Andrew Williams - The Interrogator

His voice choked with emotion and he paused for a few seconds to regain some composure.

‘And he says: “ You know it’s strange but after all that has happened to me I feel at peace with myself and happier. Please come and visit me before I go. Your friend, Helmut .”’

He folded it slowly and slipped it into his jacket pocket.

‘And will you visit him?’

‘Yes.’

She gave a slight nod of the head, then looked away. There was nothing more to say. She should leave. And she leant towards the handle of the door.

‘You’ve cut your face.’

‘I must be quite a sight.’

‘Yes. You are,’ and he reached for her hand, opening her fingers, kissing her palm, small tender kisses. And then he pressed her hand against his cheek. Her bottom lip began to tremble. It was impossible. And without thought she pulled her hand away and opened the car door.

‘Mary, please.’

The driver’s door opened too.

‘Mary.’

He was standing on the other side of the car. ‘I’m so sorry, really I am.’

‘No, Douglas,’ and she began to walk away. ‘Please go home. It’s over. It’s over.’

The little boy at the gate was blowing into his hands, trying to capture the warm vapour in a tight ball of fingers and thumbs. Even in his best coat and hat and scarf he was beginning to shiver. Grandfather’s friend was late. The street was white with a hard frost and the old man opposite was scraping the ice from the windscreen of his Mercedes. The boy glanced over his shoulder to the house. His grandfather was at the study window, his head turning up and down the street. And a few seconds later, with a broad smile, he began gesturing frantically to the boy’s right. An elderly but tall and upright man in a long black coat was walking carefully along the icy pavement towards him. Tears of frustration and disappointment welled inside the little boy and he ran towards the house. The door was already open and Herr Hans-Günther Gretschel was standing on the steps, leaning heavily on an ebony stick.

‘Come here, Karl. Wait with me.’

But the little boy slipped past his grandfather’s outstretched arm and disappeared inside the house. It was an imposing villa with a yellow and cream façade and sweeping red-tile roof, set back a little from the road in a mature garden. The little boy’s great-great-grandfather had built it when Dahlem was just a village.

‘Herr Lindsay. So very good to see you,’ and Gretschel dropped a step to offer his hand in greeting. ‘And looking so well.’

In the years since the war Gretschel had perfected the English he had begun to learn as a prisoner.

‘My grandson Karl was watching for you. I’m afraid he’s a little upset you surprised him.’

‘Are you well, Herr Gretschel?’

‘Old and tired and fat.’

And it was true he had put on a great deal of weight since Lindsay had last seen him a few years before. His black flannel trousers looked as if they were under enormous strain. Arthritis had left him much less mobile: ‘My wife says I am turning into a large grey ball.’

He led Lindsay through the hall into the drawing room where Frau Gretschel had left a tray of coffee and cakes. Karl was sitting on the couch in his coat, his cheeks stained with tears. It was a light and modern room quite out of keeping with the imperial character of the façade. The house had been reduced to a shell in the battle for Berlin. Lindsay had visited it for the first time just a fortnight after the city had fallen, drunken Soviet troops roaming the streets, and he had found Gretschel’s elderly parents and sister living in the cellar.

‘Have you seen this?’ Gretschel held out a framed photo to Lindsay. ‘It’s me with your Prime Minister. What a wonderful lady. I admire her so much.’

‘And did you tell her you were the first officer of a U-boat that sank twenty British ships?’

‘Of course not,’ said Gretschel impatiently. ‘It was a happy occasion. The Berlin Chamber of Commerce. Poor Lange was there too.’ He put the photograph back on the shelf alongside a large collection of family pictures.

‘Lange’s daughters have made all the arrangements for today.’

They had moved in different social circles but they had always kept in touch. Lange had worked in the city’s information bureau until a newspaper article forced him to retire. A young hack anxious to make his name wrote a story with the headline, ‘Nazi PK Man Briefing the Press’. Gretschel had used his business contacts to find him another job in public relations.

‘May I smoke?’

‘Karl, please fetch our guest an ashtray. Shouldn’t you give up at your age?’

Lindsay’s wife was still badgering him to stop. After the Navy he had become a journalist and many of his colleagues on Fleet Street were unrepentant smokers too. Now in his seventies he was too old and too impatient to try. He woke each morning with a hacking cough, he was wrinkled and grey and a little short-sighted but a source of wonder to his friends — or so they said — and the doctors considered him fit for his age.

‘I saw Admiral Mohr last month.’ Gretschel reached across to hand Lindsay a cup of coffee.

‘Oh?’

‘A reunion of the old comrades in Kiel. Fewer and fewer of us now. There were veterans from HMS White there as our guests. The Admiral made a generous speech. He’s in good health and sends his regards.’ He paused for a moment, then: ‘I did sense he was a little troubled. Did you read the profile of him in Spiegel ?’

‘No,’ Lindsay lied.

‘It suggested he gave vital intelligence to the British during the war. No one believes it.’

‘No.’

They did not speak for a moment but sipped their coffee, the silence broken only by the tinkle of the china cups and by Karl who was crunching a biscuit and showering crumbs on his coat and the couch.

‘Do you think of the war, Herr Lindsay?’

‘Sometimes.’

‘I’ve begun to think of it again. I tell Karl stories of our boat. His mother does not like me talking of those times but… I’ve told him a little about the camp too.’ He chuckled and leant forward as if to share a confidence: ‘He knows you did something very secret. He thinks you’re James Bond.’

Lindsay smiled and looked across at the little boy: ‘Does he know we were enemies?’

Gretschel put down his cup and folded his arms slowly over his stomach in a way that suggested he had something of substance to impart: ‘I’ve tried to explain to Karl that sometimes those who appear to be enemies become friends and our friends become our enemies. War is a confusing business. And the battles we fight are often with ourselves — in here,’ and he tapped his head with his forefinger. ‘Of course he doesn’t understand. It was only at the camp in Canada that I began to understand it myself. Perhaps I didn’t dare to before. It was the business with Lange, the night he almost died, that made me wonder what I should render to Caesar. My conscience. Do you understand?’

Lindsay nodded quietly. Gretschel looked at him for a moment, then frowned: ‘You know, it was hard for Lange. Some of the veterans refused to speak to him because he helped the British. And the most ridiculous thing; the young — his own daughters — accused him of being a Nazi propagandist. Can you believe it? After all he went through.’

He glanced at his watch: ‘But we should be going. And your wife will meet us there?’

It was a short drive in Herr Gretschel’s large silver car. Karl came too. A bleak red-brick church and the nave less than a quarter full, the pine coffin before the altar covered with white chrysanthemums. Lindsay found Mary on her knees in prayer and settled into the seat beside her.