‘Here?’ He glanced up at the pipe.
‘Yes. Here.’
Lindsay pushed a packet of cigarettes across the table to him: ‘Help yourself.’
He waited as Lange took one, lit it and drew in a comforting lungful of smoke.
‘You look tired, Helmut. ‘You know why I’m here, of course. You knew Leutnant Heine well…’
‘Not well.’ He wriggled his shoulders uncomfortably.
‘You shared a room at the interrogation centre, you knew him better than most. Tell me what you know.’
‘He was depressed. He hated being a prisoner. He was sure he’d failed his comrades and his commander. No one could talk to him.’
It was the same short story in choppy insincere sentences and they were contradicted even as they were spoken by Lange’s restless body language.
Lindsay stared at him, slowly turning his lighter over and over in his right hand, trying to catch and hold his eye. He failed.
‘Do you think they would hang you from this pipe if you told me the truth?’
Lange looked up for a second: ‘I… I…’
Then he changed his mind and hunched forward over the table, his hands twisting in his lap.
‘You know I’ll protect you.’
The propaganda reporter made a noise in his throat that was something between a grunt and a hollow laugh, rather like the neighing of an asthmatic horse.
Lindsay picked up his cigarettes and shook one from the packet. He was on the point of lighting it when his hand stopped and he lifted his head to look at Lange again: ‘Why did you tell Kapitan Mohr that I had taken you to a jazz club? It made things very difficult for me.’
‘I… I’m sorry.’ Lange was looking at him now and there was a very pained expression on his open face. ‘I know I shouldn’t have.’
‘It was unfortunate.’
‘I’m sorry, Lieutenant, really I am.’
Lindsay shook his head, ‘All right, we’re friends. Forget it.’
Neither of them spoke and their eyes met for a moment before Lange looked down in embarrassment. Then he took a deep breath:
‘Perhaps he did kill himself — in the end. Perhaps. But it was murder.’
Lange closed his eyes for a moment and rubbed his lips with the back of a shaking hand. A tap was dripping into a cistern close by, drip, drip, drip, the echo bouncing off the hard wet walls of the washroom.
‘Senseless bloody murder. He was found guilty of treason by the Council of Honour, you see.’
‘The Council of Honour?’
‘Yes.’
He had to drag the words out of himself, his body rocking to and fro on the chair. ‘The Altestenrat discovered he’d given information to the enemy.’
‘To me?’
‘Yes.’
The pipes above them clanked as they flooded with hot water.
‘And the bruises?’
‘He was interrogated.’ Lange sighed — his breath long and shaky — then covered his face with his hands like a child hiding from an angry parent.
‘You were there?’
He nodded without moving his hands from his face.
‘And others?’ Lindsay’s voice was barely more than a whisper.
And he nodded again.
‘Who?’
Lange dropped his hands and there were tears on his face: ‘It was my fault.’
‘Who beat him?’
‘I… I can’t say.’
‘Schmidt?’
‘I… can’t…’
‘Did Mohr know about it?’
‘God forgive me. It was my fault,’ and he threw his head back and groaned long and loud, until the walls and pipes beat it back hollow and despairing. Lindsay got up and walked round the table to put a comforting hand on his shoulder. Lange reached up to touch it: ‘Thank you.’
Almost a minute passed before Lindsay spoke again, his hand still on Lange’s shoulder: ‘Did Mohr authorise this Council of Honour?’
‘No,’ Lange shouted the word. ‘No… I don’t know, I can’t say.’ He placed his elbows on the table and pushed himself upright, then wiped his eyes with the back of his hand. ‘They don’t trust me you see. If I say anything more I will be a dead man.’
‘I’ve told you, we’ll protect you. Isn’t it your duty? Your duty to all I know you believe in — that you still hold dear.’
Lange’s body stiffened and he shrugged Lindsay’s hand from his shoulder.
‘Don’t talk to me of my duty, of my faith,’ and his words rasped like grinding metal. ‘Don’t. You don’t care if I live or die.’
The silence filled again with the clanking of the pipes. Lindsay stepped away and walked round the table to look down at him. Lange lifted his chin a little, his jaw firmly set, his eyes almost lost beneath a heavy frown: ‘Heine means nothing to you, does he?’
‘If he was murdered, yes he does.’
‘I don’t know if he was murdered. I have nothing more to say.’
Lindsay pulled out the chair, its legs grating harshly across the stone floor, and leant on the back of it to look at him across the table:
‘All right Helmut. You decide. You said it was your fault. Think about it. We’ll leave it — for now.’
Then he half turned to shout at the door. A moment later Lieutenant Duncan came in with the guard, peaked cap neatly tucked under his arm. He stood at the table and watched as Lange was led from the washroom.
‘Any joy?’
‘Some.’
‘I’ve been asked to deliver this,’ and he pulled a small grey envelope from his pocket. ‘The office received it this morning, something from your lot.’
Lindsay took it and tore open the sleeve.
‘I think Schmidt will be a waste of time,’ he said. ‘I’ll see Mohr next.’
It was written in the camp secretary’s fine hand:
A Dr Henderson rang from the Admiralty. She wanted to speak to you in person but I said you would be busy all morning. She said she had sad news. Your cousin’s ship has been sunk and there are no survivors. Your family has been informed. Major Benson has asked me to pass on his condolences.
Lindsay stared at it blankly for a few seconds. What was he supposed to feel? For a time they had done everything together, like brothers. It was Martin who had taught him to sail and Martin who had introduced him to his first girlfriend. They shared the same dark sense of humour, the same shoe size, the same taste in music, and they had enjoyed taking risks together. And now he was dead, lost in the Atlantic like thousands of others. And he could feel only a deep grey emptiness like the ocean itself. God. What was left but pain and loss?
‘Is something the matter?’ It was Duncan.
‘Yes.’
