

  ‘Would you like some help choosing the title?’

  Lindsay half turned to address the clerical assistant: ‘Well?’

  ‘I’ll fetch it, sir.’

  Charnes Hall, and yes, there was a number. An office shared with Graham was not the place to try it and he jotted it down on a piece of paper.

  There was a telephone in the small registry down the corridor where the Section kept its records. It had a short flex and he had to stand beside the filing cabinet to use it. He had to dial the number of the exchange twice because on the first attempt, like a tongue-tied teenager, he hung up before the operator had a chance to put him through.

  ‘Mrs Henderson? Douglas Lindsay here.’

  A long uncertain silence.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘May I speak to Mary please?’

  ‘I don’t know if she’s in the house. Just a minute.’

  Her voice was cut finer than her daughter’s, very county. The telephone was probably in a stone-flagged hall because he could hear the long echo of her footsteps as she walked away.

  Someone rattled the handle of the registry door. ‘Go away, I’m on the telephone.’

  His stomach was churning and the receiver felt damp and heavy in his right hand: ‘Come on, come on.’

  Twenty seconds from the condemned cell to the bottom of the scaffold. Every second an hour. But they would have buried him by now. At last he heard footsteps approaching the telephone again and the rattle as Mary picked up the receiver.

  ‘Lindsay?’

  His heart sank many fathoms. It was Mary’s brother.

  ‘Are you there?’

  ‘Yes, I’m here, James.’

  ‘I’m here, sir.’

  ‘I’m here, sir.’

  ‘I’ll say this once and once only,’ his voice was trembling with barely repressed fury. ‘She has nothing to say to you. You shit. You used her. You betrayed her. Now leave her alone.’

  Bang went the phone. The buzz of an empty line.

  Lindsay replaced the receiver carefully, his mind very clear. How strange that the anger of another was calming. He knew what he must do.

  It was some hours later that Mary heard he had called and spoken to her brother. If only her mother had dealt with it or her father. She was cross because she could not help feeling sorry for Lindsay and she did not want to.

  ‘You should have told him to ring back,’ she told her mother. ‘He’s going to think I haven’t the guts to talk to him in person.’

  ‘I doubt that, darling,’ her mother replied.

  But she knew he would not leave it there. He would come to see her, perhaps tomorrow, and she would say what she needed to say. She had rehearsed it all so very carefully – to distraction.

  She did not have to wait for the next day. At a little before six o’clock her father called to her from the bottom of the stairs.

  ‘A military-looking car. Mother thinks it might be your man.’

  She had not discussed Lindsay with her parents but they seemed to know everything from James. By the time she had slipped into a mac and wellingtons the Humber was pulling up in front of the stable block. Lindsay jumped out of the car with the restless energy of one who has driven a long distance fast and with single-minded purpose. In spite of herself she could feel a warm rush of affection for him. Head bent a little, she began striding towards the car. Lindsay slammed the door and walked round the back of it to meet her. He was already fumbling for his cigarettes.

  ‘You could have spoken to me on the telephone,’ she said coolly.

  ‘That wasn’t the impression your brother gave me.’

  She had reached the car now, hands in the pockets of her mac, only a few feet from him. He slipped the cigarettes back into his jacket without taking one.

  ‘Can I kiss you?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Can we talk?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Here?’ And he glanced towards the house.

  ‘No. We can walk.’

  She led him in silence round the stable block and through a brick arch into the walled garden where the roses had been replaced by vegetables and a flock of chickens.

  ‘It’s quite a house. Seventeenth century?’

  She did not answer but walked on, conscious that he was watching her closely. At the far end, she opened a door in the wall and led him across the grass to the edge of a copse. It was alrea
dy dark beneath the trees, the ground soft, and she could hear him stumbling and slipping and grabbing at branches for support. And she thought of his shiny black shoes and smiled with quiet satisfaction. It was not until they emerged on the other side of the wood that she stopped and turned, arms tightly folded: ‘Well?’

  ‘Well, I’m very sorry. Very, very sorry. No excuses. Can you ever forgive me?’

  ‘Can I forgive you?’

  ‘Yes. I love you. You know I love you very much. I didn’t want to hurt you,’ and he stepped forward to touch her.

  ‘No, Douglas,’ she said firmly and held up a hand. ‘No, don’t. I can’t forgive you.’

  He took half a step back again and looked away, as if uncertain what he should say next. Did he really think ‘sorry’ would be enough? Did he think it would be that easy? And she could feel the anger she had been so determined to control rising inside her.

  ‘It was unforgivable and I can’t explain it,’ he said. ‘At least I can’t explain it better than you when you called it a dangerous obsession.’

  He was gazing across the patchwork of stubble and recently turned fields that dipped gently westwards away from them. The sky was heavy with blue-grey cloud too thick for any sort of sunset.

  ‘I can’t understand when we both work for the Division why . . .’

  ‘Aah,’ Mary grabbed her hair with both hands and pulled at it in exasperation. ‘You don’t understand, do you? It’s you. It’s not the Navy, it’s not me. It’s you.’ And she swung away from him in exasperation. ‘What have you become?’

  ‘It’s over now. Believe me,’ he was almost pleading with her. ‘I’m sorry I dragged you into this but I was trying to do my duty, trying to make some sort of amends. You know that.’

  ‘It’s not about me. Yes, it was disloyal and unnecessary but I half expected you to let the cat out of the bag. It’s what you put that poor man through when he trusted you. Helmut Lange almost died. I don’t think you’d have cared if he had.’

  And now she had said it the anger began to ebb and there was just the deep heart-breaking sadness of it all. And she knew she would have to be careful or she would cry and she did not want that to happen.