Dominion

English drawl: ‘Fitzgerald was a very personable young fellow; could have been quite charismatic if he’d bothered. But he was one of those serious grammar-school boys, he mixed with a rather dull crowd. Muncaster shared rooms with him and Fitzgerald took him under his wing. Personally, Muncaster gave me the shivers.’ Syme resumed his normal voice. ‘Got the impression the old poof might have fancied Fitzgerald.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘Fitzgerald’s crowd was anti-appeasement, he remembers.’

‘What about the other man? The fair-haired one? Identified as Geoffrey Drax.’

‘He doesn’t remember him.’

‘And we still don’t know about the woman. Still . . .’ Gunther looked at the notes he had made on the students, turned to David Fitzgerald’s. ‘A civil servant,’ he mused. ‘Dominions Office.’

‘Yes,’ Syme repeated. ‘A civil servant.’ He gave Gunther an odd, calculating look. He seemed even more tense and jittery today. ‘I got this,’ Syme added, laying a photograph on the desk. It was one of the boys in the picture taken from the flat, the image blown up to full size, grainy. A handsome face, serious-looking as the tutor had said. Dark, curly hair. Irish-looking. Syme said, ‘I got a courier to drive that photograph up to the old man at Muncaster’s flat this morning. The message is that he is definite Fitzgerald was one of the visitors.’

‘Thank you,’ Gunther said sincerely.

‘We Brits can be efficient too.’

‘I know.’

‘Of course there’s still the possibility Muncaster did just telephone Fitzgerald, as an old friend, to ask him to help him out of the hole he’s in. Fitzgerald has no Resistance links we know of. Nor Drax, if he was the other one at the flat.’

‘Then why search his flat? That’s what I keep coming back to.’ Gunther looked at his notes again. ‘I see his wife comes from a pacifist family.’

‘But the pacifists don’t like the Resistance. Too much violence. Did you hear an armoured car was blown up in Liverpool yesterday, by the way? The bastards,’ Syme added. ‘And Fitzgerald’s been in the Civil Service since 1938, apart from war service.’

‘Yes. In Norway.’

Syme took a deep breath. He said, ‘If Fitzgerald is Resistance, and he’s working in the Civil Service, then he’s a security risk for Britain. We don’t know what information he could have access to in his job, which he might be passing on to them. My superintendent says we have to question him about that. Us, Special Branch. We can’t just let you have him.’ Syme gave a quick smile, half-nervous, half-challenging.

Gunther said, ‘I understand your point. I think I should speak with Standartenfuhrer Gessler.’

‘All right.’ Syme smiled again, meanly now. ‘But I believe the Special Branch Commissioner may already have spoken to him.’

When Gunther went up to Gessler’s office the Standartenfuhrer looked drawn and exhausted, too tired to shout and curse. The Special Branch Commissioner had indeed spoken to him on the telephone about Fitzgerald, and they had reached a compromise: Fitzgerald as a civil servant should be jointly questioned by Gunther and Syme. Serious issues of domestic security could be involved. ‘And the Health Department is still making problems over Muncaster,’ Gessler said. ‘Someone from Berlin is going to have to speak to the minister, but there’s a hold-up there. I don’t know what’s happening to everyone in Berlin. If this goes wrong you know who’ll get the blame.’ He looked at Gunther with a touch of his old fierceness. ‘Well, the deal with the commissioner is that you and Syme go to Whitehall, ask this man Fitzgerald’s superior about him. Alerting the Dominions Office to the fact they may have a Resistance man in their ranks would be a feather in the Special Branch cap.’

‘Help them in their turf war with MI5?’

‘Exactly.’ Gessler smiled sourly. ‘And we in the embassy know all about turf wars, don’t we? After that, if you still feel he’s the man you want, the two of you can arrest him for questioning.’

‘Where?’ Gunther asked quietly.

‘Here, in Senate House. But by both of you. That’s as far as I could get the Special Branch Commissioner to go.’

Gunther said, ‘If Fitzgerald knows whatever secret it is that Muncaster is carrying, then Syme will get to know, too.’

‘Then, as I told you before, Syme will have to be dealt with. If you bring Fitzgerald back here take a gun to the interview,’ he concluded brutally.

‘But how would we explain shooting Syme?’

‘That’ll be Berlin’s problem,’ Gessler answered brusquely. ‘They’ve been quite definite. Any information Muncaster has is for us alone.’

Back in his office, Gunther told Syme about the joint questioning. There was a new cockiness about the inspector; the relationship between them had changed, or at least Syme thought it had. Gunther accepted that it might, now, be necessary to dispose of him. Well, the man was trying to play off German and British agencies against each other; he had told his commissioner about the Civil Service angle without mentioning it first to Gunther. He should have realized where that might lead. He’s blinded by arrogance, Gunther thought.

‘So we’re off to Whitehall,’ Syme said. ‘They all go home at five, so I’ll get the Branch to make an appointment with Fitzgerald’s boss first thing tomorrow morning.’

Gunther gave him a long, hard look. ‘Tell him to keep it strictly confidential. Don’t mention Fitzgerald’s name.’

Syme grinned. ‘We’ll see to that.’

‘What will my role be? A silent sergeant again?’ Careful, he thought, don’t show too much annoyance.

‘No. We thought it might be useful to say the German police are helping us on overseas aspects of the case.’ Syme smiled, provokingly.

Chapter Twenty-Nine

EARLY ON FRIDAY MORNING SYME drove Gunther to Whitehall, along the busy central London streets. It was another cold day, the sky blanketed with grey cloud. Gunther asked, ‘Have you worked on investigations involving government departments before?’

‘No. It’s MI5 territory still. Though there haven’t been any spy cases in Whitehall since that Resistance group in the Home Office a few years ago; and they were double agents. The Whitehall bosses weeded out anyone potentially unreliable years ago. Or thought they had.’

‘Who is it we’re meeting?’

‘Fitzgerald’s Head of Department. Hubbold. Time-serving old fart heading for retirement, my boss said. Hubbold sounded apprehensive when he got the call. I don’t think he’ll give us any problems.’

‘What’s he been told?’

‘Just that there’s some suspicion about one of his department’s staff. It’s all right, we didn’t give Fitzgerald’s name.’

They drove down Whitehall, past the Cenotaph, stopping on the corner of Downing Street. Going up the steps of the Dominions Office, Gunther looked up at the frieze outside, the Africans and Indians and Imperial figures, all covered now in soot. Syme gave his name to the old janitor at the reception desk, saying they had an appointment with Mr Hubbold. The old man telephoned his office and told them a clerk would be down in a minute to take them up. He asked them to sign a visitor’s book; Gunther made an incomprehensible squiggle. They stood watching the brown-overalled messengers, civil servants in their black jackets and pinstriped trousers. Syme said quietly, ‘What a crew. Look at those fusty clothes.’

Gunther smiled. ‘Some government servants still look like that in Germany. Though not so many now.’

A young clerk appeared and took them upstairs in an ancient, creaking lift. Looking through the grille Gunther saw partitioned rooms, cubbyholes, long, dark passages. They were led to a door with the name Mr A. Hubbold picked out in gold letters. The clerk knocked, and a deep voice called, ‘Enter.’

Syme introduced himself and showed Hubbold his warrant card. Then he introduced Gunther as a German colleague. Hubbold started visibly.

‘I didn’t know the German authorities were involved here.’

Syme said, ‘Our information on this matter comes from Germany. We are working with our German colleagues.’