‘Yes.’ Dilys smiled reassuringly. ‘But don’t worry; I could see your husband’s the loyal type.’
DRESSED IN A BATHROBE, Gunther stood looking through the window of his flat, into the smog. It was horrible, poisonous, greasy stuff; it had appeared in the middle of the day and got steadily worse. Walking home from Senate House he had had to feel his way, one of thousands of shadowy figures groping along the dark streets, his throat smarting painfully. He had just watched the weather forecast on television and it was going to continue; some expert had appeared and talked about high streams of warm air trapping cold air underneath, the effect of millions of coal fires in the Thames valley. This will make our task even harder, Gunther thought.
He turned away, tiredness and a sense of failure in his very bones. At the embassy, Gessler was a pale shadow of his old self; Gunther often found him sitting staring blankly into space, helpless. After the events of the past week it was an easy state to fall into. Five days, five days since the lunatic Muncaster was lifted from the asylum, and they still had nothing. Every enquiry had drawn a blank.
Gessler had been very different on Monday, when the news came through that Muncaster had been taken. He had raved and shouted, full of angry panic. Gunther, though, had stayed calm, the remote calm that often came upon him in a crisis, though inside he felt a sinking in his stomach, as though he were in a lift whose descent went on and on.
‘This is a hunt now, not an enquiry,’ Gessler had said when he calmed down a little. ‘If only we’d got Muncaster out before! It’s not my fault, I won’t be blamed!’
‘The important thing now, sir, is to find him.’
Gessler flicked him an angry glance. ‘I
More likely we’ll both be sent to some dangerous posting out East, Gunther thought. That was what he had craved anyway, an honourable end to his lonely life, though something in him resisted the idea now. He wanted, very much, to find Muncaster, to complete his mission. He said, ‘If we’re to find him, and those who took him, we’ll need to bring Special Branch in fully now. We’ll have to let them have everyone involved in the Civil Service spy ring.’
‘I know. I’ve spoken to Berlin.’ A note of self-pity, then a sharp glance. ‘I’ve had to tell them about the mess-up at the Fitzgerald house.’
‘Yes,’ Gessler replied. On Saturday afternoon, Gunther had learned how the SS man, in plain clothes, had got to the old air-raid shelter, broken in, and then spent hours watching the house through binoculars. As nobody entered or left, and no lights came on as it got dark, the man realized there was nobody there. Then a police car came and some men went up to the house, then round the back. The SS man ran across the little park to the house and knocked on the door. An angry policeman answered. Behind him another uniformed officer was lying dead in the hall. Sarah Fitzgerald was gone, had been before their man arrived.
Gessler said, ‘I was hours on the phone yesterday. I couldn’t get hold of the right people, nobody was available, the senior people are all in meetings. Something big’s happening over there. But there’s nothing we can do about it. More hours wasted.’ He drew himself upright in his chair. ‘They confirm that from now on it’s full co- operation with the British Special Branch. I don’t know what the information is that Muncaster has, only little hints, but if the British police find out—’ He shrugged. ‘It’ll be up to Berlin to sort it out with Beaverbrook. And forget what I told you about eliminating Syme if he got hold of anything from Muncaster. As I say, full co-operation. The Branch are being asked to devote major resources to finding Muncaster. A nationwide manhunt. You and Syme will work on the Fitzgerald angle. Dabb and Hubbold and the Bennett woman are being arrested tonight and brought here. You and Syme are to question them, then chase up everyone connected with Fitzgerald and Drax. Everyone.
‘They’re clever, our enemies. The Bolsheviks and Jews,’ Gessler continued, with quiet anger. ‘We always knew that, we knew how hard the fight would be.’ He shook his head. ‘The Jews were going to be moved to the Isle of Wight today, but this damned smog’s put paid to that.’
‘It won’t last, sir. And we will win,’ Gunther said. But, along with relief that he would not have to kill Syme, doubt was flickering inside him now, about the possibilities of success for the mission and what was happening in Germany; it was eating him up, exhausting him.
When he met Syme in his office, late on Sunday, Gunther expected the Special Branch inspector to be full of himself, triumphant that the Branch were taking the lead. But he wasn’t. Syme was angry that Muncaster had escaped, that, as he put it, ‘the bloody bastard Resistance had scored’. And killed a policeman, one of their own. Gunther could understand that.
‘We’ll get that fucking loony,’ Syme said viciously.
‘I’m glad you feel like that.’
Syme gave him a hard look. ‘You should have taken Muncaster earlier.’
‘I know. We met with all sorts of political difficulties.’
‘We think we’ve found the identity of the attendant, the one who left with Muncaster. A Scottish Communist, we’ve been after him for years. We think they gave him a new identity and a new trade when things got too hot for him up North. He was already working at the mental hospital so they used him with Muncaster. Some of the things that Scottish bastard’s done –’ he shook his head ‘– even before he got involved in politics – you wouldn’t believe the sort of scum they recruit.’ Syme continued, ‘It seems likely Fitzgerald and Drax were already working as spies and then were brought into this because they knew Muncaster.’
‘That makes sense.’
‘According to Fitzgerald’s personnel file there’s some old uncle in Northampton. I wish we could get hold of his father, too, but he’s beyond our reach. I’m told the Dominions Office people we spoke to last week are being brought here for joint interviews with us tomorrow. Let’s scare them a bit.’
Gunther said mildly, ‘Will you let me take the lead on the interviews?’ He thought, Syme might go at them too hard, especially the woman.
Syme smiled grimly. ‘All right.’
The old Dominions Office Registrar, Dabb, was first. He was fetched into the interview room where Gunther had interrogated Sarah, by one of the young SS jailers. He was terrified, sweating so profusely Gunther feared he might have a seizure.
‘Please.’ Dabb stared at them with desperate appeal. ‘I’m just a clerk. I’m nobody. I don’t know anything, I don’t have any politics – you shouldn’t have politics in the Civil Service. That Fitzgerald, he’s nothing to do with me. He’s one of Archie Hubbold’s proteges,’ he added with sudden viciousness.
Gunther asked, ‘And Miss Bennett?’
Dabb lost control completely now, shouting out a string of obscenities: ‘Fucking traitorous whore! Eyeing Fitzgerald like a bitch in heat – don’t think I encouraged it, I didn’t, I was always watching them—’
‘It seems you did not watch carefully enough, if Fitzgerald got access to the room with the secret files.’
At that Dabb collapsed. ‘I did my best. All my life, I just tried to do my best at my job. Just my best, my best . . .’
Soon Gunther realized there was nothing more to be got out of the ridiculous old man; he had never even heard the name Muncaster. He was taken back to his cell and Archibald Hubbold was brought in. In contrast to his colleague, Hubbold stepped into the room quite coolly, took a seat and stared at Gunther and Syme with an air of injured innocence. Gunther thought, he’s got courage, the limited courage of the stupid. He didn’t realize what they could do to him if they wanted. Behind his thick glasses Hubbold’s eyes moved like slow, heavy fish.
‘Have you ever heard the name Francis Muncaster?’ Gunther asked, mildly.
Hubbold frowned, thought a minute, then shook his head. ‘He’s not Dominions Office Establishment.’ He set his lips. ‘Is he another traitor, in some other department?’
‘Fitzgerald never mentioned the name to you?’
Hubbold thought again. ‘Never.’
Syme said, with a grin, ‘Old Dabb told us Fitzgerald was one of your proteges.’
‘I liked Fitzgerald, yes,’ Hubbold said, his tone pompously sorrowful. ‘I brought him along, gave him more responsibility. He seemed conscientious, loyal. Clever, too. He lacked ambition, but clever people don’t always have
