A night of cold thoughts and dreams, of Heine with his tormentors, of Mohr and the ship — always the ship — and at first light Lindsay left his camp bed to find some peace alone in the park. Walking quickly, almost running, the freedom of movement, the sun already warm on his face and a low mist rising from the dew-covered grass. A soft summer haze — it was going to be a fine day — on into the beechwood, fast short rasping breaths. At the top of the hill he sat on a log to smoke a cigarette and watch the guard changing at the wire below. Was it murder? Heine may have been driven to commit suicide. Did it matter? No. He died because he had helped Lindsay loosen the first threads. All that mattered to Naval Intelligence, to him, was the unravelling of the rest, those secrets locked so securely in Mohr’s head. There was a way — it had begun to take shape in his mind beneath the willow tree as Lange was telling his story — a desperate way. It was with him through the night, although he tried to bury it, and it was hovering in the back of his mind there above the park. And as it pushed itself forward he got to his feet again and, grinding his cigarette butt into the grass, he began running, running as quickly as he could down the hill to the house.
He washed in cold water and changed, then ate breakfast in the mess canteen and it was there Lieutenant-Commander James Henderson found him. His brisk manner suggested he had forgotten nothing since their last meeting in June and was anxious to spend as little time in Lindsay’s company as possible.
‘Fleming’s telephoned. Says he will be here at ten. He wants to see you in Colonel Checkland’s office.’
But the Director’s Assistant was late. Checkland was sitting alone in his office.
‘Come in,’ and he pointed to a chair in front of his desk.
‘You’re back for the Director?’
‘Yes, sir.’
The head of Section 11 stared at him for a few seconds, his face empty, then pushing his chair from the desk, he got up and walked a little stiffly to the window.
‘Our codes,’ he said thoughtfully. Then he turned to look at Lindsay and his face was almost lost against the window: ‘You don’t think much of me Lindsay, so you’ll be surprised to hear that I think quite highly of you.’
‘Thank you, sir.’
‘I know what you’ve been through, you know. I saw people like you in the last war. I spent some time at the Front, did you know that?’
‘No, sir.’
‘It takes people in different ways. Some fall apart but others just draw into themselves — stand back from everyone.’
He paused for a moment, then turned back to the window, his face very white. When he spoke again his voice was tight with suppressed emotion: ‘Sometimes you lose your compass. Guilt, anger, you distrust others, hate yourself. Believe me.’
‘Yes…’ It was difficult to know what to say. Lindsay knew he was speaking from the heart and he suddenly felt very sorry for the man. Sorry too for the things he had said about him.
‘… And you need to seek help, guidance, it’s not something that…’
But before he could finish Fleming was shown into the room. ‘Help is at hand,’ he said breezily. Checkland pursed his lips a little sourly and walked, head bent, back to his desk where he picked up the report he had been reading.
‘Do you need me, Ian?’ he asked with a nonchalance that sounded forced.
‘No, sir.’
‘Very good. Then I’ll leave you.’
Fleming remained on his feet tapping a cigarette on the back of the packet until the door swung to, then flopped into the chair beside Lindsay.
‘And do you need help?’
‘Probably.’
‘There are the interrogators here. Do you want that chap Samuels back?’
‘Yes, that would be useful.’
Lighting his cigarette, Fleming inhaled deeply, his eyes narrowing a little as if preparing to throw a punch at Lindsay: ‘The Director wants to know what progress you’ve made.’
‘I know what happened to Heine before he died, and why. I can’t be sure he didn’t take his own life.’
‘… But Mohr…’
‘I was going to speak to him today.’
‘There is a new urgency to this business. We can’t wait six months, we can’t wait six weeks. A lot of lives are at stake here. We need to know what he knows.’ Fleming got to his feet and walked across the room to peer at a photograph of a battleship that had been cruelly nailed to the oak panelling.
‘Can you do it?’
‘… I think I can…’
Fleming turned to look at him, drawn by the hesitancy in his voice, searching his face for meaning. Checkland’s secretary was clacking her typewriter in the outer office and a small carriage clock on the mantelpiece ticked away the seconds. Their eyes met for a moment. Fleming understood.
‘Whatever you need to do.’
‘Gilbert here.’
The line crackled and hissed as if the Colonel’s office at MI5 was burning around him.
‘Fleming from NID. Admiral Godfrey asked me to ring you, Colonel, about our man. He thinks it’s time we called your chaps off.’
‘Really? Would you mind explaining why?’ Gilbert’s voice was clipped and cool and sceptical.
‘Of course we’re grateful for their good work. They certainly seem to have made their presence felt…’ Fleming smiled at the recollection of the punches traded in a London square. ‘But they haven’t come up with anything to suggest Lindsay’s a spy or a security risk, have they? Nor has Duncan at the camp. Quite the contrary — he seems impressed.’
For a matter of seconds there was only the angry crackle of the line. Fleming slipped behind Checkland’s desk and into his chair: ‘So I’ll let the Admiral know you’re happy to let this thing drop now, shall I?…’
‘I think you should let me question him again. Duncan says he was very upset about the death of his cousin — the U-boat commander…’
‘Yes. I read that,’ said Fleming drily. ‘I think I’d be a little cut up about my cousin too. Wouldn’t you?’
A few more hostile seconds crackled by until Fleming spoke again:
‘I don’t think you like Lindsay, Colonel… that’s a pity because I was hoping Five would help him… help us out.’
‘It’s too soon to give him a clean bill of health.’
Fleming paused: ‘Well, that’s as may be but for now we’re rather in his hands and we would appreciate some assistance — if you don’t mind.’
Mit Kase fangt Mann Mause. Lindsay left the prisoners in the sticky heat of their rooms and walked with the thought all afternoon. Bait to catch the mouse. It was the only way. He stood for a while beneath Lange’s willow tree throwing the occasional pebble into the lake, the ripples twinkling in an ever-widening circle until they were lost in the bright sunlight. Consequences, consequences. To risk one man’s life for the many. It was at the edge of what he knew to be right but the thought had chased him all night, all day. ‘Whatever you need to do.’ Surely a conscience was a luxury in the war they were fighting. It needed to be an elastic conscience at least. But he wrestled with the thought that it was for more than the greater good, more than duty, it was his demon. A conviction — confused but firm — that in vanquishing it there would be some sort of release. Once the idea had taken hold of him, it held him in a breathless embrace, squeezing him tighter, tighter. ‘Whatever you need to do’: he needed to do this.
Jurgen Mohr was sitting at the table with a copy of yesterday’s Times. Lindsay stood aside to let the guard remove the supper tray with its half-eaten meal of pork and potatoes and something that might have been gravy.
‘This is how you hope to break me,’ said Mohr in English and he pointed to the plate. The door closed behind Lindsay and he leant back against it.
‘I don’t need to break you.’
‘Oh?’
‘You and your officers are going back to the camp — for now. ‘I have your old statement,’ and he lifted the file he was holding. ‘And fresh statements from the others.’
‘May I have a cigarette?’ Mohr sounded tired. Two days spent sitting, waiting, with only old English newspapers and a battered copy of Milton’s Paradise Lost to relieve the boredom, and that special anxiety, the uncertainty of the prisoner, the frustration, the helplessness. Lindsay took out his cigarettes and tossed them on to the table.
‘There is going to be a trial. We’re preparing the papers. Two, perhaps three of your officers.’
Mohr took a cigarette and waved it at Lindsay, who stepped forward to hand him the lighter.
‘Which ones?’
‘And your part in the Council of Honour and the interrogation of Heine will be examined too.’
Mohr drew deeply on his cigarette. But for a small frown hovering at his brow, he looked calm, his chin in his hands, his elbows on the table.
‘You’re leaving tonight.’
Their eyes met for a moment, then Mohr looked away, the ghost of a smile on his face, and he picked up the Milton.
‘This is hard for me, but I understand enough to admire.’ And he opened the book at a small paper marker. ‘The hell within. The mind is its own place, and in itself can make a Heaven of Hell, a Hell of Heaven.’
He raised his eyes slowly from the text to Lindsay’s face. And Lindsay felt tense and uncomfortable for a moment. He turned to rap on the door. Heavy boots in the corridor, the drawing back of bolts, and as it began to swing open he looked again at Mohr.
‘Keep the cigarettes.’
Rain brought the late summer smell of decay to the park on the following day, the horse chestnuts curling brown and the first fall of beechnuts and acorns. Helmut Lange was allowed to walk between showers, a guard at his heels. They walked in silence and he preferred it that way. Lindsay had sent a note with his apologies; did he want another book, what about cigarettes? Its warmth would have surprised the sergeant who delivered it if he had been able to read German. There were half a dozen prisoners with their escorts in the park and sometimes Lange was permitted to offer them a smoke. He did not see any of those who had travelled with him from Camp Number One. And it was the same the next day. No one seemed very interested in him any more and he spent hours on his camp bed day-dreaming of home, his mother never far from his thoughts. What would happen to him? He had never thought to ask. He had felt numb with exhaustion after the evening he had spoken of Heine, too full of grief to think of the future. Lindsay would come in time to tell him. There were other camps, perhaps they would send him to Canada. But in the stillness of early morning, as the rain beat against the shutters, a profound anxiety crept through him, penetrating every fibre until his nightshirt clung to him cold and wet. What, what, what was going to happen? Oh God, what was going to happen?
The breakfast tray was still on the table untouched when the guards came for him on the fifth day. Down the stairs at the double and through the fine civilised entrance hall, out to the forecourt and the old military bus, its engine idling roughly on the same note. The same, the same, everything the same. Where was Lindsay? There were other prisoners, officers, men in leather and Luftwaffe-blue chatting in hushed voices. Someone asked him a question but his mouth was sticky and dry and he could not think of an answer. Where was Lindsay? He tried to speak to the British Air Force officer in charge of the escort: ‘Please, I must talk…’
But the guards were pressing the prisoners up the steps and on to the bus. Someone held his shoulder:
‘Come on, Fritz. It’s a long way.’
And in a daze, his heart sick, he was pushed to the door, tripping on the step, past the sour-faced soldier behind the wheel, and shaking to his seat.