‘Yes. They both disappeared from their offices this afternoon. They were going to be arrested, but somebody warned them.’ Carol Bennett, he guessed, but he didn’t say.
‘Why should I believe anything you tell me?’ she asked.
‘Why else would we have broken into your house?’
‘You’re saying I may never see David again.’ She said it bleakly, a statement.
‘You really never knew?’
‘No. No, I swear he told me nothing.’
‘You swear. Are you a Christian?’ He thought suddenly of the woman he’d caught sheltering Jews in the Berlin flat.
‘No. I’ve stopped believing in God.’ She looked him in the face again. ‘After all, how could He allow the world to be like this?’
‘Maybe this is the world that destiny intends for us. A safe, clean world. And it is the forces of evil and violence that prevent us from building it.’ Gunther smiled wryly. ‘Did you ever think of that?’
‘No,’ she answered vehemently. ‘What’s just been done to the Jews, that order came from Germany, didn’t it? What’s going to happen to them now?’
‘With respect, Mrs Fitzgerald, you are here to answer my questions, not I yours. Does the name Frank Muncaster mean anything to you?’
She seemed puzzled. ‘He’s an old university friend of my husband’s. They write occasionally. I’ve never met him.’
She had a very readable face. He wasn’t sure she had told him the entire truth about this afternoon, though she had told most of it, but he was certain her husband had never taken her into his confidence, and that she knew nothing about Frank Muncaster.
He left her and went up to Gessler’s office. Gessler was on the telephone, his face angry but his tone deferential. He waved a hand for Gunther to sit while he finished his call. ‘The Home Office can’t just order a Health Department civil servant to release a mental patient. The civil servant would take it to the minister, if we’re involved it would go to the Prime Minister. And you know how unpredictable Beaverbrook is—’
Gessler broke off and listened to the voice at the other end. Whoever it was seemed to be shouting. ‘With respect, sir,’ Gessler said eventually, ‘it’s only one section of Special Branch who are cooperating with us, and even they’ve no idea what it’s about—’
More shouting from the other end, a harsh, tinny sound. At length Gessler said, ‘My man who’s been questioning the woman has just come in. Let me talk to him and I’ll call you again – yes, in ten minutes – yes. Heil Hitler.’ He put the phone down. ‘Heydrich’s people,’ he snapped. ‘I’ve told them about the Civil Service spy ring. Will Syme keep his mouth shut?’
‘For the present.’
‘His superintendent’s attitude is that they need to act soon on the spy ring. They’ll want to do a proper clearout. We can’t keep the lid on this for long. What’s the woman told you?’
‘I’m pretty sure she didn’t know what her husband was up to. She suspected him of having an affair. I asked if the name Muncaster meant anything to her, and she said only as an old friend of her husband whom she never met. I believe her.’
Gessler frowned. ‘The fewer people know we’re interested in him, the better.’
‘I asked very casually.’
‘So you’re saying she’s a dead end?’ Gessler looked at him accusingly, as though the dead end were Gunther’s fault.
‘I wonder, sir, could I make a suggestion?’
Gessler nodded.
‘When we were waiting for Mrs Fitzgerald tonight, I noticed a big lawned area opposite her house, a little park. There’s one of the old concrete air-raid shelters at the other end, two or three hundred yards away. It looks pretty run-down but if we could get a man in there with a radio and powerful enough binoculars, he could watch the house. We could let her go, order her to stay at home, and see who comes to visit. It’s a point of honour for the Resistance people to get agents’ families out. They won’t telephone her, they’ll know the phone will be tapped. If they come for her in a car someone in that shelter could take the number and have them picked up. But if we keep her here they won’t do anything, they can’t
Gessler looked at him, eyes narrowed. ‘You really don’t want her to get rough handling, do you? It’s all very well to be sentimental about women but spies, well, they’re not normal women.’
‘I don’t think she’s a spy, sir. But I think the way I suggest would give us a better chance of getting hold of those who are.’
Gessler thought again, then nodded. ‘You’ve had a lot of experience with this sort of thing, haven’t you? Picking up Jews and their friends.’ He shook his head. ‘Forgive me, I was wrong to call you sentimental. Your work in Germany certainly wasn’t that, I know.’
‘Thank you, sir,’ Gunther replied humbly. He hadn’t thought Gessler a man capable of apology.
‘If we do this we’ll have to provide the manpower from the embassy.’
‘I think we should do it, sir,’ Gunther pressed, his voice quiet but determined. ‘I think we could get them.’
FRANK WAS IN A PADDED CELL NOW, somewhere deep inside the asylum. The walls, and the floor too, were covered in a coarse, thick material; it was like being inside a huge, stifling mattress. There were nasty-looking stains on the padding, and the whole room smelt faintly of disinfectant and vomit.
Frank had blacked out after jumping off the chair. When he came round he was lying on the floor of the quiet room with a terrible pain in his throat, attendants gripping his arms and legs.
Dr Wilson had come to see him a couple of times. He seemed disappointed, as though Frank had let him down; annoyed, too. ‘I thought you were settling in,’ he said reproachfully. ‘What was so bad you wanted to end your life?’ Frank saw something calculating in Dr Wilson’s look, at variance with his manner. He also seemed, in an odd way, afraid. He guessed Wilson had put two and two together, connected his suicide attempt with the visits from his old friends and the police. Frank had already decided the only protection he had left was not to talk at all, maintain complete silence. He looked away. Dr Wilson was probably involved in the conspiracy too.
Wilson said, ‘You’ll have to stay in here if you won’t talk, Frank.’ Frank was tempted to co-operate for a moment, doing whatever was necessary to get out of this room. But he knew that even if they let him out of the padded cell they would be watching him, he wouldn’t have an easy chance to kill himself again. But he would do it; he would take the first opportunity that came. Wilson looked at the plastic beaker of iced water on a tray on the floor. He said, ‘Drink as much as you can. It’ll help your dry throat.’ Frank just looked at him blankly, feeling a strange perverse satisfaction in defying him. He was on a double dose of Largactil all the time now.
That had been days ago. They brought in all his meals on a tray and Frank had to knock on the door and wait whenever he wanted to go to the toilet.
The staff who brought his meals made sure that he took his pills. But as with the lower dose he found there was a period just before his next dose was due when the effects wore off and his mind was clear; too clear, because his head filled with images of jangling terror. But it was better, safer, to have a clear mind for part of the time. Along with silence it was the only weapon he had left, and he would use it as long as he could.
Ben brought his supper that night. Frank had been lying on the floor of the padded cell, dozing, his head on the pillow they had given him, when the door opened with its metallic creak. Ben came in with a tray balanced on one hand. There was something different in the way he looked at Frank, sharp and calculating. He smiled his usual cheerful smile, though, and said, ‘Wakey wakey, Frank, dinner time.’
Frank sat up. He wanted to ask the time but he wouldn’t, he wouldn’t speak. Ben was part of whatever
