admitted it at once and told him she gave you help with our codes too. That little piece of paper?’
‘For God’s sake, what does it matter whether she helped me or not?’ Lindsay made no attempt to disguise his anger. This was madness. Both of them had taken risks, yes, but they were worth taking, Fleming had just said as much: ‘Mary broke the rules to help me and it was the right decision to take.’
‘The Director and Winn don’t agree,’ he said with a little shake of the head. ‘It was not information you needed to know. And she should have known better…’
‘She wasn’t handing it over to a spy…’
‘Mary knows how precious special intelligence is to us, to this…’ and Fleming gestured theatrically to the scene before them. ‘She was one of just a handful at the heart of our operations with access to the most secret intelligence. If we lose special intelligence we may lose the war at sea. Do you think Winn goes home and talks to his wife about it?’
‘She doesn’t work for Naval Intelligence.’
Fleming stepped forward to drop his cigarette in the gutter, then turned again to look at Lindsay: ‘I’m fond of Mary but her position was impossible. She couldn’t go back to the Tracking Room. She understood that perfectly.’ He spoke sharply and quickly, clearly anxious to bring the conversation to a close. ‘No one wants to take it further, thank God. Ah, you shake your head — people have been sent to prison for less.’ He glanced at his watch: ‘Look, I must be getting back.’
‘So what will happen to Mary, sir?’ Lindsay’s voice cracked a little.
‘She’s left the Division.’ He paused for a moment as if in two minds whether to say more. There was the distinctive little frown again: ‘You know she feels badly let down.’
‘Yes,’ said Lindsay flatly. ‘I expect she does.’
When Fleming left, the old panic gripped him again. Lindsay stood at the foot of the memorial breathing slowly and deeply, trying to clear his mind. What had possessed him to be so reckless with Mary’s trust? Careless, careless, unnecessary words and Fleming was right, he could not play the innocent, he had understood the risk he was running. He had dictated his report to a Wren, short hard sentences, the brutal click of the typewriter keys, blind to any loyalty or feeling beyond duty to the war effort. At least, ‘duty’, ‘the greater good’ was how he chose to present it to others. But he knew it was guilt too. Guilt gnawing at him always, that desperate craving for release from the burden of being a man who was dragged from the Atlantic the night two hundred lives were lost. It distorted, warped his perspective like a fairground mirror. Mary could see that, understood and loved him none the less. He had to find her to try and explain and tell her he was so very sorry.
Nobody answered the bell at Lord North Street. The shutters were open and he wondered for a moment if Mary was in the house but had resolved not to see him. He pulled the bell again but no one came. But she was not the sort of woman who would skulk behind curtains to avoid a painful conversation. Perhaps she had left London for a few days. He would have to chase her by phone, and the nearest and most convenient place to begin was at the interrogators’ office in Sanctuary Buildings. It was a short walk across Dean’s Yard where builders were trying to salvage what they could of the Abbey’s domestic range damaged in the Blitz.
Dick Graham was the only interrogator in the office. He had been sent to the prison but given nothing to do and it rankled.
‘The hero of the hour,’ and he glared at Lindsay over his pince-nez. ‘I expect they’ll give you another medal.’
Lindsay ignored him. First Mary’s uncle. Settling at the desk by the window, he picked up the telephone and began chasing the number for Parliament round the dial. The operator put him through to a stiff assistant who refused to say when she would see Sir David next and only reluctantly promised to say he had called. He was about to try the house in Lord North Street again when Checkland’s secretary presented herself at the edge of the desk: ‘The Colonel said you would want to see this right away,’ and she handed him a plain blue envelope. He took it and slit it open at once. There was a smaller envelope inside and a note in Checkland’s own hand:
Enclosed a note from Leutnant Lange. He is making a good recovery and will be discharged from hospital in the coming week.
He held Lange’s envelope in his right hand and stared at it for what must have been a minute. It was Graham who finally broke into his thoughts: ‘A billet-doux from one of your many admirers in the Division?’
‘Go to hell.’
‘I probably will. And you’ll be there too.’
It was not the time or the place. Lindsay dropped the little envelope into his pocket. There was still no reply from the house. Perhaps he should ring Mary’s brother? It was surely a measure of his desperation that he was even prepared to consider it. What about her parents in Suffolk?
‘Do we have a copy of
Graham was dictating interrogation notes to one of the clerical assistants. He looked up at Lindsay with a dry smile and stretched a hand over the typewriter to indicate that she should stop hammering the keys.
‘I don’t think they’ll offer you a peerage, old boy.’
‘Do we have a copy of
‘Would you like some help choosing the title?’
Lindsay half turned to address the clerical assistant: ‘Well?’
‘I’ll fetch it, sir.’
Charnes Hall, and yes, there was a number. An office shared with Graham was not the place to try it and he jotted it down on a piece of paper.
There was a telephone in the small registry down the corridor where the Section kept its records. It had a short flex and he had to stand beside the filing cabinet to use it. He had to dial the number of the exchange twice because on the first attempt, like a tongue-tied teenager, he hung up before the operator had a chance to put him through.
‘Mrs Henderson? Douglas Lindsay here.’
A long uncertain silence.
‘Yes?’
‘May I speak to Mary please?’
‘I don’t know if she’s in the house. Just a minute.’
Her voice was cut finer than her daughter’s, very county. The telephone was probably in a stone-flagged hall because he could hear the long echo of her footsteps as she walked away.
Someone rattled the handle of the registry door. ‘Go away, I’m on the telephone.’
His stomach was churning and the receiver felt damp and heavy in his right hand: ‘Come on,
Twenty seconds from the condemned cell to the bottom of the scaffold. Every second an hour. But they would have buried him by now. At last he heard footsteps approaching the telephone again and the rattle as Mary picked up the receiver.
‘Lindsay?’
His heart sank many fathoms. It was Mary’s brother.
‘Are you there?’
‘Yes, I’m here, James.’
‘I’m here, sir.’
‘I’m here, sir.’
‘I’ll say this once and once only,’ his voice was trembling with barely repressed fury. ‘She has nothing to say to you. You shit. You used her. You betrayed her. Now leave her alone.’
Bang went the phone. The buzz of an empty line.
Lindsay replaced the receiver carefully, his mind very clear. How strange that the anger of another was calming. He knew what he must do.
It was some hours later that Mary heard he had called and spoken to her brother. If only her mother had dealt with it or her father. She was cross because she could not help feeling sorry for Lindsay and she did not want
