Dominion

Chapter Forty-Two

DRESSED IN A BATHROBE, Gunther stood looking through the window of his flat, into the smog. It was horrible, poisonous, greasy stuff; it had appeared in the middle of the day and got steadily worse. Walking home from Senate House he had had to feel his way, one of thousands of shadowy figures groping along the dark streets, his throat smarting painfully. He had just watched the weather forecast on television and it was going to continue; some expert had appeared and talked about high streams of warm air trapping cold air underneath, the effect of millions of coal fires in the Thames valley. This will make our task even harder, Gunther thought.

He turned away, tiredness and a sense of failure in his very bones. At the embassy, Gessler was a pale shadow of his old self; Gunther often found him sitting staring blankly into space, helpless. After the events of the past week it was an easy state to fall into. Five days, five days since the lunatic Muncaster was lifted from the asylum, and they still had nothing. Every enquiry had drawn a blank.

Gessler had been very different on Monday, when the news came through that Muncaster had been taken. He had raved and shouted, full of angry panic. Gunther, though, had stayed calm, the remote calm that often came upon him in a crisis, though inside he felt a sinking in his stomach, as though he were in a lift whose descent went on and on.

‘This is a hunt now, not an enquiry,’ Gessler had said when he calmed down a little. ‘If only we’d got Muncaster out before! It’s not my fault, I won’t be blamed!’

‘The important thing now, sir, is to find him.’

Gessler flicked him an angry glance. ‘I will be blamed, you know, and so will you. If he gets away – we’ll be shot. Scapegoats for Berlin’s failure to get him.’

More likely we’ll both be sent to some dangerous posting out East, Gunther thought. That was what he had craved anyway, an honourable end to his lonely life, though something in him resisted the idea now. He wanted, very much, to find Muncaster, to complete his mission. He said, ‘If we’re to find him, and those who took him, we’ll need to bring Special Branch in fully now. We’ll have to let them have everyone involved in the Civil Service spy ring.’

‘I know. I’ve spoken to Berlin.’ A note of self-pity, then a sharp glance. ‘I’ve had to tell them about the mess-up at the Fitzgerald house.’

‘Yes,’ Gessler replied. On Saturday afternoon, Gunther had learned how the SS man, in plain clothes, had got to the old air-raid shelter, broken in, and then spent hours watching the house through binoculars. As nobody entered or left, and no lights came on as it got dark, the man realized there was nobody there. Then a police car came and some men went up to the house, then round the back. The SS man ran across the little park to the house and knocked on the door. An angry policeman answered. Behind him another uniformed officer was lying dead in the hall. Sarah Fitzgerald was gone, had been before their man arrived.

Gessler said, ‘I was hours on the phone yesterday. I couldn’t get hold of the right people, nobody was available, the senior people are all in meetings. Something big’s happening over there. But there’s nothing we can do about it. More hours wasted.’ He drew himself upright in his chair. ‘They confirm that from now on it’s full co-operation with the British Special Branch. I don’t know what the information is that Muncaster has, only little hints, but if the British police find out—’ He shrugged. ‘It’ll be up to Berlin to sort it out with Beaverbrook. And forget what I told you about eliminating Syme if he got hold of anything from Muncaster. As I say, full co-operation. The Branch are being asked to devote major resources to finding Muncaster. A nationwide manhunt. You and Syme will work on the Fitzgerald angle. Dabb and Hubbold and the Bennett woman are being arrested tonight and brought here. You and Syme are to question them, then chase up everyone connected with Fitzgerald and Drax. Everyone.

‘They’re clever, our enemies. The Bolsheviks and Jews,’ Gessler continued, with quiet anger. ‘We always knew that, we knew how hard the fight would be.’ He shook his head. ‘The Jews were going to be moved to the Isle of Wight today, but this damned smog’s put paid to that.’

‘It won’t last, sir. And we will win,’ Gunther said. But, along with relief that he would not have to kill Syme, doubt was flickering inside him now, about the possibilities of success for the mission and what was happening in Germany; it was eating him up, exhausting him.

When he met Syme in his office, late on Sunday, Gunther expected the Special Branch inspector to be full of himself, triumphant that the Branch were taking the lead. But he wasn’t. Syme was angry that Muncaster had escaped, that, as he put it, ‘the bloody bastard Resistance had scored’. And killed a policeman, one of their own. Gunther could understand that.

‘We’ll get that fucking loony,’ Syme said viciously.

‘I’m glad you feel like that.’

Syme gave him a hard look. ‘You should have taken Muncaster earlier.’

‘I know. We met with all sorts of political difficulties.’

‘We think we’ve found the identity of the attendant, the one who left with Muncaster. A Scottish Communist, we’ve been after him for years. We think they gave him a new identity and a new trade when things got too hot for him up North. He was already working at the mental hospital so they used him with Muncaster. Some of the things that Scottish bastard’s done –’ he shook his head ‘– even before he got involved in politics – you wouldn’t believe the sort of scum they recruit.’ Syme continued, ‘It seems likely Fitzgerald and Drax were already working as spies and then were brought into this because they knew Muncaster.’

‘That makes sense.’

‘According to Fitzgerald’s personnel file there’s some old uncle in Northampton. I wish we could get hold of his father, too, but he’s beyond our reach. I’m told the Dominions Office people we spoke to last week are being brought here for joint interviews with us tomorrow. Let’s scare them a bit.’

Gunther said mildly, ‘Will you let me take the lead on the interviews?’ He thought, Syme might go at them too hard, especially the woman.

Syme smiled grimly. ‘All right.’

The old Dominions Office Registrar, Dabb, was first. He was fetched into the interview room where Gunther had interrogated Sarah, by one of the young SS jailers. He was terrified, sweating so profusely Gunther feared he might have a seizure.

‘Please.’ Dabb stared at them with desperate appeal. ‘I’m just a clerk. I’m nobody. I don’t know anything, I don’t have any politics – you shouldn’t have politics in the Civil Service. That Fitzgerald, he’s nothing to do with me. He’s one of Archie Hubbold’s protégés,’ he added with sudden viciousness.

Gunther asked, ‘And Miss Bennett?’

Dabb lost control completely now, shouting out a string of obscenities: ‘Fucking traitorous whore! Eyeing Fitzgerald like a bitch in heat – don’t think I encouraged it, I didn’t, I was always watching them—’

‘It seems you did not watch carefully enough, if Fitzgerald got access to the room with the secret files.’

At that Dabb collapsed. ‘I did my best. All my life, I just tried to do my best at my job. Just my best, my best . . .’

Soon Gunther realized there was nothing more to be got out of the ridiculous old man; he had never even heard the name Muncaster. He was taken back to his cell and Archibald Hubbold was brought in. In contrast to his colleague, Hubbold stepped into the room quite coolly, took a seat and stared at Gunther and Syme with an air of injured innocence. Gunther thought, he’s got courage, the limited courage of the stupid. He didn’t realize what they could do to him if they wanted. Behind his thick glasses Hubbold’s eyes moved like slow, heavy fish.

‘Have you ever heard the name Francis Muncaster?’ Gunther asked, mildly.

Hubbold frowned, thought a minute, then shook his head. ‘He’s not Dominions Office Establishment.’ He set his lips. ‘Is he another traitor, in some other department?’

‘Fitzgerald never mentioned the name to you?’

Hubbold thought again. ‘Never.’

Syme said, with a grin, ‘Old Dabb told us Fitzgerald was one of your protégés.’

‘I liked Fitzgerald, yes,’ Hubbold said, his tone pompously sorrowful. ‘I brought him along, gave him more responsibility. He seemed conscientious, loyal. Clever, too. He lacked ambition, but clever people don’t always have that.’

‘It sounds like an almost filial relationship.’

Hubbold’s face darkened a little. ‘I thought it was, almost. I trusted him.’

‘Did you know about his friendship with Carol Bennett?’

‘There was some gossip within the office. I don’t take notice of petty gossip. I valued Fitzgerald’s work,’ he added heavily.

Syme said, ‘Took some of the load off you, did he?’

‘He was a hard worker.’

‘And you never had any inkling he might be a spy?’ Gunther asked.

‘No. Why should I?’ Hubbold set his lips hard, smoothed a hand over his white hair. He leaned forward, and then said in a voice trembling with anger, ‘A civil servant betraying his minister, it’s the worst treachery. I will help you any way I can.’

Hubbold told them everything about David’s work then, his routines, the occasional social meetings with the wives. It was all quite useless: Fitzgerald had taken Hubbold in completely. Gunther wondered, does he realize his career is over, early retirement’s his best hope now? We could make things much nastier for him than that, in here, right now; Gessler probably would have, just from frustration, but what was the point? When he was sure Hubbold had told them all he knew Gunther said, ‘I think that’s enough for now. Do you agree, William?’

Syme nodded wearily.

Hubbold frowned, turned to Gunther. ‘I wish to help you all I can.’

‘I know.’

‘Fitzgerald didn’t just betray his department, he betrayed me personally. That’s what hurts most,’ he added. ‘I’ll be frank. I don’t always approve of the things my government is doing. But they’re my government. What Fitzgerald did – his betrayal of a post of responsibility – I find it unspeakable.’ He clenched his hands in anger.

He wanted vengeance; Gunther wasn’t interested. ‘Thank you, Mr Hubbold. Good morning,’ he said, dismissively.

Hubbold rose, suddenly uncertain.

‘Do I – can I go to the office tomorrow?’

Syme gave him a wolfish grin. ‘No, mate. Doubt you’ll be going there any more. You stay at home. The Branch will be wanting to talk to you again.’

Hubbold looked stricken. He’d realized, at last.

The SS man who showed Hubbold out gave Syme a telephone message. He showed it to Gunther. A Special Branch man had driven up to Northampton to speak to Fitzgerald’s uncle. He turned out to be a crotchety old man in his eighties who couldn’t tell them anything about his great-nephew. The old man had said David Fitzgerald and his wife had airs and graces, David had forgotten his Irish roots. Then he had started insulting the English. The note ended with the words, ‘Reprimand issued.’ Syme laughed. ‘That means our man gave him a bit of a smack. It doesn’t matter, does it?’

‘We don’t want any unnecessary attention, so be careful in future, please. Now, let’s have Miss Bennett in.’

Carol Bennett came into the interview room looking dishevelled and frightened, her big eyes staring. Gunther had decided to be direct and sharp. He leaned back, folded his hands over his stomach and said, ‘Your foolishness has landed you in a mess, Miss Bennett. That is, if it was indeed just foolishness. If you’ve actually been helping the Resistance you’d be better off confessing everything now, and appealing to your government for mercy.’

‘I haven’t.’ She looked terrified. ‘Dear God, I haven’t.’ She took a deep breath, tried to collect herself. ‘Please, when I was arrested this morning I had to leave my mother. She’s ill, she might go wandering the streets. Can’t you at least let me arrange someone to look after her?’

‘Your mother will have to fend for herself for now. Your friend David Fitzgerald ran away from the Dominions Office on Friday. The question is, how did he know we were there? I’ve been thinking, you were the only one in a position to tell him.’

Syme joined in. ‘If you don’t tell us, there are people down here who’ll get it out of you. Afterwards your poor old mother won’t recognize you.’

It was brutal but it worked. Carol said, ‘It was me. I warned him.’

‘Why?’

She put her head down. ‘I love him.’

Gunther said, ‘Did you give him access to secret files? Look at me, please.’

She looked up, her large eyes full of tears. ‘No. I didn’t know anything about all this until you came to the office. I didn’t help David. I never gave him any access to my files, I wouldn’t have if he’d asked but he didn’t, ever.’

‘You never gave him your keys?’

‘No. I swear. I always used to keep my key in my handbag. And I had to hand it in whenever I went out.’

Gunther thought a minute, picked up a pencil and tapped it on the table. ‘Is the key numbered?’

She looked puzzled. ‘Yes, there’s a number on the tag.’

‘And who makes the keys?’

‘I’ve no idea. The Ministry of Works, I suppose.’

Gunther remembered a case his father had been involved with long ago, a locksmith who made keys for safety deposit boxes at a bank and who, given a number, could make a duplicate. ‘Could he have seen the number on the key?’

She looked stricken. That was it, Gunther thought, that was why Fitzgerald had befriended her, in the hope he could get a look at the key. He saw that she realized it, too. Syme looked puzzled, then very interested. ‘There’s someone who makes locks for the government involved in this?’

‘Possibly.’

‘He looked at the number somehow while she was looking between his legs?’ Carol flinched as though she had been hit.

‘Maybe.’ Gunther turned to Carol, who had flushed a deep red. ‘Did Mr Fitzgerald ever mention the name Muncaster?’

‘Who?’

‘A friend of his. Frank Muncaster.’

‘No. The only friend of his I knew of was a Mr Drax.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘I swear. In God’s name.’

Gunther saw she was telling the truth. The disappointment must have shown in his face, because Syme said, ‘I want her when you’ve finished, I want to find out more about how Fitzgerald got hold of that key. We’ll take her to Special Branch HQ.’

‘Agreed.’

‘Please,’ Carol said. ‘Can I make arrangements for my mother?’

‘Fuck your mother,’ Syme replied.

Carol looked at Gunther, desperation flashing in her eyes. ‘There’s something else I can tell you,’ she said. ‘It’s all I know, it’s the last thing I’ve kept to myself.’

Gunther raised his eyebrows.

‘It’s about Mrs Fitzgerald. I’ve thought about it, if I tell you it can’t hurt her, because it shows she wasn’t working with David.’ She spoke in a rush, about Sarah’s visit to her, her belief that David had been having an affair with her. ‘I told her about warning him that day. I told her it looked as though he could be a spy. She was shocked, she didn’t know. So you see, now I’ve told you everything.’

‘You warned her, and before that you warned him,’ Gunther said levelly. ‘If it wasn’t for you we would have got him. The British authorities will deal with your treason.’ Gunther couldn’t feel sorry for her; this was the sort of woman who wrecked marriages, ruined other people’s lives. ‘How well did you know Geoffrey Drax?’ he asked.

‘Not well,’ she answered, her voice shaking. ‘I met him a few times. But he’s a reserved man, not easy to know.’

‘Did you discuss politics with any of these people?’

‘No. You don’t in the Civil Service, unless you know someone well. David and I never – never crossed that barrier.’

He asked bluntly, ‘So you and Fitzgerald never slept together?’

She shook her head. Tears had begun to roll down her cheeks.

‘He was almost certainly using you, you know.’

She looked at him with a sudden fierceness. ‘I loved him. I kept hoping he’d – it’s hard for a woman, you know, you can’t make the first move the way a man can.’ She gave a fractured laugh. ‘Just seeing him, just going to concerts with him, and lunch, it was – almost like a drug. A little makes you want more, doesn’t it?’

‘Fucking tart,’ Syme said.

She looked down again, spent.

‘Well, Miss Bennett,’ Gunther said heavily, ‘now the scales have fallen from your eyes.’ He thought of his wife. He had loved her, too, right up to his discovery of her betrayal.

She looked at him. ‘I still love him. Think of me how you like. I can’t help it.’ It was pathetic, yet said with an odd dignity. Gunther felt a twinge. He looked at Syme. ‘Perhaps you could get the local police to visit her mother, see if they can arrange something. After all, we don’t want the old woman making a public scene.’

Syme shrugged. ‘I suppose so. But I want this one taken to Special Branch HQ.’

‘I’ll get our people to arrange a car.’

Carol cringed back in her chair. ‘I advise you to talk as freely, Miss Bennett,’ Gunther said severely, ‘as you have here.’

Syme smiled. ‘We’ll make sure of that.’

Afterwards he and Syme went up to his office to talk. So far as Muncaster was concerned they had found out nothing. They found nothing the next day either, or the next. Muncaster and Drax and the Fitzgeralds were gone, vanished, no doubt hiding somewhere in the network of Resistance safe houses. Muncaster’s fellow workers were questioned again, and some of his old fellow-students at university. Drax’s parents, too. None of them knew anything. Gunther learned from Syme that all sorts of enquiries were going on in the Civil Service; MI5 had been brought in now. Gunther said he was glad, but he wasn’t really interested in the spy ring.

On Friday afternoon, a week after Fitzgerald’s flight, a thick fog came down, in the afternoon, smothering London. Gunther’s office was at the top of Senate House and from the window he saw an odd thing; the smog did not quite reach the top of the building, so from his office he could look down on it. He had an extraordinary view of a greyish-yellow sea, stretching to the horizon. It was like the poisonous atmosphere of some alien planet, with only the very tops of the tallest buildings visible. It was one of the strangest things he had ever seen. Above the smog the air was milky-white, the winter sun just visible as a pale red orb.

Syme came in; he walked across and joined Gunther at the window. ‘Jesus Christ,’ he said.

‘I hope it doesn’t last.’ Gunther looked at him. ‘Any news?’

‘Nothing. We’ve plenty of agents in the Resistance, but nobody’s seen or heard anything of these people. And trawling the whole country, it’s going to take a hell of a time.’

‘Any progress on the Civil Service spies?’

‘A few leads. They haven’t come to anything yet, but they will. I’m not allowed to talk to you about it,’ Syme added, ‘only if something comes up that is relevant to Muncaster.’

‘I understand,’ Gunther said. ‘We’ll get there, you know. We will.’ He smiled encouragingly. ‘You will get your promotion, your exciting job in the North, a big house there to go with your new Jew’s one.’

‘And you?’

Gunther shrugged. They both looked down at the fog. It swirled and eddied below them, the top lit by a reddish tinge now as the sun began to set. Gunther smiled. ‘This view reminds me of a story I learned at school.’ He began to quote from the Bible. ‘He took Jesus to a high place, and showed him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them; and said, “All these things I will give thee, to have dominion over, if you will fall down and worship me”.’ He frowned. ‘That is not quite right. Was it “dominion” or “power”? Anyway, it was something like that.’

‘Jesus was a Jew, wasn’t he? Who was it who took Jesus to the high place?’

Gunther shrugged. Then he remembered, with a superstitious shiver, that it had been the Devil.

‘My parents never took me to church,’ Syme said.

‘You were lucky.’ Gunther smiled again, sadly. ‘It was very dull.’

When Gunther left Senate House that evening he had to navigate the streets by memory, walking right next to the buildings, a hand touching the walls, bumping into people who were doing the same. The walls were damp, the fog thick and stinking of sulphur. The fumes made his nose and throat sore. He was relieved when he got back to the flat. He knew that he needed to think, to try to find some way forward. He had a bath and a meal. After looking out he drew the curtains against the horrible night and sat at the table in his bathrobe, a strong cup of coffee beside him.

The interrogations, the telephone calls, all the frantic activity had taken them nowhere. They had to find a new way of thinking.

He got up, pacing the thick carpet. He was starting a headache; the fog had brought it on just as the dust gave him headaches in Berlin. He thought, what would the Resistance people do with Muncaster now they had him? What would he do if he were them, had hold of someone with a big secret, who was mentally ill, and unstable? Kill him, surely, to prevent him being captured and telling all he knew. Muncaster had wanted to kill himself anyway.

But the man calling himself Ben Hall could easily have killed him at the hospital. No, they wanted him alive. Why? It had to be because of the Americans. It had all started with them. They must have put the British Resistance up to this. He thought, they’re going to try and get Muncaster to America.

He went to the window and pulled aside the curtain again. Outside, thick, gluey darkness, the faintest fuzzy glow from a streetlight below the flat, car horns breaking the silence – distant, muted, like sounds from a ship out at sea. Was that how they would try to get Muncaster away, on a merchant ship going to America? Descriptions and photographs had already been circulated to the ports. He thought, in his mental state, and with his damaged hand, Muncaster would be easy to spot. No, they wouldn’t risk a ship.

An aircraft? He dismissed that, too. Security at the airports would be even tighter than at the ports. A submarine, that was surely the most likely option. An American military submarine. It was known they sometimes came into the Channel.

He crossed to the bookcase. He pulled out an atlas and looked at the map of England. Birmingham, where they had started from, was right in the centre of the country. They would have to get Muncaster to the coast, but probably have to hole up somewhere for a while first. If a submarine were picking them up it would have to be from a southern or western port. The Welsh coast? Devon or Cornwall? Certainly nowhere too near the Isle of Wight, under German control. Sussex or Kent? He thought, if it were me I’d set it up so they could go due south, the shortest way via London. He ran his finger down the long straight line of the motorway from Birmingham to London. They could hide up in the city. They would have to wait for the right weather, a calm sea and a moonlit night – then travel from there to the Sussex or Kent coast.

He thought, if it was a submarine it would communicate with the coast by radio. But how to find the wavelength, the code? He took a slug of coffee. He thought of Muncaster, that piteous little man, led down a beach somewhere. A picture of his own son, playing on the sand in Krimea, came unexpectedly into his mind. He thought it all through again, looking for holes in his theory. Then he went to the telephone. He would call the embassy, tell Gessler the German authorities on the Isle of Wight should be told to watch for a submarine, listen for radio signals. First, though, he telephoned Syme, at home. He took a little while to answer, and he sounded sleepy. It was past one o’clock; Gunther had lost track of time.

‘I have been thinking, William. I believe Muncaster and his people may be in London. How many agents inside the Resistance do you have in the city?’

‘A good few.’

‘I think you should concentrate here. Try to sweep up as much of the London Resistance as you can. Do you think that would be possible?’

Syme said, ‘Usually we only do that if we’ve hopes of netting some big fish.’

‘Muncaster is a very big fish. And his people have killed one of yours in the city.’

‘This weather won’t make it easier.’

‘It won’t help them either. It’ll make it harder for them to move around. Can we meet early tomorrow? First thing? I’m at home now, but I’m going to the embassy straight away.’

‘In this fog? It’s the middle of the night.’

‘Justice never sleeps,’ Gunther said.