The Interrogator (31 page)

‘Why use the washroom or why those three prisoners?’

‘Both.’

Lindsay shrugged. He had resisted the temptation to speak to Lange first in order to protect him but he was still the best hope for some sort of insight into the whole business. And Schmidt had admitted responsibility for the bruises to Lange’s face. His story about a fight was clearly a lie – that made him vulnerable. But Lange, Schmidt, the sad sordid death of Heine, they were the levers, the means by which to prise open the end that was Jürgen Mohr.

‘Instinct, just a feeling,’ Lindsay said. ‘And perhaps the set will help with the performance.’

‘It’s just down the corridor from the prisoners’ kitchen so it’ll be difficult to secure,’ Duncan sounded sceptical. ‘They will all have to use Washroom B. I don’t think Major Benson will be happy.’

They began crunching down the gravel carriageway towards the officers’ mess. Lindsay would have preferred to stretch out on his bed with a book in the room he had taken above the village pub but he was making an effort to be friendly with the camp’s officers. Duncan was good company, if a little nosy, but some of the others were boorish in a regular military way. He had already spent an uncomfortable evening deflecting questions about his business at the camp and the DSC ribbon on his uniform jacket.

‘You know, none of the prisoners seemed surprised to see you,’ said Duncan. ‘Didn’t that strike you as strange? They were told the investigation was over, now that we’ve buried Heine.’

‘Mohr knows we’re interested in him. They were expecting me or someone like me.’

The orderly behind the mess bar mixed Lindsay a pink gin and then another. He was considering a third when a sergeant approached him with a message. Someone from the Navy called Dr Henderson had phoned and asked him to ring back at once.

‘Is there a phone I can use here?’ he asked Duncan.

‘I’ll show you,’ and he ground his cigarette stub into an ashtray.

But Major Benson had seen them from the door and was making his way quickly towards them.

‘No, please. Let me buy you one,’ he said with a warmth Lindsay thought owed more to the prospect of the drink than to the pleasure of his company.

‘I see you’ve picked up some bad habits in the Navy,’ he said, pointing to Lindsay’s glass.

They sat at a table close to the mess’s only window, from where there was a view across the broken woodland to the rough sheep pastures of the valley below.

‘So, it’s been a fruitless visit.’ There was something close to a sneer in Benson’s voice. Lindsay glanced at Duncan who pulled an apologetic face.

‘No, sir.’

Benson ignored him: ‘The Military Police did their job pretty well.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The camp commandant wanted to know how much longer
Lindsay expected to be there. What did Naval Intelligence hope to find? Kapitän Mohr was a fine man and they understood each other well. Another drink? His hand shook a little as he raised his glass to his lips. And then he was back on the beaches at Dunkirk, lost among the abandoned lorries, the choking oil-black smoke, the helpless and the dying. And the Navy should have done better. Another?

By the time Lindsay was able to excuse himself, night had crept up the valley to the camp. He had missed supper and was now quite drunk. A corporal ran him down the road to the village pub. It was only as he was undressing in the little bedroom under the eaves that he remembered the message to ring Mary but it was too late and it was as much as he could do to collapse into bed.

He slept badly and woke with a start at three o’clock, his sheets clammy and cold. And when he closed his eyes again he slipped back into the confused grey half-world of the ship. Mary was there too. She was standing on the quarterdeck, the sea washing about her bare legs. And she was shouting something; he could hear the panic in her voice, but the wind whipped the words from him. Then she began pointing frantically over the side and he turned to the rail and looked down. August Heine was looking back at him, eyes wide and bloodshot, his blue face bloated and shining, the rope-marks raw and angry about his neck.

At six o’clock he got up to smoke a cigarette by the window. A thin drizzle of mist was hanging halfway up the valley sides, the sun still low and yellow above the eastern hills. A tractor roared down the road with a weatherbeaten farmer at the wheel, his collies perched precariously on either side. In a few hours he would interview Mohr. There was nothing he could accuse him of, no questions Mohr would be prepared to answer, but he would be required to stand in front of the table and he would know that the pursuit was beginning once again. Lindsay looked down into the village street and smiled quietly with something close to pleasure at the thought.

Lieutenant Duncan sat shivering behind his desk in only his shirt and trousers. His tiny office was only a few steps from the mess
where he had taken a skinful the night before, a damp, cold shoebox of a room with flaking plaster walls. His thick head was not improved at six o’clock in the morning by the stiff rattle of his old typewriter. He ripped the page from the restraining bar and read it through:

. . . Lindsay intends to question Lieutenant Lange and Captain Mohr today and has made it clear he would like to conduct both interrogations on his own. He is particularly interested in the propaganda reporter’s position in the camp. I believe he is the German officer you referred to in your briefing
.

Duncan paused. He quite liked Lindsay. A little reserved, perhaps, a bit prickly about his past and his family but he seemed straight enough. What had the man done to warrant such close scrutiny? He reached for his mug of tea – it was cold already.

. . . he will not be drawn into debate about the war and Germany. Nor is he prepared to say why a Naval Intelligence officer should be so interested in the death of a prisoner . . .

The Security Service had demanded that he thrash out this report himself. There were to be no copies and he was to keep his watching brief on Lindsay secret from Major Benson. Duncan had met Gilbert from Five once, and for twenty minutes only, but it had been long enough to convince him that the Colonel was a ruthless bastard – cool in a very Eton, Oxford and the Guards sort of way and comfortable in his half-world of secrets and lies.

. . . as yet there is no evidence to suggest Lindsay is communicating with the prisoners on any subject other than the death of Heine and other related intelligence matters but to be present at all times would arouse suspicion. It is possible notes have been exchanged in my absence. The prisoners are searched after leaving interrogations. We have conducted a thorough search of Lieutenant Lindsay’s room and belongings but have found nothing . . .

‘Despatch.’

The office door opened with a stiff military jerk and a burly-looking military policeman stepped across the threshold.

‘Get this off at once, Corporal.’

39

A

‘Sit down, Helmut.’

Leutnant Lange looked crumpled and grey and anxious.

‘Here?’ He glanced up at the pipe.

‘Yes. Here.’

Lindsay pushed a packet of cigarettes across the table to him: ‘Help yourself.’

He waited as Lange took one, lit it and drew in a comforting lungful of smoke.

‘You look tired, Helmut. ‘You know why I’m here, of course. You knew Leutnant Heine well . . .’

‘Not well.’ He wriggled his shoulders uncomfortably.

‘You shared a room at the interrogation centre, you knew him better than most. Tell me what you know.’

‘He was depressed. He hated being a prisoner. He was sure he’d failed his comrades and his commander. No one could talk to him.’

It was the same short story in choppy insincere sentences and they were contradicted even as they were spoken by Lange’s restless body language.

Lindsay stared at him, slowly turning his lighter over and over in his right hand, trying to catch and hold his eye. He failed.

‘Do you think they would hang you from this pipe if you told me the truth?’

Lange looked up for a second: ‘I . . . I . . .’

Then he changed his mind and hunched forward over the table, his hands twisting in his lap.

‘You know I’ll protect you.’

The propaganda reporter made a noise in his throat that was something between a grunt and a hollow laugh, rather like the neighing of an asthmatic horse.

Lindsay picked up his cigarettes and shook one from the packet. He was on the point of lighting it when his hand stopped and he lifted his head to look at Lange again: ‘Why did you tell Kapitän Mohr that I had taken you to a jazz club? It made things very difficult for me.’

‘I . . . I’m sorry.’ Lange was looking at him now and there was a very pained expression on his open face. ‘I know I shouldn’t have.’

‘It was unfortunate.’

‘I’m sorry, Lieutenant, really I am.’

Lindsay shook his head, ‘All right, we’re friends. Forget it.’

Neither of them spoke and their eyes met for a moment before Lange looked down in embarrassment. Then he took a deep breath:

‘Perhaps he did kill himself – in the end. Perhaps. But it was murder.’

Lange closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed his lips with the back of a shaking hand. A tap was dripping into a cistern close by, drip, drip, drip, the echo bouncing off the hard wet walls of the washroom.

‘Senseless bloody murder. He was found guilty of treason by the Council of Honour, you see.’

‘The Council of Honour?’

‘Yes.’

He had to drag the words out of himself, his body rocking to and fro on the chair. ‘The Ältestenrat discovered he’d given information to the enemy.’

‘To me?’

‘Yes.’

The pipes above them clanked as they flooded with hot water.

‘And the bruises?’

‘He was interrogated.’ Lange sighed – his breath long and shaky – then covered his face with his hands like a child hiding from an angry parent.

‘You were there?’

He nodded without moving his hands from his face.

‘And others?’ Lindsay’s voice was barely more than a whisper.

And he nodded again.

‘Who?’

Lange dropped his hands and there were tears on his face: ‘It was my fault.’

‘Who beat him?’

‘I . . . I can’t say.’

‘Schmidt?’

‘I . . . can’t . . .’

‘Did Mohr know about it?’

‘God forgive me. It was my fault,’ and he threw his head back and groaned long and loud, until the walls and pipes beat it back hollow and despairing. Lindsay got up and walked round the table to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Lange reached up to touch it: ‘Thank you.’

Almost a minute passed before Lindsay spoke again, his hand still on Lange’s shoulder: ‘Did Mohr authorise this Council of Honour?’

‘No,’ Lange shouted the word. ‘No . . . I don’t know, I can’t say.’ He placed his elbows on the table and pushed himself upright, then wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘They don’t trust me you see. If I say anything more I will be a dead man.’

‘I’ve told you, we’ll protect you. Isn’t it your duty? Your duty to all I know you believe in – that you still hold dear.’

Lange’s body stiffened and he shrugged Lindsay’s hand from his shoulder.

‘Don’t talk to me of my duty, of my faith,’ and his words rasped like grinding metal. ‘Don’t. You don’t care if I live or die.’

The silence filled again with the clanking of the pipes. Lindsay stepped away and walked round the table to look down at him. Lange lifted his chin a little, his jaw firmly set, his eyes almost lost beneath a heavy frown: ‘Heine means nothing to you, does he?’

‘If he was murdered, yes he does.’

‘I don’t know if he was murdered. I have nothing more to say.’

Lindsay pulled out the chair, its legs grating harshly across the stone floor, and leant on the back of it to look at him across the table:

‘All right Helmut. You decide. You said it was your fault. Think about it. We’ll leave it – for now.’

Then he half turned to shout at the door. A moment later Lieutenant Duncan came in with the guard, peaked cap neatly tucked under his arm. He stood at the table and watched as Lange was led from the washroom.

‘Any joy?’

‘Some.’

‘I’ve been asked to deliver this,’ and he pulled a small grey envelope from his pocket. ‘The office received it this morning, something from your lot.’

Lindsay took it and tore open the sleeve.

‘I think Schmidt will be a waste of time,’ he said. ‘I’ll see Mohr next.’

It was written in the camp secretary’s fine hand:

A Dr Henderson rang from the Admiralty. She wanted to speak to you in person but I said you would be busy all morning. She said she had sad news. Your cousin’s ship has been sunk and there are no survivors. Your family has been informed. Major Benson has asked me to pass on his condolences.
A. B. P
.

Lindsay stared at it blankly for a few seconds. What was he supposed to feel? For a time they had done everything together, like brothers. It was Martin who had taught him to sail and Martin who had introduced him to his first girlfriend. They shared the same dark sense of humour, the same shoe size, the same taste in music, and they had enjoyed taking risks together. And now he was dead, lost in the Atlantic like thousands of others. And he could feel only a deep grey emptiness like the ocean itself. God. What was left but pain and loss?

‘Is something the matter?’ It was Duncan.

‘Yes.’

Lindsay glanced up, then handed him the note. Duncan looked at it carefully and when he had read it he folded it gently in two: