The Interrogator (20 page)

‘All right, Corporal,’ said Samuels sharply and he brushed past him and began walking briskly back along the corridor. Lindsay followed a few feet behind. Neither of them spoke until they reached the top of the basement stairs, then, after checking that they were alone, Samuels pointed to the file in Lindsay’s hand: ‘History, Douglas, all right. Don’t get my friend into trouble.’

‘You said there was another, simpler explanation?’

Samuels thought for a moment, then shrugged: ‘It was nothing. Forget it. Goodbye.’ And he held out his hand. ‘Perhaps we can keep in touch,’ and there was something wistful in his voice.

‘Yes,’ said Lindsay as they shook hands, ‘we must.’

27

T

he number 9 London bus was crowded and reeked of sweat and cheap perfume. Mary walked the last two stops. For once, she had made an effort to please and changed into a green summer dress that matched her eyes and showed her figure to great advantage.

Lindsay was waiting beneath a stone elephant at the corner of the Albert Memorial and had just lit a cigarette. When he saw her approaching, he put it out with his foot and dropped down the steps to meet her and wrap her in his arms. They stood for a minute in silence as concert folk drifted and chatted around them. Then Lindsay pushed her gently away and holding both her hands, looked her up and down: ‘You’re looking lovely.’

Mary was struck by the tired shadows about his eyes and she squeezed his hands and moved closer: ‘I’m sorry, Douglas.’

‘Don’t be.’

‘Have you spoken to Fleming?’

‘No. Did he mention my report?’

Mary shook her head. Lindsay frowned and said after a moment’s thought: ‘I’ve learnt something more today.’

She tensed a little.

‘No, all right,’ he said quickly, ‘I won’t talk about it now.’

For a few seconds there was an awkward silence, then he pulled a scrap of cardboard from his pocket: ‘Your brother sent me this. It’s from Helmut Lange.’

She turned the piece of cigarette packet over to read the message, scribbled in a small neat hand.

Thank you for helping me. Please thank lovely lady. Sorry
.

‘He remembers “lovely lady”,’ said Lindsay with a broad smile, ‘It must have worried your brother.’

‘Why does he want to thank us?’

‘I think he regards me as his rescuer. As for you, he’s struggling with the old certainties – Fatherland and Führer – and you reminded him there are other choices.’

‘I only met him for a few hours.’

Lindsay squeezed her arm playfully. ‘And in those few hours . . . perhaps it was your eyes.’

Mary pulled a face at him. ‘And the “Sorry”?’

‘Ah, well in the end it didn’t work.’

‘Work?’

‘He hasn’t the courage to follow his conscience.’

‘Did you want him to?’

‘He might have been useful.’

‘I thought you liked him.’

‘I do.’

Lindsay began to propel Mary gently by the elbow towards the Royal Albert Hall.

‘What are we going to hear?’ she asked.

‘I don’t know.’

They bought a programme in the foyer: Elgar and Beethoven – the Fifth Symphony – Rachmaninov and Wagner. The hall was almost full already and a little too warm. The audience seemed younger, less grand than before the war, and judging by the faces and uniforms more international. They took their seats in the stalls and Lindsay reached across for her hand: ‘I’m surprised about the Wagner, Hitler’s so devoted to him.’

‘Keep the war out of the concert hall,’ said Mary with a smile.

But it was advice she failed miserably to follow. No matter how hard she tried, her thoughts broke free of the music, drifting from the hall to the war. She felt a little guilty, as if she was letting the orchestra down. Lindsay was shifting awkwardly in his seat beside her, clearly struggling to concentrate too. She felt sure his thoughts were full of interrogations and codes and the new piece of information he was bursting to share with her. Perhaps it was naïve but she hoped he would forget the whole thing. It was an obsession, dangerous for both of them.

Lindsay dropped Mary’s hand. The Albert Hall was bursting with applause.

‘Did you enjoy it?’ he shouted across at her.

‘Oh yes, especially the Wagner. What about you?’

‘Oh yes, the Wagner.’

The chattering, cheerful audience swept them from the concert hall and on to the pavement. Most people were walking west towards Kensington High Street and the Underground, the sky in front of them yellow and orange, strewed with deep grey cloud. Blackout was at a little after eleven.

‘We could have some supper,’ said Lindsay.

‘Where? No, it’s all right, I don’t feel very hungry.’

He turned her shoulders so she was facing him: ‘Are you all right?’

‘Yes. Fine, honestly.’

‘Would you like to come back to my flat? I can make us something to eat.’

Mary hesitated. Fleming had said: ‘Careful.’ She wanted to be with Lindsay but perhaps it was better to wait until the dust he had kicked up had settled a little.

‘Please.’

‘I think . . .’

‘Please.’

‘Yes, all right,’ she heard herself say.

Lindsay took her hand and led her from the concert crowd in search of a taxicab. They found one parked outside the American Ambassador’s house in Princes Gate. It was a short journey round Hyde Park Corner into Piccadilly, the city drawing down its blinds, retreating into darkness. Mary stared silently out of the window, frustrated and surprised by her own weakness. The cab passed the sad shell of Wren’s modest masterpiece, St James’s Church, turned right into the Haymarket, then on into St James’s Square, where it pulled up outside a tall smoky-black brick house in the south-east corner.

‘My home,’ said Lindsay almost apologetically.

‘I’m sure it’s very nice.’

‘It’s gloomy.’

At the top of the stairs, Lindsay opened the door and turned on the light to reveal burgundy walls and a heavy mahogany hall table.

‘Mother’s choice,’ he explained.

Mary walked slowly around the small sitting room, picking up family photographs while Lindsay made them some tea.

‘I spoke to my mother last night,’ he shouted from the kitchen. ‘She needed cheering up so I told her about you.’

‘Why did she need cheering up?’

It was some time before he answered, but when he did:

‘I told her I was in a little trouble. She was upset. She thinks I should keep my head down – she does.’

‘And your father?’

‘He’s busy with the war effort: his company is turning out munitions now.’

Lindsay brought the tea into the room and they sat together on his mother’s uncomfortable sofa.

‘But my mother was pleased to hear about you.’

‘I’m glad. Are you close to your mother?’

Lindsay began to laugh.

‘Why are you laughing?’ she asked.

‘Does your question have something to do with Dr Freud?’

Mary laughed too: ‘Well, you’re clearly a troubled soul.’

‘Perhaps,’ he said quietly. He put down his cup and reached across for hers: ‘The Navy, your brother, cups and a hard sofa – all very troubling . . .’

She let him pull her towards him and they kissed, slowly at first and then deeply, passionately. And after a time Lindsay led her through to his bedroom where they stood before the blue London night, kissing and caressing with growing urgency. Then he bent to lift her dress up and over her head, her hair falling loose about her shoulders. She stood there, self-conscious but trembling with excitement as he bent again to slip her pants down her thighs and then down her calves. And she could hear his breath sharp and short. Reaching under her hair, he pulled her head gently towards him. They kissed again, intense, wild kisses, until she broke free and pushed him away. And slowly, deliberately, she sat on the edge of the bed, and then she lay back on the bed, raising and parting her knees.

Later they lay quietly together, naked, wet with perspiration, her cheek against his chest. She could feel its easy rise and fall and the steady beat of his heart. And from time to time he leant forward to kiss and smell her hair.

‘You’re beautiful.’

Mary turned her head to kiss his chest, then said: ‘I’m not but thank you.’

‘Please allow me to be the judge.’

They were silent for a minute or so before Mary said: ‘I don’t want them to send you away, Douglas.’

‘Oh you’ll find somebody else,’ he said breezily.

She raised herself quickly, a cross frown on her face: ‘Why did you say that?’

‘Sorry. A silly joke.’

She stared at him as if challenging him to say more.

‘It’s just that I love you,’ he said, ‘. . . and I don’t want you to leave me, and I suppose I wanted to hear you say you wouldn’t.’

Mary bent again to kiss him passionately on the lips and his arms tightened about her. She lay there on top of him, her loose black curls falling to the pillow about his face, and she whispered: ‘I won’t, you goose.’

‘Good.’

‘I shouldn’t have to tell you, but you doubt everything.’

‘Myself most of all.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know, Dr Henderson.’

She slipped off him and on to her back: ‘If I were a medical doctor I might say, “You don’t need to prove anything to anyone.”’

She paused for a moment, then said: ‘Perhaps it’s something to do with your background, your family, and this whole codes thing is part of it now, isn’t it? But you don’t need to prove anything. You’ve already distinguished yourself.’

‘Would you love me if I hadn’t?’

‘Honestly, Douglas . . .’

But Lindsay turned to place a finger on her lips: ‘Please don’t be cross with me. Look, I want to tell you about the
Culloden
.’

Mary reached across and with her thumb began to smooth the
deep frown that was wrinkling his brow. ‘If you’re sure you want to,’ she said softly. Lindsay’s face suggested he was anything but sure.

‘You should know,’ he sighed and he rolled on to his back again to stare into the mahogany darkness.

28

‘

S
he wasn’t much of a ship. The bridge was open to everything the Atlantic could throw at us. No matter how careful you were, the sea found its way down the back of your neck into your oilskins and into your boots. I joined her at Portsmouth on the tenth of May 1940. I’d been told the captain was a Tartar but I was confident we would muddle along somehow. I was wrong.’

Lindsay turned to look at her: ‘I need a cigarette.’ He swung his legs off the bed and padded across the room to his jacket which had been carelessly thrown on a chair beneath the window. Mary watched him as he took a cigarette and lit it, his neck and chest flickering in the lighter flame. He settled beside her again, sitting upright against the bedhead.

‘I remember Commander Cave’s first words to me were, “More horsemeat from the universities?”’ Pritchett Ernle-Erle-Cave; he considered himself to be among the nobility of the sea. His father was an admiral but the brains skipped a generation. After thirty years’ service Cave was lucky to be the captain of a vintage destroyer. He cursed like a stoker. I think he must have been the rudest man in the Navy and unfathomably ignorant. The Admiralty dusted him off at the beginning of the war and gave him
Culloden
. I sensed in my first hours aboard that she was an unhappy ship.

‘We missed Norway, Dunkirk and the fall of France. We muddled along that summer, escorting convoys in and out of the North-West Approaches. There was no hierarchy of misery at first. Cave treated everyone with equal contempt but then I did something very foolish. In an unguarded moment I mentioned my mother to one of the other officers. I don’t know why, it was something I had learnt not to do at school. A couple of days later Cave walked into the wardroom beaming from ear to ear and asked if I would care to join him in the captain’s cabin. He asked me about my family and was incensed when
I refused to answer. After that, he brought it up time and again, anything and everything to do with my family, Germany and the war.’

Lindsay paused for a moment to look down at Mary: ‘But this isn’t only my hard-luck story, Cave made it unpleasant for all the officers. You know he must have been a very lonely man.’

Mary reached for Lindsay’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. In turn he lifted hers and, opening her fingers, kissed her palm tenderly.

‘A lot of ships were lost in the summer but our convoys were fortunate. Merchant ships began to call us “the lucky
Culloden
”. And then convoy HX.70. I can remember the face of our Canadian sub-lieutenant John Parker very clearly. We’re leaving Liverpool, passing into the swept channel and Johnny’s excited because he’s met a nurse called Grace. There’s a big grin on his face. He was nineteen, a lawyer preparing for the Toronto Bar.

‘Four escort ships with Cave as senior captain in command of the group. We met the convoy north-west of Rockall Bank on September the fourteenth, some three hundred miles from home, a grey Atlantic sky and sea, the wind like a knife, nine columns of four ships five miles wide, all struggling to hold their station. Cave spoke to the Commodore of the convoy on the wireless and I remember the little-boy excitement in his face when he was told that five ships had been sunk the night before. With the convoy travelling at no more than six knots it was a racing certainty the enemy was still in contact. I swear it was the happiest any of us had seen him. His moment of glory had come, his chance to prove the Navy wrong after years of being passed over.

‘All gun crews at action stations before sunset. I remember a thick white strip of moonlight rippling across the sea to the horizon and I could sense the enemy close by. Fear. Then at a little after eight o’clock it began. There was suddenly a small bright yellow light on the starboard side of the convoy. We weren’t sure what it was at first and we were under Admiralty orders to maintain wireless silence for as long as possible. Cave tried to signal the other escorts with an Aldis lamp but there was no reply. Then one of the merchant ships hoisted a red lantern and . . .’