Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

A sour-looking middle-aged man in an ill-fitting navy-blue pinstriped suit answered the door: ‘Papers?’

He was Security Service muscle, tall and square with small ears shrivelled and scarred in a rugby scrum.

Lindsay gave him his papers. If he had been asked, he would have handed over his wallet and the keys to his flat too.

‘This way, sir.’

The gatekeeper led him along a dingy corridor to the back of the house, damp nicotine-stained paper peeling from the walls, then up an uncarpeted stair case to the first floor. There were several doors on the narrow landing — his guide slipped through the nearest one. Seconds later he was back: ‘You can go in, sir.’

He stood aside to reveal a small dark room lit only by the low circle of light from an anglepoise lamp. The lamp stood on a plain wooden table in the centre of the room. A silver-haired man in a dark suit sat behind the table and a single empty chair had been placed in the light in front of it. A second man, younger, solid, was standing in shadow against the wall.

‘Please identify yourself.’

Lindsay took a step into the room and handed his papers to the man at the table: ‘Lindsay, Lieutenant Douglas Lindsay.’

The door clunked to behind him.

‘My name is Colonel Gilbert.’

His voice was smoky and hard. He glanced at Lindsay’s papers, then leant back in his chair and spread his large hands on the empty table in front of him. He was in his late fifties with a worn, angular face, his hair was white but his eyebrows were bushy black and he had sharp little blue eyes.

‘You’ve come to pick up a package?’

‘Yes.’

‘It will be here soon. Sit down, Lieutenant. Cigarette?’

The Colonel slipped a cigarette case from his jacket pocket and offered it to Lindsay. He took one and Gilbert lit it with a snap of his lighter.

‘I’m sorry we’ve dragged you out here. The shop used to belong to Russian anarchists. It’s ours now.’

‘Do you have many customers?’

‘Some. The bottom end of the market.’

Gilbert stared at Lindsay for an uncomfortable, unblinking few seconds, then said: ‘You’ve family in Germany, haven’t you, Lieutenant?’

Lindsay drew deeply on his cigarette, then blew the smoke in a steady stream towards the ceiling. He was conscious of the Colonel’s creature, the younger man, close to his shoulder.

‘Is there a package?’ he asked quietly. ‘And if there is, will you give it to me?’

‘In good time,’ said Gilbert coolly. ‘Tell me about your cousin Martin. Are you close?’

Lindsay closed his eyes for a second, a forced smile on his face. He opened them again and said: ‘Lindsay. Lieutenant, Royal Navy. JX 634378.’

‘I have the authority to talk to you, you know. Commander Fleming sent you to me.’

‘To collect a package.’

‘Do you have something to hide?’

‘Are those your men outside my home?’

‘A prisoner called Lange sent you a note. He wanted to thank you, didn’t he — why?’

Lindsay stretched forward and pressed the end of his cigarette into the tabletop. The stub lay there looking almost obscene beside the small black ring it had burnt in the varnish.

‘If you don’t have what I want, I’ll leave.’

Gilbert brushed the stub on to the floor with the back of his hand and leant across the table, his hair a strange yellow-white in the light of the anglepoise: ‘Is there something you’re not prepared to tell us?’

‘Lots of things, Colonel,’ said Lindsay quietly. ‘Perhaps — if there is a package — you will make sure it reaches Commander Fleming.’ And he pushed back his chair as if to rise. Tight little frown lines had appeared on Gilbert’s face. Slowly, deliberately, he looked over Lindsay’s shoulder at his large silent companion and nodded his head.

Almost unconsciously, Lindsay stiffened, braced for a blow from behind.

‘Don’t worry, Lieutenant. This is just a chat.’ Gilbert must have seen him flinch. There was a supercilious little smile on his face.

‘No unpleasantness,’ then, as if an afterthought, ‘for now.’

The door opened behind Lindsay and light from the landing crept across the floor and under the table. Lindsay turned his back on Gilbert and walked towards it.

‘Goodbye, Lieutenant. We will be seeing each other again, I’m sure. Oh, and there is a delivery — pick it up on the way out, would you.’

Lindsay did not reply but brushed past the thug at the door and began to thump down the wooden stairs. The angry rhythm of his feet echoed through the shop. Verdammter Mist! He gripped the banister and muttered it to himself. What a mess.

It took him more than an hour to walk home. He was glad of the time and the cool air and the darkness of the blackout, its emptiness and anonymity. It felt unfamiliar, as if he was walking through a New World city, roughly planned, a vast building site of half-finished streets, the sidewalks criss-crossed in the moonlight by broken shadows. At the Tower of London he was stopped by a policeman who wanted to know his business at that hour. More than once he looked back to see if he was being followed, without expecting to see anyone. And slowly the anger he felt, with Gilbert, with Fleming, with Checkland, with the Navy, was replaced by a sadness that glowed deeper, like the wooden heart of a fire.

The apartment in St James’s Square was empty. He had given Mary a key but she never used it and there was nothing to suggest there had been uninvited visitors. Lindsay flung MI5’s parting gift — a large manila envelope — on to the couch and walked over to the mahogany sideboard to pour himself a whisky. Before he could reach it the telephone on the desk by the window began to jangle. It was nearly one o’clock in the morning, late even for Mary to call.

‘Douglas?’

His father’s voice was strained with anxiety.

‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine.’

‘The police were here to speak to your mother. I’m afraid she’s in a bit of a state. They want to know about our family.’

Two of Glasgow’s finest had presented themselves at the engineering works and accompanied his father home. They wanted photographs of the Clausen family, their ages, occupations, correspondence and last contact details.

‘They were especially interested in Martin. They knew a good deal about him already.’ There was a cautious note in his father’s voice and Lindsay wondered if it had occurred to him too, that someone might be eavesdropping. His mother had told them she had heard nothing from her nephew for two years but that was not enough to satisfy them. They had wanted to know if anyone in the family was in contact with Martin.

‘They asked about you in particular, Douglas.’

‘Yes.’

‘They were a little unpleasant to your mother.’

‘How unpleasant?’

His father did not answer.

‘How unpleasant?’

‘Very unpleasant. But I will speak to the Chief Constable about it tomorrow.’

There was some concern about ‘Mrs Lindsay’s status’, they said. ‘Nazi connections’, they said. She was a ‘low-risk Category C’ alien but that might change and they had spoken of new restrictions.

‘The wee buggers had the nerve to talk of internment.’ His father’s voice shook with emotion. ‘I pointed out that our sons were fighting for their country.’

‘They threatened her?’

‘In so many words. Honestly, Douglas, we are beginning to behave like the Nazis.’ His father had asked the policemen to leave at once and they went without protest.

Lindsay did his best to be calm and reassuring, to talk of ‘misunderstandings’ and ‘silly mistakes’, but there was no mistake. When his father hung up he lit a cigarette and sat at the desk with his glass. He had heard that the Security Service interrogators at Camp 020 called it ‘the game’. One old player had told him that ends always justified means in war. His rules permitted everything but the rack and the thumbscrew and perhaps there would be a time when those would be necessary too. And in such a game your friends could sometimes become enemies.