The Nazi Spy

by Alan Hardy

  “Belinda! Squadron Leader!” she said, beaming, and striding forcefully towards them, hands outstretched.

  Jackson shook hands peremptorily, looking miserable and withdrawn, slouching off back to the sofa.

  She and Belinda kissed.

  “Tea? Or a gin and tonic?” Fiona asked.

  “A whisky for me,” muttered Jackson, looking more morose than Fiona had ever seen him.

  “Of course. I’ll call James.”

  “G & T for me, Fiona,” said Belinda, glancing edgily towards her husband, and touching Fiona on the arm.

  “What’s up?” asked Fiona, once the drinks had been served, and James had left.

  “A bit of a rum business, Fiona,” explained Belinda, sitting next to her husband, and herself looking quite flushed and disturbed. “I think, in some crazy sort of way, we are under suspicion.”

  She looked incredulous. Her chubby face—normally so unconcerned about anything but her next romantic rendezvous—was tortured by doubt and concern, as evidenced by her worry-lines and puffed skin.

  “Under suspicion?” repeated Fiona, flopping down in an armchair. “Belinda, you look awful. Are you drinking too much?”

  “Who can blame me?” she snapped, casting an accusatory glare at her husband, who was still sitting glumly by her side, motionless save for his arm frequently raising his glass to his lips.

  “Another whisky, Squadron Leader?” Fiona offered, rising to take his glass. “Let me.”

  She poured him out a really large one.

  “Here you are, Colin,” she said, deciding an unaccustomed friendliness was required in these strained circumstances.

  “Thank you,” said Jackson gruffly. “Is Matthew in?”

  Fiona was taken aback.

  “No, he… Well, he said he’d be back shortly. Do you want to speak to him?”

  “That would be really helpful,” cut in Belinda, as her husband showed no inclination to answer, already intent on gulping down the contents of his glass.

  “But what on earth is going on?” asked Fiona, surprised by their nervous state, but, of course, not quite as surprised as she made out.

  “Shall I explain, Colin…” mumbled Belinda, looking in an exasperated manner at her husband, who completely ignored her. “Well… Well, Fiona, it’s like this. I had the most amazing visit from the police yesterday. And another one today. They asked the strangest of questions. About Colin. About Colin and myself. Our relationship. Our…well, how shall I say..? Our…”

  “Your affairs, Belinda?” suggested Jackson, cutting in, with a horrible sneer animating his normally bland features.

  “And yours too, Colin!” hissed Belinda. “Your shenanigans with that awful woman…”

  He seemed infuriated, as if he were about to hit her. He hesitated a moment, searched for something to say, and then gave up, turning his back on her, with an anguished sigh.

  “We need to talk to Matthew,” he said.

  “And then Colin had a visit too yesterday,” continued Belinda, equally annoyed and frustrated, but pausing to see if Jackson would take up the story.

  “Yes?” Fiona muttered impatiently.

  “They wanted to know about a missing button, didn’t they, Colin?” remarked Belinda, glaring with distaste at her husband’s back-turned figure. “Y’know, a metal button from his uniform, Fiona.”

  “And what about it?” asked Fiona.

  “They showed him the button, asked him if it was his, and where he thought he had lost it… and how long it had been missing… That’s right, isn’t it, Colin?”

  “We need to speak to Matthew,” was all Jackson would say.

  “He’ll be back any moment,” said Fiona, as soothingly as possible. “But why do you need to see him?”

  “He knows about these things,” answered Jackson enigmatically.

  “These things?”

  “He’s got contacts. He knows people. He’ll be able to find out what it’s all about.”

  “Well, I’m sure he’ll do all he can to help,” said Fiona, trying to sound as reassuring as possible, although she had good reason to suspect that if they were pinning all their hopes on Matthew, they might well find themselves cruelly disillusioned. “But did the police say what it was all about?”

  “Not really,” answered Belinda, “but we think it’s to do with the murders, y’know, that Paula woman, and poor George Turnbill…”

  “But surely they can’t think you two are involved?” exclaimed Fiona. “I mean, it’s outrageous.”

  “Well, I don’t know what they think,” muttered Belinda, scowling in Jackson’s direction. “It’s got me really worried, I can tell you…”

  “And Colin,” said Fiona, “what do you think it’s about?”

  “We really need to speak to Matthew,” was his only response.

  “Let me get you another whisky,” said Fiona. “Belinda?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “And when did the button go missing?” enquired Fiona, as she poured Jackson another large one.

  “Difficult to say,” replied Belinda. “It was from his spare uniform. It came back from the cleaner’s just recently. I hadn’t noticed anything before… One has to contact the cleaner’s to see—”

  The sound of approaching cars cut the conversation stone dead, and a chill came over the room as the cars churned up the gravel on pulling up sharply outside.

  “Could this be Matthew?” muttered Fiona, getting up and walking over to the bay-windows looking out on to the driveway. “Yes… Yes, it is. But there are… There are also some policemen with him…”

  Both Belinda and her husband visibly stiffened. Jackson gave the impression, with furtive, panic-stricken glances left and right, of wishing to make a bolt for it.

  After some muttered words to and from James, the butler, and footsteps rapidly approaching, the door was opened, and they were in the room. Matthew, three uniformed officers, and a middle-aged man in civilian clothes.

  Fiona had instinctively stood up. So had Belinda, open-mouthed and anxious. Jackson too was on his feet, edgy, nervous, like someone dying for a pee.

  “What is this, Matthew?” demanded Fiona, her face quite severe, but her eyes burning with something more akin to passion. And a touch of amusement.

  “My apologies, Mrs MacIntosh,” murmured the middle-aged man, with a politely hand-cupped cough, before turning towards Jackson and adopting a louder, threatening voice. “Squadron Leader Jackson, I am arresting you on suspicion of murder. You do not have to say anything unless you wish to do so, but what you say may be given in evidence.”

  He nodded to one of the uniformed officers, as Belinda gave a little scream, putting her hand to her mouth. Jackson looked as if he were about to faint.

  “But-but-but…” he stammered. “This is… I’ve been set up…”

  His bewildered eyes sought out Matthew, as the officer—a big, burly chap—laid a hand gently on his arm.

  “Matthew, say something…” he begged rather shamefully. “You… you can…”

  Matthew shrugged.

  “Matthew, please,” interposed Belinda, “if you know anybody who can help… You have contacts, I know, people in high places… Please, please help us.”

  Fiona felt sorry for her. To some extent. Then she recalled her long history with Belinda. Mocked by her at their private school, when Belinda ridiculed her childish, romantic notions, unfavourably contrasted to her own sexual maturity. Then there was the rather cruel, manipulative manner in which Belinda had toyed with Fiona’s body, and initiated her into the ecstatic mysteries of lovemaking. In later life Fiona’s terribly unhappy marriage was again a source of endless amusement—Fiona always suspected—to Belinda. She was always ready with a wounding, sarcastic comment or two. Fiona had always had to grin and bear it, just as she had had to grin and bear everybody else’s good fortune when it came to marriage, and having children… Well, no more. No more. And Belinda had committed the ultimate outrage upon her. Sh
e had been one of many lovers Freddie had taken, and humiliated her with. So, Belinda, now it was your turn to be humiliated. And it was Fiona’s turn to gloat.

  “Mrs. Jackson,” continued the police officer, “we would also like you to accompany us to the police station in order to help us with our enquiries.”

  He nodded at another uniformed officer, who moved towards Belinda.

  “Fiona!” she exclaimed, turning towards her, and drawing in her breath sharply as she recognized the meaning of Fiona’s hard expression.

  She turned towards Matthew, who was standing there quite calmly, as if unaffected by all the commotion.

  “Matthew, if Colin… and I… have ever meant anything to you,” she pleaded, her eyes moist and scared, as the policeman took her arm, “please do what you can to help us. Please!”

  What did she mean by that, thought Fiona? That special plea to Matthew, and a hint of something between them… What was that about?

  Fiona glared at Matthew. He was staring ahead, seemingly oblivious of the proceedings.

  Fiona cast a look of venomous hatred at Belinda.

  Fiona didn’t find things quite so funny anymore.

  “So, what’s the story, Matthew?” asked Fiona, pouring herself another drink, and puffing away at another cigarette.

  “The police have got their man,” he stated dispassionately, reclining lazily in his armchair. “What more is there to say?”

  “And what will be the case for the prosecution?”

  “Well, Belinda had been having an affair with George Turnbill, and—”

  “As she has had with most men I know, including my husband,” interrupted an angry Fiona, “and, as she seemed to be suggesting, even with—”

  “Fiona, don’t start with that again, Belinda was just—”

  “Did you have an affair with her?” asked Fiona curtly.

  “Fiona…”

  “Are you having one now?”

  “Of course not.”

  They fell silent. She felt annoyed, and he felt anxious. He knew what could happen when Fiona got a bee in her bonnet.

  “Shall I carry on, Fiona?”

  She nodded.

  “Well, Belinda and Turnbill were lovers, and, contrary to his sedate and accepting appearance, it must have eaten away at Jackson until he snapped… Paula, of course, was also having an affair with Turnbill, and—”

  “Very energetic type, Turnbill, wasn’t he?”

  “Typical ladies’ man,” said Matthew. “But Jackson had also fallen for Paula. They were conducting a full-blown, passionate affair. Jackson lost it, I think. He’s been the pitied, cuckolded husband so long that, when he for once indulged in a bit of hanky-panky, he completely lost the plot. Turnbill and Paula used to meet up here, I would guess, every now and then for a romantic and very mucky tryst in the gardens. Jackson found out about it, and he—”

  “But he knew Paula and Turnbill were lovers, why—”

  “Yes, but it must have been eating away at him, you know, the same man cuckolding him with his wife, and with his own mistress. He’d finally got one back on his wife after all her years of faithlessness, and then finds that, even in his rebellious affair, he’s being played for a fool. He just snapped. He turned from being the mild-mannered, slighted husband into a maniac unable to reason, and eager to hit out. What we think happened is—”

  “We?”

  “The police and I,” explained Matthew, as Fiona looked intently, and sceptically, at him. “We think he killed Paula in a rage after a quarrel about her affair with Turnbill—maybe she refused to break it off—and then, knowing of her planned rendezvous with Turnbill here in the gardens, he turned up in her place, and killed him too.”

  “With my Luger?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Which he found here in the grounds where it had slipped out of my handbag? He just happened to stumble upon it the very occasion he came here with murder on his mind?”

  “Sounds plausible to me,” commented Matthew drily.

  “Or Paula snatched it from me, as you suggested once,” Fiona proposed, “and Jackson picked it up in her bedsit when he’d killed her?”

  “Sounds even better,” responded Matthew. “I’m sure the police will work it out.”

  “So, he killed Paula with his Webley, and—”

  “Standard RAF issue, so—”

  “And then killed Turnbill with another gun he came across by accident?”

  “Perfectly feasible.”

  “But you’re sure he killed Paula first, and then Turnbill?” asked Fiona, stony-faced, yet with a curl about her lips which belied her seriousness.

  “I think so… I mean, she came here to see you, didn’t she, on that day? Then she must have met Jackson, who killed her, and therefore failed to turn up for duty later that day, was reported missing, of course… Then that night Turnbill was killed… Sounds chronologically above board to me.”

  “No doubt the police will smooth out the edges of the case, and tidy up all the details?”

  “Of course. That’s their job.”

  “What clinched it for them, Matthew? What convinced them it was Jackson?”

  “Well, a whole series of things… The various affairs, the motive he had… But probably it was the button from his uniform which really clinched it.”

  “Well, yes, I can imagine it would.”

  “Proof, you see, darling, that’s what the police need.”

  “And it’s what they got…”

  “Yes, indeed.”

  “So, Jackson whisked away, and Belinda too, she—”

  “Yes, I imagine the police will be quizzing her for some time too, you know, checking times and dates, building up a full picture, and maybe…maybe…”

  “Maybe?”

  “Well, I’m sure they’ll want to make sure she herself is eliminated from their enquiries, and not in any way involved in the murders. You can never—”

  “Of course, darling, I understand that,” Fiona cut in. “How do we know Belinda didn’t kill Paula? Out of furious jealousy at Paula’s affair with Turnbill? Maybe she was besotted with him. She grabbed her husband’s Webley in a rage, and—”

  “Yes, that would make sense too,” concurred Matthew. “She commits murder with her husband’s Webley, and Jackson commits murder with the Luger he finds—”

  “But were they working independently, or together, Matthew?”

  “Well, that’s for the police to work out…”

  “But, anyway, both of them locked away for some time while they’re interrogated,” reiterated Fiona. “I mean, a third party wouldn’t really know why they were in custody, would they? Say, Mary Wilkinson, for example, noticing Belinda and her husband had been removed from view, might imagine it was British Intelligence which had picked them up?”

  “Could well be…”

  “She’d think everything was going to plan? She was in the clear? And I was staying loyal to Germany?”

  Matthew nodded.

  Fiona’s expression suddenly changed. She stopped the silly banter, and became deadly serious.

  “We’re getting close, aren’t we?”

  “We are,” replied Matthew, sitting up in his armchair, and returning the intensity of her stare. “The Americans are here. They arrived today. They’re leaving on the 18th, escorted by their ships and ours. A large flotilla. The British want to put on a grand show to impress the Americans. The return convoy will set sail at ten o’ clock.”

  “In just four days?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is Roosevelt here?”

  “I can’t answer that.”

  “Vice-President Wallace?”

  “I can’t answer.”

  “Why not?”

  “I haven’t been told yet.”

  “Or I haven’t been cleared yet?”

  He didn’t reply, but then she hadn’t expected him to.

  “Do you want me to report all this to Berlin?”

  “Of course,�
�� answered Matthew, smiling. “Why else would I be telling you?”

  Things were moving fast…

  “Another thing, Fiona,” he added, his voice restrained and soft. “My leave is now officially ended. I’m back on active service with 287 Squadron.”

  Fiona shuddered. She felt very, very scared. Scared for Matthew, and scared for herself.

  Things were moving to their climax…

  31

  “Hello, darling.”

  “Hello, Matthew,” responded Fiona. “What’s up?”

  “Just wondering how good you are at sewing?”

  “Sewing?”

  “Yes,” came back Matthew’s chirpy voice. “I need someone to sew on an extra band on my tunic sleeves. I’ve just heard I’ve been promoted to Acting Squadron Leader of 287 Squadron.”

  “That’s wonderful, darling,” she enthused, catching her breath.

  When he came home that night, they had a celebratory drink or two.

  With Jackson hors de combat—so to speak—287 Squadron was without a squadron leader, and it was only natural that Matthew should be called upon. Fiona had always wanted it to be like that. Matthew too seemed pleased. As he said, Scapa Flow was a relatively cushy number, and he would hardly be in the thick of combat, with just the occasional intruder poking its nose into 287’s airspace.

  Fiona understood that he still had ambitions to become a fully-fledged intelligence officer. That, for him, would be a comfortable niche where he could see out the war in one piece.

  Fiona sympathized with his sentiments. Survival was the name of the game. When you were unlucky enough to be alive when history had chosen to wage a world war, then it was up to you to tip-toe your way through the carnage and horrors as best you could, and as safely as you could.

  But there was immediate danger pressing in on them both.

  For one thing, there was the danger of imminent combat for Matthew.

  She hadn’t quite worked out what his game was, and she understood that he hadn’t made all his moves yet.

  He was passing on information to her concerning the current Anglo-American summit at Scapa Flow, with the express intention that she passed it on to Berlin. It was clear that the Germans would attempt an aerial assault on the flotilla as it left Scapa Flow on May 18th, and that 287 Squadron would be on defensive duties during that attack.