Dominion (66 page)

Ben turned to him with a grin. ‘Always been the most left-wing union in Britain, the firemen. Good Socialists. Let’s just say this is no’ a real call.’

The firemen and policemen were talking urgently now. David couldn’t hear at first but then their voices rose, one of the policemen shouting, ‘This whole area’s cordoned off.
Nobody in or out.’

‘But the police at Priory Street let us through the other end. We’re on our way to a big fire—’

‘They shouldn’t have! Orders are to seal these streets off!’

‘Listen, it’s a hospital fire! There’s people trapped, they can’t get out! And we’ve got to get another mile through this. D’you want to be responsible for
kids and old folk getting burned to death? Do you?’

David saw another figure slip down from the back of the fire engine, quiet and stealthy. He walked across the pavement, slipping along the park railings, and Ben shook a bush to attract his
attention. A man in fireman’s uniform stood before them, a pale young face under a helmet that looked too big for him.

‘Quick,’ the young man whispered. ‘Get over the fence. Climb on the back of the engine.’

The police hadn’t seen them through the fog, and a few yards away the argument was still raging. The fireman ran back across the pavement to the back of the engine, half crouching, the
others climbing over silently and following. ‘Come on!’ the young man breathed. ‘Up the back!’

It was a difficult climb – over six feet up the side of the fire engine on slippery metal steps. There David found himself in the open back of the vehicle, and they all crouched down,
beside the long, coiled hose and the lower end of the turntable ladder, crowded closely together. The fireman whispered, ‘Hold onto something, we’ll be going fast!’ David grasped
a rail as tightly as he could. Like everything in the smog, it felt wet and slippery. He saw the fireman was clutching a pistol.

He heard footsteps returning to the fire engine, the cab doors shutting and the revving of a motor; the firemen must have persuaded the policemen to move their car. Then he was jolted backwards
as the fire engine started up. In a blare of noise they were off, the police car and the shadowy figures around it disappearing in a blur. They sped on down the main road, at what seemed a mad,
suicidal pace. They passed a car that was crawling along ahead of them, grazing it, the jolt running through their bodies. Beside David the young fireman let out a whoop. ‘We did it, we
fucking did it!’ He brandished a fist in the air. ‘We’ll go down in fucking history for this!’

On David’s other side Natalia’s hair was flying in the wind. She said to the fireman, ‘There was another man with us, he’s very important. He panicked and ran
off.’

The young man turned to her. ‘We’ve got him too! He turned up at the local church, they’ve got him safe.’ There was a loud hoot from a car coming in the opposite
direction, only visible for a second before the fire engine managed to swerve aside. David hoped to God they didn’t hit a pedestrian, or a wall. But he knew that fire-engine drivers were
incredibly skilled, and the huge, powerful vehicle could knock any other vehicle aside. He looked at the fireman. ‘He’s all right? Frank?’

The young man’s face was alive with excitement. ‘Yes. That’s what I mean! We’re going down in fucking history!’

It sunk in then: Frank was alive.

G
UNTHER SAT AT HIS DESK IN
Senate House, four photographs laid out on his desk. There was also a blank sheet of paper,
Unknown woman
written on
it in his small, neat hand. He looked at the pictures: Muncaster, his admission photograph from the hospital, the thin, beaky face wild-eyed and distorted in a monkey-like grin, showing every tooth
in his head; the Civil Service personnel photos of Fitzgerald and Drax; and finally a young man holding a card with a prison number written on it, his face scowling and angry. Special Branch filing
clerks had laboured hard to match Ben Hall’s personnel photographs from the asylum with this man. Real name Donald McCall; jailbird, member of the Communist Party since the thirties, and
other things too, some very unpleasant.

Gunther looked again at Drax’s photograph. The only one those Special Branch clowns had managed to catch in the raid. Shot in the chest, but still alive. Gunther looked at the long nose
and chin, the fair hair and moustache. A strong face but not a happy one.

Gunther had been right; the questioning of Resistance informers in London which he had set in train had thrown up the O’Sheas, known opponents of the regime, and loyal neighbours had
spoken of a visitor with an upper-class accent who matched Fitzgerald’s description. But when Syme and the police raided the house there had been a firefight, and only Drax had been taken
alive. Four of them had fled, including Muncaster from the descriptions. Now the police were putting up roadblocks, but the smog was delaying everything. Gessler had said, at least if the fugitives
got away they could blame it squarely on the British. But Berlin still needed Muncaster, alive.

Gunther had already had one interview with Drax. He lay on a bench in a cell downstairs, a heavily bloodstained bandage round his chest. Normally, it was a good idea to leave
prisoners to stew alone in their cells for a few hours, work up a panic about what might be done to them, but Drax was too ill. He was coughing when Gunther came in; he looked at the end of his
physical tether. He looked up at Gunther, the expression in his blue eyes one of helpless anger. Gunther said, ‘They’ve patched you up, I see.’

Drax just gave Gunther a furious glare.

‘The doctor thinks you’ve a sinus infection as well as a chest injury. Not surprising, with this filthy smog. I get similar trouble with all the building dust in Berlin. Would you
like some water?’

‘No.’ His voice was very hoarse.

‘Well, suit yourself. You had a cyanide pill on you, I’m told.’

‘My bad luck I didn’t get the chance to use it.’

‘I expect your friends have them too. We know Mrs O’Shea used hers.’

‘I won’t tell you anything,’ Drax said, bleakly, without bravado. ‘I know what you do to people who don’t talk, you might as well just get started.’

‘Geoffrey Simon Drax. You went to university with David Fitzgerald and Frank Muncaster, worked in Africa, then after you came back to a desk job in the Colonial Office you started
supplying secrets to the Resistance. That whole Civil Service spy ring’s going to unwind now.’

Drax just stared at him. Gunther studied his exhausted face. A very Aryan face, probably of Saxon or Norman ancestry. The sort of Englishman, he guessed, who believed in ‘noblesse
oblige’, bringing civilization to the poor natives of the Empire, as though an empire could be built on anything but power. He admired Drax’s sort in a way, though, they were tough.
‘I’m not planning to hurt you,’ he said gently. ‘Why did you join the Resistance?’

‘I’ve told you, I’ll say nothing.’

Gunther shrugged. ‘It was just curiosity. We’re not interested in the Civil Service spies. The British authorities can deal with that. It’s Frank Muncaster we want to know
about: why you took him, what you’re planning to do with him. What he knows, why you’re keeping him alive.’

‘I’ll say nothing.’

It was the answer Gunther had expected, though it was a pity. Well, he had his plans. He turned back to the door. ‘I’ll get you that water,’ he said.

Gunther made some telephone calls, then he had a long conversation with the naval people at Portsmouth about monitoring radio activity on the south coast. Finally he spoke to
Gessler, who wanted to be present at the next interrogation stage.

Half an hour afterwards there was a knock at the door and Syme came in. He looked tired and discontented and brought the sulphurous reek of the fog in with him. Gunther invited him to sit. Syme
sat with one leg over the other, jiggling his foot. Gunther said, ‘You haven’t found them, have you? Muncaster and his people?’ If they had, Syme would have been cock-a-hoop.

‘No. There’s been another balls-up, we think they’ve got out of the area they were holed up in. We cordoned it off; we were starting a house-to-house search.’ He shook
his head. ‘But the police allowed a fire engine right through the closed-off area. The firemen said they’d been called to a hospital fire. They waited till it had gone through before
checking with the fire station and found out there was no sodding fire. We’re afraid they picked up Muncaster and his people. A fire engine and its crew have gone AWOL.’

Gunther leaned back in his chair. He didn’t feel angry; he seemed to be past anger now with this mission. Syme continued, ‘The Fire Brigades Union were always fucking lefties, we
made the union illegal as it’s a public service but some of the bastards are still there.’ He shook his head again. ‘I suppose the Gestapo would have taken the risk of letting a
hospital burn down.’

‘We would, if we needed to catch important people.’

Syme said, unexpectedly, ‘You must think we’re a bunch of useless fannies.’

‘Oh, we make mistakes too,’ Gunther said. They still needed Syme and his people. ‘Are you all right, you weren’t hurt in the raid?’

‘Not a scratch. Any word of the one we shot?’

‘He’s not co-operating. Unsurprisingly. I’m having steps taken to encourage him.’

Syme gave a lubricious smile. It reminded Gunther of how much he disliked him. ‘Rough stuff?’

Gunther inclined his head. ‘In a manner of speaking.’

‘Good.’ Syme nodded at the photographs. ‘Is that them? The group in that house?’

‘Yes.’

Syme pointed at David and Ben. ‘I saw them. And a woman. Tall, pretty, brown hair. I’ve written down a description.’ He smiled sourly. ‘She was shooting at me at the
time, so I remember her. And I glimpsed Muncaster again.’ He looked at Muncaster’s photo, then shook his head. ‘All this for that weird-looking loony.’

The telephone rang. Gunther thanked the caller, then stood up. ‘Well,’ he said. ‘The arrangements I wanted are in place. I’m going down to see Drax again.
Standartenführer Gessler is attending too, I must ring him.’

Syme said, ‘Can I come?’

Gunther hesitated, then nodded. ‘Yes, why not?’

Drax was still sitting on the bunk but this time there was a man in SS uniform beside him: Kapp, a foxy little man in his thirties, lean but fit-looking, who Gunther knew
specialized in what Syme had called ‘the rough stuff’. Gessler was there already, in a corner of the room, standing with his arms folded, glaring angrily at Drax through his pince-nez.
One eyelid twitched occasionally. A grey-haired, bespectacled man in a technician’s white coat was setting up a cine camera on a tripod on the other side of the room; Drax was looking at him
uncomprehendingly, Kapp with keen curiosity, Gessler with a little secret smile, because he knew what was coming.

Gunther addressed Drax, inclining his head towards Syme. ‘You remember this man?’

‘He was at the O’Sheas’ house.’

‘That’s right,’ Syme said with a smile. ‘Chest all right?’

Drax didn’t answer. The technician opened a circular can and inserted a roll of film into the projector. ‘What’s this?’ Syme asked.

‘We’re going to have a film show,’ Gessler said with a nasty smile. The technician unrolled a white screen and set it up against the opposite wall. He spoke to Gunther.
‘We should have the lights off, sir. They’re very bright.’

‘Yes.’ Gunther nodded to Kapp, who left the cell, switched out the light and returned, closing the door with a clang. The technician turned a switch and there was a whirring sound in
the darkness. Then the image of another cell appeared on the screen. The film, Gunther noted with approval, was in colour. The other cell in the film had a metal table and a chair, and the woman
Carol Bennett sat tied to the chair with ropes. Her hands were fixed to the table by straps on each wrist. She wore a stained white smock, and her hair was pulled back. Two guards stood behind her,
one holding her shoulders. She looked terrified. Gunther heard Drax say, softly, ‘Oh no.’

‘Recognize her?’ Gunther asked.

‘It’s Miss Bennett, she’s a friend of David’s. She’s nothing to do with us –’ his voice rose ‘– she’s nothing to do with the
Resistance.’

‘We know.’

In the film another man stepped into view. He wore a long green smock, like a surgeon’s, and he held a large hacksaw with a serrated blade. Gunther glanced at Syme. He was leaning forward
slightly.

The man with a hacksaw said, ‘Hold the right hand steady.’

Carol began to scream. ‘Stop! No! Stop, stop!’ She was struggling wildly now but one of the guards grasped her shoulders firmly while the other stepped forward and held her hand
down. Without another word the man with the hacksaw leaned over and took a grip of her little finger. He brought the hacksaw down on it, just above the knuckle, and began to saw. Blood spurted over
the table. Carol screamed and pleaded for them to stop but none of them took the remotest notice. They were implacable. In the dimness Gunther heard a horrified gasp from Drax, then a brief scuffle
as he tried to get up. Kapp held him down. He started coughing again, a choking sound. Gunther looked back at the screen; Carol Bennett’s little finger had been severed, it was lying on the
table, blood still leaking from her mutilated hand. She was still screaming as the man laid down his hacksaw, unstrapped her hand and with brisk efficiency held it up, tying a tourniquet round the
wrist. The film ended suddenly, the screen going blank. The projector was still on, faintly illuminating the room. Drax shouted, ‘You bastards, you—’ His voice broke in another
wild fit of coughing.

‘That took place a couple of hours ago,’ Gunther said quietly. ‘Before we turned her over to the British Special Branch. She’d warned Fitzgerald to get away from his
office, you see.’

Gessler stepped away from the wall. ‘That was just what you call the B picture. The main feature is next.’

Drax had stopped coughing, gone quiet again. Through the semi-darkness Gunther caught the glint in his wild eyes. He nodded to the cameraman. The man clipped another reel to the projector,
working with surprising agility in the near-dark; Gunther supposed he must be used to it. Another cell appeared on the screen, another chair and table. A man stood, clutching a heavy carving knife,
dressed in a leather apron, leather gloves. The camera panned round, showing an elderly man and woman, each held by a guard. They were naked, white, wrinkled flesh exposed, the woman’s
breasts long and sagging. They held each other’s hands; both were shaking, faces full of fear. Drax screamed out, ‘Mum! Dad! No! Stop!’