Authors: Madoc Roberts
Snow (23 page)
Having taken a hard line Robertson now softened his approach in order to emphasise that he needed to get coherent answers. ‘You’ve done some very good work and I’ve told you so, but I want an absolutely truthful answer to every question I ask you. I have put a tremendous amount of trust in you. You have always been a little mysterious and I want to clear this question up and this is the time to do it.’
‘I’m quite prepared to give all the help I can.’
‘You’ve got to remember that everything you say is being taken down and that everything that C
ELERY
says is being taken down and these two statements are being compared very carefully; whichever of you makes a mistake will be questioned very, very carefully. We’re not going to stop at anything to get to the bottom of this.’
‘I’ve told you everything I know.’
‘I’ve been prepared to believe that.’
‘It’s perfectly true and I’m not fooling you for one second.’
‘Now then, I want to go back again to the first meeting. Unless you were absolutely drink sodden at the time, which I very much doubt, you should have a pretty clear memory of what you said and what they said, because a question of that description being shot at you like that which is going to upset the cart, as far as you are concerned and threaten your life and livelihood – it’s going to stick in your mind.’
‘Not only that. C
ELERY
’s life was at stake too.’
‘Yes we’ll come to that in a minute. I want your side first. When did he give you the code?’
‘I think it was the next morning, as far as I remember.’
‘Now, you don’t mean to tell me that he made up his mind to give you a new code before he got from you an absolutely full story of what happened when we walked in?’
‘Quite so. It was after about two or three hours at the meeting the next day.’
‘Presumably before you got the code you’d given him the full details of your work?’
‘I told him that, definitely.’
‘The full details?’ pressed Robertson.
‘Well, the general details. He had no full details. I told him you walked in on me and I said “What could I do? I had no choice and that was all I could do because I wanted to get in touch with you.”’
‘That’s what you told him? Was he content to accept only that?’
‘He said to me: “If I didn’t know you as well as I do and worked with you so long, I would never trust you as far as I could see you, but I know that when you tell me things like that, I know you’re speaking the truth.”’
‘This question of the British intelligence walking in on you. You must have gone into that in very great detail. I insist upon having it.’
‘Yes, he asked me all about it. I said that you’d walked in on me.’
‘What did he say?’
‘He said “Who,” I said “men from the British intelligence. They went through everything I had.”’
‘Did he ask how many?’
‘No, he didn’t.’
‘Their names?’
‘No. He did but I told him I couldn’t remember. He said “Could you give me their height, or something about them?” I said they looked medium English people, thin faces and I think policemen among them. That’s all I could tell him.’
‘What did you say they did?’
‘They went through everything I had.’
At this point Owens started to answer Robertson’s questions as if he was answering questions asked by Rantzau.
‘Did they remove anything?’ demanded Robertson.
‘Not that I know of, they went right through the house and furniture and as far as I know, that was all.’
‘So they found nothing?’
‘No, not as far as I knew. So I told him, anyhow.’
Something had confused Owens, but Robertson continued: ‘Did they
question
you?’
‘Who? The Doctor?’
‘No, no, the British Intelligence.’
‘Oh, definitely, definitely, definitely.’
‘How long?’
‘About two hours, I told him. They said they were keeping me under
observation
all the time and they wanted me to work for them. Listen I’m not trying to double-cross you, I could have said nothing to your man in Lisbon. I asked him for advice. I’ve been perfectly open and above board. You understand that?’
Robertson then moved on to raise the question of Walter Dicketts,
codenamed
C
ELERY
, and this provided an opportunity for Owens to cast doubt on him and learn more about the nature of his relationship with MI5.
‘I was most amazed when he said that you met him at Wood Green Station before he left and you had told him that when I get back here I’m going to be shot and you take the numbers of all the money I give him,’ said Owens.
‘What other details did the Doctor ask about the time the people broke in on you?’
‘He asked me how I felt. I said I naturally felt that I didn’t want to be in front of a firing-squad and I said the only possible thing was to tell them I would work for them. That’s all I could say. He agreed with me. He said: “You’ve done the right thing.”’
‘So they must have known that C
ELERY
was one of our people?’ challenged Robertson.
‘Yes, he asked me about it. I said “Definitely, he was for them, but he’s one hundred percent for you. He’s double-crossing them.”’
‘That is rather an important point.’
‘I told him that definitely. They seemed to know all these things. Well, as regards myself, they knew I was working for you. I didn’t know that they knew about C
ELERY
at all.’
‘But it was quite clear from what the Doctor said that he was of the opinion that C
ELERY
was our man?’
‘I told him he was your man and I said “He’s working one hundred percent for me.”’
‘You volunteered that information?’
‘Yes, I said that and he said “By the way, I’m very interested in C
ELERY
and I shall stay here until he arrives.”’
At this point Owens offered up some new information which was the fact that when the Doctor went back to Germany he was supposed to go with him as well as Dicketts.
‘Both of you?’ asked Robertson.
‘Yes, both of us. He told Doebler to make all the arrangements for this.’
‘You know, I hate having to drag this out of you.’
‘That’s quite alright,’ replied Owens.
‘I’d much rather it came from you, though.’
‘But I’d sooner you do that, because it’ll bring certain things to my mind, things I can’t remember unless you ask me.’
Owens then reminded Robertson that he had doubts about going on the mission because he did not trust B
ISCUIT
who had gone out to Lisbon before him – he didn’t know what B
ISCUIT
had said to the Germans. Owens also had his doubts about Dicketts so when the Doctor confronted him with the fact that he was working for the British his first thought turned to his fellow agent.
‘The first thing that came into my mind was “Is C
ELERY
here? Has he given the game away?”’ recalled Owens.
‘But you knew he could not have got there.’
‘No I didn’t. He said he may be there in ten days. In any case he was there before I expected him. He had time to get there easily.’
‘Not easily.’
Owens was trying to float the idea that C
ELERY
had arrived in Lisbon earlier than expected and had got in touch with the Doctor and told him that
Owens was double-crossing him. However Robertson was having difficulty believing the lack of interest that the Doctor seemed to be taking in the moment that MI5 walked in on Owens. If he was in the Doctor’s position, Robertson would have wanted to know as much detail as he could about what happened, but the way Owens described the Doctor he did not seem to be acting like one of the heads of German intelligence and as a result the story did not ring true.
‘This is the point you see,’ explained Robertson. ‘The Doctor must have known the people you’re in touch with. You’ll give me that?’
‘Exactly. He said “Who do you think double-crossed you? C
HARLIE
or G.W.?” I said “I don’t know a lot about it. You should know a lot about it as you know so much.” After that he said, “I don’t know what you think about that. B
ISCUIT
has helped us a lot over here and he sent us two secret letters.”’
It seems that whatever Robertson asked, Owens was determined to turn the attention away from himself onto his suspicions about other agents. Whether he was doing this because he was genuinely trying to find out what had happened or because he was trying to deflect the interrogation away from something that he had got to hide was Robertson’s dilemma. Robertson turned his attention to the information that Owens had been sending over in his radio messages, which Owens said the Doctor accepted as having been genuine and very useful. When Robertson quizzed Owens about whether the Doctor had questioned him about how the information contained in the messages was gathered, Owens again gave the impression that the Doctor had not shown much interest in the process.
‘He doesn’t seem to have asked you anything,’ observed Robertson.
‘He took my word for it,’ said Owens.
‘Yes, I quite see that. He’s trying to extract a certain amount of intelligence from you.’
‘No very little; he’s not interested in that.’
‘But it’s partly his job. You must admit that. I mean even if it doesn’t directly concern him, he would turn it over to somebody else in his department.
Therefore
he would ask you for descriptions.’
‘I gave him descriptions, not correct of course. I made them up. And he asked me for names and I said I didn’t know any names.’
‘You’ve given him my name and description.’
‘No!’ exclaimed Owens.
‘Well, they’ve got it.’
‘If they’ve got any description of you he hasn’t got it from me. You can take it from me. I give you my word.’
‘I don’t mind one bit if they’ve got my description.’
‘If he’s got a description of you, he’s got it from C
ELERY
. I never gave it.’
‘Now you’re satisfied that the first interview has come to an end. Didn’t he ask what day we walked in?’
‘No he didn’t I said approximately two and a half months ago.’
‘The Doctor seems to have taken very little interest.’
‘No, he took an interest but he said: “We know you so well that we know you’re with us.”’
‘But one thing he would want to know would be just exactly where you stood with us.’
‘I told him exactly – that I was working for you one hundred percent, so you thought.’
‘Look here. On the first of December we were walking in with guns ready to bump you off, but between the first of December and the fourteenth of
February
, when you went over there, you’d so got into our confidence and persuaded us that the previous fifteen months of war you had worked unwillingly.’
‘I never mentioned anything about the previous months.’
‘We must have asked you when you got the wireless set.’
‘He asked me about the set that B
ISCUIT
brought over. He said “That’s peculiar, because that man talks too much and when he was out here drank so much – I think it looks peculiar.” I said, “Take it from me, B
ISCUIT
has been one hundred percent. He certainly was when I saw him last. Since then, of course, I don’t know.”’
‘He was angry with you in this first meeting?’
‘He didn’t get particularly angry in the first meeting. He looked very serious, but he was not angry. He made arrangements to meet me the next day.’
Owens explained that at the next meeting they discussed the fact that the Germans had broken the British code but offered no new information. Robertson again found it odd that the Doctor did not ask Owens what he was going to say about his meetings in Lisbon to the British when he got back. Owens obviously was not going to say that he had been discovered so his report back to MI5 as far as the Doctor was concerned was going to be purely operational and would be that he had handed over the usual sort of information about aerodromes. Owens explained that he would say that everything had been given to C
ELERY
because since Owens had been discovered he had been accompanied wherever he went.
They then moved on to the third meeting which was described as a
sabotage
meeting. Owens remembered one piece of information that came up at this meeting that was of interest to Robertson.
‘The Doctor took me to one side when we got in and he said: “There’s one thing I forgot to ask you this morning. What about your men in South Wales?” I said: “There’s nothing to worry about there. They’re okay. We can go on with the sabotage in South Wales.”’
‘These men are not the same as Gwilym Williams?’ queried Robertson.
‘No, they’re entirely different. They’re working under me separately from
Williams
on sabotage. The Doctor’s always told me that anybody I employ must not know the other ones. These are my own men in South Wales not the other ones connected with Williams in any way.’
‘How did he think you were going to get instructions through to them? You were being watched weren’t you?’
‘No, no. I am entirely free now and I can get all the dope you like. That’s why he was so interested. I have my own men in Wales that you know nothing about.’
‘He must think we’re pretty good saps, allowing you free. Look at it from the Doctor’s point of view. I mean if we catch a red-handed spy, as far as the Doctor is concerned, all your contacts are finished. Did he say that?’
‘No. As a matter of fact he still thinks G.W. is one hundred percent.’
‘But he can’t think we don’t know G.W.?’
‘The point is, has he been mentioned since two and a half months ago?’
‘Yes,’ answered Robertson.
‘But he still thinks he’s one hundred percent. I know nothing about Williams at all, I told him. “The only thing that I know is that he’s in contact with del Pozo, and del Pozo is no good.” He knew that G.W. was in touch with him, but that he now has absolutely nothing to do with him at all.’
‘Did he actually ask you to have nothing to do with G.W.?’
‘No. Yes, he told me to turn him over.’
‘But you refused. That was one of the reasons why you went over there. Well, we must know about you and your contacts. Then it’s not very likely that we would let you loose.’
‘Well, you didn’t for two and a half months, but now you’ve let me free.’
‘The Germans would never do that, would they? They don’t leave a man alone ever.’
‘You’re telling me,’ observed Owens.
‘But what I want to say is that the Germans would look on our activities with you here in the light of the way they would treat you.’
‘No, the Doctor’s entirely different in his outlook he’s got an American outlook.’
‘I don’t think that alters his German outlook, or that of the machine he’s working in.’
‘The point is this. They’ve got to get someone off with a new radio, sabotage material and new agents. If he didn’t think of that he would never do this. He wouldn’t give me ten thousand pounds to come back with.’