Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

The car was waiting for Mary at the bottom of the church steps with its engine running.

‘Prayers for victory?’ he asked as she slipped into the seat beside him.

‘Yes.’

‘Wonderful.’ And he pressed his foot to the floor.

Her uncle was watching from the top of the steps with a concerned look on his face, the church emptying around him.

The Austin smelt of oil and cigarette smoke and was stuffy even with all the windows open. There was an alarming screech as Lindsay worked his way through the gears. It would take them a little less than two hours to reach Oxford. It was a perfect summer Sunday and a hamper and ice bucket were balanced carefully on the back seat. Mary was relishing the prospect of a few precious hours away from the grind and the grime of London.

But the journey began awkwardly. Lindsay looked more tired, more careworn than she had ever seen him but he was short with her when she said so. They seemed to have lost some of their old easy familiarity. He made little effort to answer her questions and conversation began to peter out between Marble Arch and Notting Hill Gate. She was relieved of the obligation when, on the outskirts of west London, he was able to open up the throttle and the wind began to whip through the car. With the sun blinking through the windscreen and the throb of the engine, she was asleep before they reached High Wycombe.

They parked on the Woodstock Road in Oxford and Mary took him into her old college.

‘This is for bluestockings, isn’t it?’ he asked provocatively.

‘For clever and free-thinking women, you mean.’

An old scout recognised her as they were ambling round the main quad and they were obliged to listen to her litany of woes about rationing at high table and civil servants in the university buildings. It seemed to Mary that Oxford had changed very little; it was quieter perhaps but still timeless and mellow in the summer sunshine. Lindsay was thinking the same:

‘Someone must have missed Oxford off the Luftwaffe’s map.’

‘You sound sorry.’

‘No,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘no, I’m glad.’

‘Perhaps it represents something greater.’

He gave a short laugh: ‘A corner of civilisation? Do you think Warsaw or the East End of London knows? Anyway, there’s time yet.’

‘Gosh, what good company you are.’

He put his arm around her waist and squeezed it: ‘Sorry.’

It was the first time he had touched her that day.

They walked into broad St Giles past the memorial for those of the city who had fallen in the Great War, to St John’s College and on towards the neo-Gothic buildings of Balliol. And Mary told him something of the history of the Scottish college and of its founders John Balliol and his wife the Lady Dervorguilla. When John died in 1268 his heart was cut from his chest, embalmed and kept close by his widow. It was buried beside her at last at the abbey she built in his memory. ‘Sweetheart Abbey not far from Dumfries.’

‘I’ll take you,’ said Lindsay.

‘Who knows, by the time this war’s over you may not love me.’

‘I will love you,’ and he turned to face her. ‘But you’ll be tired of me. I’ll have exhausted your patience.’

He lifted her chin and she allowed his lips to brush her cheek before turning away.

‘Perhaps,’ she said, breaking free.

They walked back to the car for the hamper, then on past the gaudy High Church brick of Keble College to the University Parks. Here the war was making its mark. The railings were reduced to a few broken inches and the park to the south of the path had been turned over to allotments. Sunday gardeners were bent over their strips like the lay brothers of a medieval college. They found a peaceful spot beneath the shade of a sweet chestnut, a stone’s throw from the River Cherwell. Lindsay had done well: a bottle of Bordeaux, duck, pickled herring, some cheese and fresh bread — even a bar of American chocolate.

‘How on earth…’

‘Good intelligence. For you, guvnor, a shillin’,’ he said in a Scots-cockney accent.

‘You ruthless spiv.’

‘I know how to please a lady,’ and he smiled warmly at her. ‘Pass me the corkscrew.’

He opened the bottle, then began arranging knives and glasses and food on the rug.

‘Is this a little indecent?’ she asked, rolling down her church stockings.

‘Wonderfully indecent.’

After they had eaten, they lay on the blanket soaking in the lazy heat of the day. It was humid and still, with not a breath of wind to stir the broadleaf canopy above. A college bell was tolling in the distance, and closer, excited voices and the solid clunk of bat on leather ball, laughter from the river and the splash of a punt pole inexpertly handled. And in such a place, on such a day, the battle in the Atlantic was no more than an abstraction. Eyes closed, empty of all but feeling, sun on muscle and skin, a trickle of perspiration on her throat and the grass brushing the back of her legs. She was surprised and almost sorry when he touched her again, a loving caress with the back of his hand lightly against her arm.

‘May I tell you something?’

‘Of course.’

‘The Security Service — Five — tried to question me and I think I’m being followed.’

She sat up, turning to look at him: ‘Followed? Why?’

He shrugged: ‘Kapitän Mohr is chasing me.’

He told her of his visit to the shop on the Commercial Road, of Mohr’s letter with its pointed reference to his cousin, of the telephone conversation with his father and the black Morris he kept seeing in St James’s Square.

‘I tried to talk to the driver but all I got for my trouble was a thick lip.’

Mary reached across to stroke his cheek but he took her hand and kissed it.

‘I can’t believe this, Douglas. This is terrible.’ Her voice trembled a little. ‘And Ian Fleming is involved too. Have you spoken to anyone else in the Division?’

‘I haven’t been into the Admiralty since all this blew up. The Director sent word he didn’t want to see me. They’ve got the report, of course.’

‘It’s bloody. It’s…’ She took a deep breath and tried to be calm but tears and resentment were welling inside her.

‘I’m sorry, Mary, I didn’t want to spoil the day. It will sort itself out. A cousin in the Kriegsmarine is not a capital offence,’ he gave a harsh laugh, ‘yet.’ He paused for a moment, then said: ‘It’s my mother I’m concerned about, and you. Sooner or later they will speak to you.’

‘Let them,’ she snapped crossly. Then she reached up with both hands and pulled his head down to kiss him hard. After a while, they broke apart and lay quietly side by side. The sun was lost behind a mass of blue-grey cloud and the air heavy now with the promise of thunder.

‘You should leave the Division,’ she said.

‘And go back to sea? I can’t.’

‘You may have to leave. Perhaps I should too.’

Lindsay raised himself to his elbow abruptly: ‘Because of me? No. No. They won’t let you and it would be madness anyway.’

There was a white flash in the west and seconds later the crack and rumble of thunder. Mary got slowly to her feet and began to brush the grass from her frock. By the time they reached the park gates heavy raindrops were spotting their clothes and rolling down their faces. Lindsay swung the hamper on to his back.

‘Can you run?’

‘Of course but I’d rather walk.’

He smiled and brushed a strand of wet hair from her face: ‘As you wish.’

Another sharp flash and almost at once the thunder. People began hurrying past under macs and umbrellas and the Sunday papers. Mary’s dress was clinging thickly to her skin and her hair hung in rat’s tails about her face. At the end of Keble Road she stopped to balance on Lindsay’s arm and empty water from a shoe. Looking up, she saw he was blinking madly as the rain ran down his forehead into his eyes.