William Boyd - Waiting for Sunrise

“Last chance, Herr Glockner. Give me the key to the code.”

“I tell you I don’t have it. I pass the letters on to Berlin where they’re decoded.”

“Last chance.”

“How do you say it in English? Fuck your mother, fuck your sister, fuck your wife, fuck your baby daughter.”

Lysander stooped over him.

“You’ve just made a terrible mistake. Terrible.”

He pinched Glockner’s nose shut with two fingers and, as he reflexively opened his mouth to breathe, Lysander rammed the first of the kitchen scourers deep into Glockner’s mouth — and then the second.

Glockner gagged and heaved. The bulk of the two scourers had forced his jaws wide apart, belling his cheeks. He was trying to force them out with his tongue but they were too firmly wedged in behind his teeth.

Lysander strode over to the armchair and unplugged the standard lamp, ripping the flex from its base. The flex was a simple, wound double-cable, covered in a fine gold-coloured thread. With his fingernails he picked the ends clear, exposing the wires and bending them into a rough Y-shape.

He dragged Glockner and his chair closer. Then he plugged the flex back into its socket and held the now live ‘Y’ in front of Glockner’s eyes.

Suddenly the thought came to him that he might not be capable of going through with this. But then he argued with himself — it would be just a touch, after all, no severing or cutting, nothing unseemly, no blades gouging flesh, just something that occurred as a matter of unfortunate consequence on a doubtless daily basis in dentists’ surgeries the world over. Glockner was going to the dentist — no one liked it particularly, no one knew what pain would be associated with the visit. It was a risk.

“You look like a man who’s taken good care of his teeth. Admirable. Unfortunately all that expensive dental work is now going to cause you intense, unspeakable pain. Every tooth in your head is in contact with the wire mesh of the scourer. Your copious saliva — look, it’s already dripping from the side of your mouth — is a very efficient electrolyte. When I touch this live electric wire to the scourers in your mouth…” he paused. “Well, let’s say you’re going to remember this agony for the rest of your life.”

He waved the wire right in front of Glockner’s eyes.

“Just give me the key to your code, then I’ll be out of here in five minutes. Nod your head if you agree.”

Glockner made some grating sound in his throat but it was clear from the way his forehead buckled and his crazy eyes glared that he was trying to swear at him again.

Without thinking further, Lysander touched the exposed live wires to the scumbled edge of the kitchen scourer visible between Glockner’s bared teeth. Just for a second.

Glockner’s inhuman throat-tearing roar of pain was hugely disturbing, made him flinch and wince in sympathy. It was the aural representation of his awful torment. He whipped the wires away and, in some disarray himself, watched Glockner writhe in his bonds, banging the back of his head against the parquet, his eyes weeping, overflowing. My god. Jesus.

Lysander fetched a pad-cushion from a chair and slipped it under Glockner’s head. He didn’t want anyone coming up from down below to see what the noise was. He held another cushion in his hand to muffle Glockner’s eventual screams.

“Now, Herr Glockner, that was just a split second. Imagine if I apply the wires and count to ten.”

He didn’t give him time to make any response — get this over with — he jammed the wire into the scourer and slammed the cushion over Glockner’s face. One second, two — no, he couldn’t go on. He pulled the wire away and kept the cushion in place. Glockner’s screams died away to rhythmic sobbing sounds, almost like a kind of animal, panting. He felt himself trembling as he removed the cushion.

Glockner’s face was slumped as if the muscles weren’t working, had gone terminally slack. His eyes were half-closed, blinking frantically.

“Nod your head if you agree.”

He nodded.

Carefully, quickly, Lysander picked out the scouring pads from his gaping mouth with his fingers. Glockner dry-heaved, turned his head and spat on the parquet. Lysander rose to his feet and carefully placed the live wire on the desk top, securing it with a paperweight.

“See?” he said accusingly. “If you’d just told me when I asked you first none of this would have happened — and you’d have been a rich man. Where’s the key?”

“Central bookcase…” Glockner coughed and moaned.

Lysander walked over to the central bookcase and opened it. It was full of German literature — Goethe, Schiller, Lessing, Schopenhauer, Liliencron…

“Second shelf from the top. Fifth book along.”

Lysander ran his finger along the spines. The classic book-cipher. The PLWL code, as it was also known, so Munro had told him — page, line, word, letter. Unbreakable unless you had the book.

Fifth book along, there it was. He drew it out.

Andromeda und Perseus .

Andromeda und Perseus. Eine Oper in vier Akten von Gottlieb Toller .

He felt a coldness grip him as if his organs had been suddenly packed in ice. He felt his bowels turn and flex with a powerful urge to shit.

He stopped the questions screaming at him. Not now. Not now. Later.

He turned back to Glockner. He seemed to have passed out. His eyes were closed and his breathing was shallow. With an effortful heave, Lysander righted the chair and Glockner’s head lolled, a length of thick saliva falling from his mouth and dangling there, swaying like a lucent pendulum.

Lysander untied him quickly and dragged and laid him back on the rug again. He unplugged the flex and wound it round his palm before stuffing it in his pocket. He found Glockner’s attaché case on the floor by the desk and flipped it open, sliding the wad of 25, 000 francs into an internal pocket. He closed it and replaced it on the floor. He gathered up the lengths of rope and the scouring pads and threw them in his grip along with the libretto of Andromeda und Perseus . He had a final check of the room and the kitchen. He smoothed some ripples in the rug and straightened the books on the second shelf from the top so there was no noticeable gap. He closed the glass door. An unconscious man on his back, with not a mark on him. 25, 000 francs inside his attaché case. A standard lamp without a flex. Solve that mystery.

He stood for a moment in the hall, running through everything for a final time. Thank you, the Hon. Hugh Faulkner, thank you. He felt himself beginning to shiver. It was terrifying how easy it had been — no blood, no effort, even — just some logical thought and the application of electric current. Stop. Concentrate. From his grip he took a light Macintosh and a flat cotton golfing cap and put them on. The man leaving the building wouldn’t look like the man who entered. He pulled the door to behind him, leaving the key in the lock on the inside. He went down the stairs calmly, meeting no one and was glad to note that the concierge was still at church and the little boy had left his post. Lysander stepped out on to the street and strode away. He looked at his wristwatch — 10. 40 — he hadn’t even been in Herr Glockner’s apartment for an hour.

He spent the afternoon painstakingly decoding the Glockner letters — it kept his mind on the job. As the contents slowly revealed themselves — it was laborious work — it became obvious to him that what was being detailed in them was the movement of munitions and matériel from England to various sections of the front line.

On one page: “Fifteen hundred tons HE six inch to St Other to Béthune.”