Dominion

If it comes to it, Natalia will be armed and we’d rely on her to stop Muncaster from being taken.’

David looked at her. She said, ‘David, I have to be the one with the gun. They don’t expect a woman to carry arms. I am experienced and it gives me that little extra element of surprise.’

‘Which can be useful if you have to act quickly,’ Jackson agreed. He closed his briefcase. ‘Natalia, I’m afraid I’ve got to ask you to prepare to leave within the half-hour. Just take what personal things you need, and make sure there’s nothing here that could be of use, or lead them to us. I’ve got an address for the three of you to stay the next couple of nights. Go through and see Dilys first. Tell her to make arrangements to move.’

‘I suppose I have to leave my paintings,’ Natalia said.

‘Yes, I’m afraid so.’ Jackson gave his apologetic smile again. David thought, he respects her, he trusts her. But Geoff and I are underlings and I’ve already failed once.

Natalia went out, shutting the door quietly behind her. Jackson raised his eyebrows. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘This is it.’

Geoff said, ‘It’ll be strange if Frank Muncaster turns out to know nothing important.’

‘Oh, no,’ Jackson said heavily. ‘We’re pretty sure he does.’

Chapter Thirty-Three

GUNTHER TOOK THE WOMAN back to Senate House. In the car she had said nothing although sitting in the back with her, Gunther could feel the trembling of her body through the leather seat. In her kitchen, when she’d come in and found them, she had stood rigid with shock. Syme had told her she was being arrested on suspicion of being a member of an illegal organization, that this was a matter of national security. Gunther asked where her husband was and she replied she didn’t know, she would have expected him home from work by now. Looking at her face Gunther thought, there’s more to it than that, and he asked her to give him her handbag and empty her pockets. Then she said, firmly, that she wasn’t going to say anything else until she had a lawyer present. She added primly that she was sorry if that seemed discourteous, which made Syme laugh. After that she didn’t say another word.

At Gunther’s direction, once they were through the Senate House gates, Syme parked the car beside a side door. A Wehrmacht guard stood to attention outside. They got out, Gunther taking Sarah’s arm. He saw her eyes widen. Perhaps the penny had dropped that she was on German territory now. He thanked Syme and told him he would take matters from here. ‘I’ll telephone you later.’

Syme’s face flushed. He leaned in close to Gunther and whispered, ‘I should be in on the interrogation. That’s what was agreed.’

‘That was agreed about the man. You need to find him, it’s urgent. You can talk to her later.’

Syme’s eyes narrowed. ‘This is a joint project.’

‘I know, but we need to find the man. It’s you that has the resources for that.’

Syme still looked suspicious. When they had broken into the house in Kenton, earlier that afternoon, he had insisted on searching the place with Gunther. They had found nothing. Gunther now wondered whether the time was coming for Syme to be dealt with, too.

‘All right,’ Syme said. He turned back to the woman, who was looking up at the immense floodlit wall of Senate House. Her eyes followed Syme as he got back into the car, leaving her in German hands. Gunther said, gently, ‘It’s all right, we just want to ask you some questions.’ He smiled reassuringly. She gave him a look of fear and hate.

The guard let them in and Gunther led Sarah along an echoing marble corridor. At the end was a metal door with another soldier on guard, this time wearing the black uniform of the SS. Gunther nodded and the guard opened the heavy door. Gunther took the woman down the stone staircase to the basement. As he had told Hauser, when the Germans took over Senate House as their embassy in 1940 they had converted the basement into interrogation rooms. The busiest time had been in 1943 when the Abwehr, German Army Intelligence, had been found to include elements plotting to kill Hitler and been purged, the loyal elements incorporated into the SS. Gunther had still been in England then; it had been a difficult time. A couple of officers he had known had been brought down here before being shipped back to Germany.

There were, he knew, cells equipped for carrying out severe physical interrogations, but also rooms which looked like the places where police questioned suspects in British television programmes like Sergeant Dixon. He took Sarah into one of these. There was a table bolted to the floor, a few hard chairs and a telephone fixed to a bracket on the green-painted wall. He said he would have to leave her for a short time, and asked if she would like some tea. Sarah shook her head. She hadn’t spoken since they left her house. Gunther closed the door on her and walked up to the far end of the corridor, past other closed cell doors, to where a stocky young Gestapo man in his twenties sat reading the German army magazine Signal. The cover showed a group of German soldiers sitting on the edge of an ornate fountain, talking to some girls. The Pleasures of Service in Rome. Gunther nodded at the telephone. ‘Get me Standartenfuhrer Gessler, please.’

Gunther watched as the soldier dialled. Gessler had been furious, wild with rage, when Gunther telephoned him earlier to say Fitzgerald had escaped. Gessler had told him that they still hadn’t got clearance to take Muncaster. ‘This is turning into the biggest fucking balls-up in history,’ he had screamed impotently down the phone.

The soldier passed the telephone to Gunther and he told Gessler he had Fitzgerald’s wife in custody. Gunther replaced the receiver. ‘He’s on his way,’ he told the soldier, who quickly put Signal in a drawer of his desk and brought out a sheaf of forms.

‘How are things at the moment?’ Gunther asked. ‘I hear a few German Jews have been picked up.’

The boy wrinkled his nose. ‘Pieces of shit who thought they could hide in the bigger cesspool.’

Gunther shook his head. ‘They never learn.’

Gessler arrived a few minutes later. He carried a thin file. Gunther thought how tired he looked, ill, red-faced and unshaven, a complete contrast to his confident schoolmasterly manner when Gunther had arrived. Yet he was still managing it all, just keeping control. The Gestapo boy stood to attention and saluted. Gessler turned to Gunther. ‘Where is she?’

Gunther led him to Sarah’s cell, pushing aside the cover of the little spy-hole in the outside of the metal door. Gessler bent and looked, then straightened up. ‘Have you started questioning her?’

‘She wouldn’t say anything in the car, said she wanted a lawyer.’ Gessler laughed. Gunther smiled. ‘I thought I’d leave her here for a few minutes, let reality sink in.’

‘She’s just sitting, staring into space.’ Gessler considered. ‘You know, Dr Zander’s in tonight. You could show her some of his handiwork. That would soon open her mouth.’

‘With respect, sir, I’d like to try a bit of question-and-answer first. I can soon work out whether she’s had any training in dealing with interrogation. If she hasn’t, that would indicate she hasn’t been working with her husband. If she has—’

‘We hand her over to Zander straight away.’ Gessler tapped his wristwatch. ‘Time is short.’

‘Interrogation is an art,’ Gunther said.

‘It’s a science as well,’ Gessler answered bluntly. ‘A branch of medical science.’

Gunther knew torture was necessary sometimes, had seen it applied in training films and in interrogations, but he could never enjoy it. In the future, once Germany’s enemies were defeated, it wouldn’t be needed; but, he knew, they were still a long way from that.

Gessler handed over the slim file. ‘That’s what we’ve been able to find on her. Not much. Most of it comes from a Special Branch file on her father. An active pacifist before the war, one of the ones who didn’t like us. This woman and her sister were both pacifists, too. But no record of political activities since 1940. Her sister’s husband’s got connections in the BUF.’

As Gunther flicked quickly through the file, Gessler said, ‘A civil servant in the Colonial Office also went AWOL from his desk this afternoon. Geoffrey Drax. It’s pretty certain now that he was the other man who visited Muncaster’s house. It does look like we’ve uncovered a spy ring in the Civil Service now. Special Branch will be keen to move in. And we haven’t caught anybody apart from this woman yet.’

Gunther tapped the file with his fingers. ‘Who warned Fitzgerald we were in the Dominions Office? I’d like to