Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

They began crunching down the gravel carriageway towards the officers’ mess. Lindsay would have preferred to stretch out on his bed with a book in the room he had taken above the village pub but he was making an effort to be friendly with the camp’s officers. Duncan was good company, if a little nosy, but some of the others were boorish in a regular military way. He had already spent an uncomfortable evening deflecting questions about his business at the camp and the DSC ribbon on his uniform jacket.

‘You know, none of the prisoners seemed surprised to see you,’ said Duncan. ‘Didn’t that strike you as strange? They were told the investigation was over, now that we’ve buried Heine.’

‘Mohr knows we’re interested in him. They were expecting me or someone like me.’

The orderly behind the mess bar mixed Lindsay a pink gin and then another. He was considering a third when a sergeant approached him with a message. Someone from the Navy called Dr Henderson had phoned and asked him to ring back at once.

‘Is there a phone I can use here?’ he asked Duncan.

‘I’ll show you,’ and he ground his cigarette stub into an ashtray.

But Major Benson had seen them from the door and was making his way quickly towards them.

‘No, please. Let me buy you one,’ he said with a warmth Lindsay thought owed more to the prospect of the drink than to the pleasure of his company.

‘I see you’ve picked up some bad habits in the Navy,’ he said, pointing to Lindsay’s glass.

They sat at a table close to the mess’s only window, from where there was a view across the broken woodland to the rough sheep pastures of the valley below.

‘So, it’s been a fruitless visit.’ There was something close to a sneer in Benson’s voice. Lindsay glanced at Duncan who pulled an apologetic face.

‘No, sir.’

Benson ignored him: ‘The Military Police did their job pretty well.’

‘Yes, sir.’

The camp commandant wanted to know how much longer Lindsay expected to be there. What did Naval Intelligence hope to find? Kapitän Mohr was a fine man and they understood each other well. Another drink? His hand shook a little as he raised his glass to his lips. And then he was back on the beaches at Dunkirk, lost among the abandoned lorries, the choking oil-black smoke, the helpless and the dying. And the Navy should have done better. Another?

By the time Lindsay was able to excuse himself, night had crept up the valley to the camp. He had missed supper and was now quite drunk. A corporal ran him down the road to the village pub. It was only as he was undressing in the little bedroom under the eaves that he remembered the message to ring Mary but it was too late and it was as much as he could do to collapse into bed.

He slept badly and woke with a start at three o’clock, his sheets clammy and cold. And when he closed his eyes again he slipped back into the confused grey half-world of the ship. Mary was there too. She was standing on the quarterdeck, the sea washing about her bare legs. And she was shouting something; he could hear the panic in her voice, but the wind whipped the words from him. Then she began pointing frantically over the side and he turned to the rail and looked down. August Heine was looking back at him, eyes wide and bloodshot, his blue face bloated and shining, the rope-marks raw and angry about his neck.

At six o’clock he got up to smoke a cigarette by the window. A thin drizzle of mist was hanging halfway up the valley sides, the sun still low and yellow above the eastern hills. A tractor roared down the road with a weatherbeaten farmer at the wheel, his collies perched precariously on either side. In a few hours he would interview Mohr. There was nothing he could accuse him of, no questions Mohr would be prepared to answer, but he would be required to stand in front of the table and he would know that the pursuit was beginning once again. Lindsay looked down into the village street and smiled quietly with something close to pleasure at the thought.

Lieutenant Duncan sat shivering behind his desk in only his shirt and trousers. His tiny office was only a few steps from the mess where he had taken a skinful the night before, a damp, cold shoebox of a room with flaking plaster walls. His thick head was not improved at six o’clock in the morning by the stiff rattle of his old typewriter. He ripped the page from the restraining bar and read it through:

…Lindsay intends to question Lieutenant Lange and Captain Mohr today and has made it clear he would like to conduct both interrogations on his own. He is particularly interested in the propaganda reporter’s position in the camp. I believe he is the German officer you referred to in your briefing.

Duncan paused. He quite liked Lindsay. A little reserved, perhaps, a bit prickly about his past and his family but he seemed straight enough. What had the man done to warrant such close scrutiny? He reached for his mug of tea — it was cold already.

…he will not be drawn into debate about the war and Germany. Nor is he prepared to say why a Naval Intelligence officer should be so interested in the death of a prisoner…

The Security Service had demanded that he thrash out this report himself. There were to be no copies and he was to keep his watching brief on Lindsay secret from Major Benson. Duncan had met Gilbert from Five once, and for twenty minutes only, but it had been long enough to convince him that the Colonel was a ruthless bastard — cool in a very Eton, Oxford and the Guards sort of way and comfortable in his half-world of secrets and lies.

…as yet there is no evidence to suggest Lindsay is communicating with the prisoners on any subject other than the death of Heine and other related intelligence matters but to be present at all times would arouse suspicion. It is possible notes have been exchanged in my absence. The prisoners are searched after leaving interrogations. We have conducted a thorough search of Lieutenant Lindsay’s room and belongings but have found nothing…

‘Despatch.’

The office door opened with a stiff military jerk and a burly-looking military policeman stepped across the threshold.

‘Get this off at once, Corporal.’

At one end of the rectangular washroom there were two rows of handbasins with cracked and stained mirrors above; the shower cubicles and latrines were at the other end. Heine’s pipe ran across the ceiling between the two, cast iron, six inches in diameter and painted a muddy green. Lindsay had the table and chairs placed beneath it.

‘Sit down, Helmut.’

Leutnant Lange looked crumpled and grey and anxious.

‘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.