The Interrogator

The Admiral looked at him closely, hard wrinkles about his eyes. Someone was giving orders on the parade ground below his window. A clock ticked lamely on the mantelpiece.

‘All right, sit down.’

And he pointed to the leather library chairs on the other side of his desk. Picking up the file again, he took out a closely typed sheet of foolscap.

‘This is the transcript of Mohr’s letter in full.’ He pushed it across his shiny black desk. ‘Read it.’

It was in German, unremarkable but for the references to Lindsay’s cousin and the evening at the jazz club with Mary and Lange. Mohr asked his friend to reassure his family that he was in good health and he wrote of shared memories, of days sailing on the Wannsee in Berlin, of walks and dinners. At the end of the letter he had added a few awkward words of love, dry and conventional, nothing that would offer comfort to a lonely sweetheart. Lindsay slid the paper back across the Admiral’s desk.

‘The jazz club, sir.’ He took a deep breath before continuing. ‘Dr Henderson left as soon as she was aware I was with a prisoner.’

Godfrey shook his head: ‘That isn’t important now. Why do you think he made such pointed reference to you? He knew we’d read the letter.’

Lindsay shrugged: ‘He knew it would cause trouble, sir. I think he believes it’s his duty to carry on fighting any way he can.’

The Admiral said nothing but reached across his desk for a silver cigarette box which he offered to Lindsay and Fleming.

‘Is there anything else about the letter that strikes you as strange?’

Lindsay took a cigarette, smelling it, then rolling it thoughtfully between his fingers: ‘Perhaps one thing, sir. It’s clumsy, badly written for an educated man.’

The Director of Naval Intelligence smiled. It was a tough little smile but it was the first that Lindsay had seen since marching into his office.

‘Yes, badly written and let me show you why.’

He opened the file again and withdrew a small square of light blue paper; on it were the dots and dashes of a signal in Morse code.

‘Look at Mohr’s letter again. Look at the first letter of each word in the opening and final paragraphs. Words that begin with letters from A to H are dots and words from L to Z dashes. Words that begin with letters from I to K indicate spaces. Here.’

Godfrey handed the signal paper to Lindsay: ‘It says: Two Wabos at fifty. Security problem. Position known but mission safe. And that’s it. With the exception of his swipe at you, the letter was written to conceal this message — that’s why it reads so badly. It’s not the first time U-boat prisoners have used this code. No doubt Miss Rasch has been instructed to forward everything Mohr sends to Donitz’s headquarters.’

Lindsay pulled hard on his cigarette, savouring the hot sharp taste of the Admiral’s tobacco. Smoke curled about the paper on his knee, smudging Mohr’s secret dots and dashes. Wabos was just U-boat German for Wasserbomben or depth charges. The U- 112 was sunk by two depth charges exploding fifty metres from its hull. But the rest of the message was harder to disentangle.

‘Well, you’ve spoken to Mohr?’

The Admiral’s voice suggested he wanted to hear something that would justify the time and trouble he was taking with a junior lieutenant.

Lindsay frowned: ‘If Mohr was expecting us to read this, why did he risk a secret message?’

It was Fleming who replied: ‘He knew we would censor the references to you. If you look carefully you can see he has not used any of the words in that part of the letter in his message. He’s a clever chap. He may have wanted to embarrass you, yes, but he also wanted to disguise his real purpose — the coded message.’

‘Well, sir…’ Lindsay leant forward to extinguish his cigarette.

‘“Position known” I think he means his own position. You see I asked him about his time at U-boat Headquarters.’

‘You also asked him about codes,’ said Godfrey coolly.

‘Yes sir.’ Lindsay half turned to look at Fleming: ‘And the cutting you sent me? Does the dead man have anything to do with this?’

Fleming glanced across at Godfrey. The Admiral was watching Lindsay with the fixed gaze of a sleek cat in a garden full of birds.

‘It’s possible,’ said Fleming cautiously. ‘Was the U-112’s engineer one of your prisoners?’

‘Heine?’

‘You’re surprised?’

‘Yes.’ Lindsay nodded. Yes, he was surprised. Heine was a practical man with the patience and dogged determination of a born engineer, not the sort to take his own life.

‘It was Heine who told me that Mohr served as one of the six Staff officers responsible for all day-to-day operations in the Atlantic. A sensitive role. Heine was terrified his comrades would find out.’ Lindsay could picture his pinched, swarthy face across the table, fear in his brown eyes. He had played with that fear to extract all he could from the engineer.

‘But I don’t think he told us enough to kill him.’

‘The Military Police think he committed suicide — they may be right,’ Godfrey replied. The note of scepticism in his voice suggested he believed quite the opposite. ‘Heine was either beaten or involved in a fight before he died. His face was very badly bruised.’

He pushed back his chair and walked across the room to the window. Filthy slate-grey cloud was scudding across the sky above the Foreign Office, sweeping gusts of rain into Horse Guards and tossing the barrage balloons about their moorings.

‘I don’t care about the engineer,’ said Godfrey. ‘But if he was murdered I want to know why. Are we missing something? What does Mohr mean when he says his “mission” is safe?’

He turned sharply to look at Lindsay, a silhouette against the window: ‘Commander Fleming thinks you might be useful.’

Every nerve in Lindsay’s body was tingling, every muscle taut as if he was reaching for something almost within his grasp, at the very tips of his fingers: ‘Yes, sir. I think I can help.’

Fleming raised a quizzical eyebrow and Lindsay wondered if he had sounded too confident.

‘Good.’

The Admiral walked back to his desk but remained standing, his hands resting on the back of the chair.

‘I’ve spoken to Colonel Checkland and for now you will be answering directly to me.’

‘Yes, sir. And the Security Service? They’ve been watching my home.’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about, Lindsay, do you, Ian?’

Fleming shook his head.

‘Oh and Lindsay, don’t make any more mistakes. Clear?’ It was a cool, crisp dismissal. Godfrey leant over his desk and opened another file.

The moment the door clicked gently shut, the Director’s gaze lifted to his Assistant: ‘You had better be right.’

‘He isn’t a spy, sir…’ Fleming frowned and leant forward a little to brush a speck of ash from his trousers.

‘But?’ Godfrey detected an uneasiness in his voice.

‘I think he’s a little damaged. The business with the Culloden…’

‘Enough to impair his judgement?’

‘I don’t think so.’

‘We’re taking a big risk. If Five don’t think we should trust him, I don’t think we can entirely.’

‘There’s a fellow at Stapley Camp called Duncan. Another Scot. Military Intelligence. Solid. Colonel Gilbert’s instructed him to keep a close eye on Lindsay.’