Eye of the Needle (25 page)

28

P
ERCIVAL GODLIMAN FELT REFRESHED, DETERMINED,
even—rare for him—inspired.

When he reflected on it, this made him uncomfortable. Pep talks were for the rank-and-file, and intellectuals believed themselves immune from inspirational speeches. Yet, although he knew that the great man’s performance had been carefully scripted, the crescendos and diminuendos of the speech predetermined like a symphony, nevertheless it
had
worked on him, as effectively as if he had been the captain of the school cricket team hearing last-minute exhortations from the games master.

He got back to his office itching to do
something
.

He dropped his umbrella in the umbrella stand, hung up his wet raincoat and looked at himself in the mirror on the inside of the cupboard door. Without doubt something had happened to his face since he became one of England’s spy-catchers. The other day he had come across a photograph of himself taken in 1937, with a group of students at a seminar in Oxford. In those days he actually looked older than he did now: pale skin, wispy hair, the patchy shave and ill-fitting clothes of a retired man. The wispy hair had gone; he was now bald except for a monkish fringe. His clothes were those of a business executive, not a teacher. It seemed to him—he might, he supposed, have been imagining it—that the set of his jaw was firmer, his eyes were brighter, and he took more care shaving.

He sat down behind his desk and lit a cigarette.
That
innovation was not welcome; he had developed a cough, tried to give it up, and discovered that he had become addicted. But almost everybody smoked in wartime Britain, even some of the women. Well, they were doing men’s jobs—they were entitled to masculine vices. The smoke caught in Godliman’s throat, making him cough. He put the cigarette out in the tin lid he used for an ashtray (crockery was scarce).

The trouble with being inspired to perform the impossible, he reflected, was that the inspiration gave you no clues to the practical means. He recalled his college thesis about the travels of an obscure medieval monk called Thomas of the Tree. Godliman had set himself the minor but difficult task of plotting the monk’s itinerary over a five-year period. There had been a baffling gap of eight months when he had been either in Paris or Canterbury but Godliman had been unable to determine which, and this had threatened the value of the whole project. The records he was using simply did not contain the information. If the monk’s stay had gone unrecorded, then there was no way to find out where he had been, and that was that. With the optimism of youth, young Godliman had refused to believe that the information was just not there, and he had worked on the assumption that
somewhere
there had to be a record of how Thomas had spent those months—despite the well-known fact that almost everything that happened in the Middle Ages went unrecorded. If Thomas was not in Paris or Canterbury he must have been in transit between the two, Godliman had argued; and then he had found shipping records in an Amsterdam museum that showed that Thomas had boarded a vessel bound for Dover that got blown off course and was eventually wrecked on the Irish coast. This model piece of historical research was what got Godliman his professorship.

He might try applying that kind of thinking to the problem of what had happened to Faber.

It was most likely that Faber had drowned. If he had not, then he was probably in Germany by now. Neither of those possibilities presented any course of action Godliman could follow, so they should be discounted. He must assume that Faber was alive and had reached land somewhere.

He left his office and went down one flight of stairs to the map room. His uncle, Colonel Terry, was there, standing in front of the map of Europe with a cigarette between his lips. Godliman realized that this was a familiar sight in the War Office these days: senior men gazing entranced at maps, silently making their own computations of whether the war would be won or lost. He guessed it was because all the plans had been made, the vast machine had been set in motion, and for those who made the big decisions there was nothing to do but wait and see if they had been right.

Terry saw him come in and said, “How did you get on with the great man?”

“He was drinking whisky,” Godliman said.

“He drinks all day, but it never seems to make any difference to him,” Terry said. “What did he say?”

“He wants Die Nadel’s head on a platter.” Godliman crossed the room to the wall map of Great Britain and put a finger on Aberdeen. “If you were sending a U-boat in to pick up a fugitive spy, what would you think was the nearest the sub could safely come to the coast?”

Terry stood beside him and looked at the map. “I wouldn’t want to come closer than the three-mile limit. But for preference, I’d stop ten miles out.”

“Right.” Godliman drew two pencil lines parallel to the coast, three miles and ten miles out respectively. “Now, if you were an amateur sailor setting out from Aberdeen in a smallish fishing boat, how far would you go before you began to get nervous?”

“You mean, what’s a reasonable distance to travel in such a boat?”

“Indeed.”

Terry shrugged. “Ask the Navy. I’d say fifteen or twenty miles.”

“I agree.” Godliman drew an arc of twenty miles’ radius with its center on Aberdeen. “Now—if Faber is alive, he’s either back on the mainland or somewhere within this space.” He indicated the area bounded by the parallel lines and the arc.

“There’s no land in that area.”

“Have we got a bigger map?”

Terry pulled open a drawer and got out a large-scale map of Scotland. He spread it on top of the chest. Godliman copied the pencil marks from the smaller map onto the larger.

There was still no land within the area.

“But look,” Godliman said. Just to the east of the ten-mile limit was a long, narrow island.

Terry peered closer. “Storm Island,” he read. “How apt.”

Godliman snapped his fingers. “Could be…”

“Can you send someone there?”

“When the storm clears. Bloggs is up there. I’ll get a plane laid on for him. He can take off the minute the weather improves.” He went to the door.

“Good luck,” Terry called after him.

Godliman took the stairs two at a time to the next floor and entered his office. He picked up the phone. “Get Mr. Bloggs in Aberdeen, please.”

While he waited he doodled on his blotter, drawing the island. It was shaped like the top half of a walking stick, with the crook at the western end. It must have been about ten miles long and perhaps a mile wide. He wondered what sort of place it was: a barren lump of rock, or a thriving community of farmers? If Faber was there he might still be alive to contact his U-boat; Bloggs would have to get to the island before the submarine.

“I have Mr. Bloggs,” the switchboard girl said.

“Fred?”

“Hello, Percy.”

“I think he’s on an island called Storm Island.”

“No, he’s not,” Bloggs said. “We’ve just arrested him.” (He hoped.)

THE STILETTO
was nine inches long, with an engraved handle and a stubby little crosspiece. Its needlelike point was extremely sharp. Bloggs thought it looked like a highly efficient killing instrument. It had recently been polished.

Bloggs and Detective-Chief-Inspector Kincaid stood looking at it, neither man wanting to touch it.

“He was trying to catch a bus to Edinburgh,” Kincaid said. “A P.C. spotted him at the ticket office and asked for his identification. He dropped his suitcase and ran. A woman bus conductor hit him over the head with her ticket machine. He took ten minutes to come around.”

“Let’s have a look at him,” Bloggs said.

They went down the corridor to the cells. “This one,” Kincaid said.

Bloggs looked through the judas. The man sat on a stool in the far corner of the cell with his back against the wall. His legs were crossed, his eyes closed, his hands in his pockets. “He’s been in cells before,” Bloggs remarked. The man was tall, with a long, handsome face and dark hair. It could have been the man in the photograph, but it was hard to be certain.

“Want to go in?” Kincaid asked.

“In a minute. What was in his suitcase, apart from the stiletto?”

“The tools of a burglar’s trade. Quite a lot of money in small notes. A pistol and some ammunition. Black clothes and crepe-soled shoes. Two hundred Lucky Strike cigarettes.”

“No photographs or film negatives?”

Kincaid shook his head.

“Balls,” Bloggs said with feeling.

“Papers identify him as Peter Fredericks, of Wembley, Middlesex. Says he’s an unemployed toolmaker looking for work.”

“Toolmaker?” Bloggs said skeptically. “There hasn’t been an unemployed toolmaker in Britain in the last four years. You’d think a spy would know that. Still…”

Kincaid asked, “Shall I start the questioning, or will you?”

“You.”

Kincaid opened the door and Bloggs followed him in. The man in the corner opened his eyes incuriously. He did not alter his position.

Kincaid sat at a small, plain table. Bloggs leaned against the wall.

Kincaid said, “What’s your real name?”

“Peter Fredericks.”

“What are you doing so far from home?”

“Looking for work.”

“Why aren’t you in the army?”

“Weak heart.”

“Where have you been for the last few days?”

“Here, in Aberdeen. Before that Dundee, before that Perth.”

“When did you arrive in Aberdeen?”

“The day before yesterday.”

Kincaid glanced at Bloggs, who nodded. “Your story is silly,” Kincaid said. “Toolmakers don’t need to look for work. The country hasn’t got enough of them. You’d better start telling the truth.”

“I’m telling the truth.”

Bloggs took all the loose change out of his pocket and tied it up in his handkerchief. He stood watching, saying nothing, swinging the little bundle in his right hand.

“Where is the film?” Kincaid said, having been briefed to this extent by Bloggs, though not to the extent of knowing what the film was about.

The man’s expression did not change. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Kincaid shrugged, and looked at Bloggs.

Bloggs said, “On your feet.”

“Pardon?”

“On your FEET!”

The man stood up casually.

“Step forward.”

He took two steps up to the table.

“Name?”

“Peter Fredericks.”

Bloggs came off the wall and hit the man with the weighted handkerchief. The blow caught him accurately on the bridge of the nose, and he cried out. His hands went to his face.

“Stand to attention,” Bloggs said. “Name.”

The man stood upright, let his hands fall to his sides. “Peter Fredericks.”

Bloggs hit him again in exactly the same place. This time he went down on one knee, and his eyes watered.

“Where is the film?”

The man shook his head.

Bloggs pulled him to his feet, kneed him in the groin, punched his stomach. “What did you do with the negatives?”

The man fell to the floor and threw up. Bloggs kicked his face. There was a sharp crack. “What about the U-boat? Where is the rendezvous? What’s the signal, damn you—?”

Kincaid grabbed Bloggs from behind. “That’s enough,” he said. “This is my station and I can only turn a blind eye so long, you know—”

Bloggs rounded on him. “We’re not dealing with a case of pretty housebreaking. I’m MI5 and I’ll do what I fucking well like in your station. If the prisoner dies, I’ll take responsibility.” He turned back to the man on the floor, who was staring at him and Kincaid, face covered with blood, and an expression of incredulity. “What are you talking about?” he said weakly. “What is this?”

Bloggs hauled him to his feet. “You’re Heinrich Rudolph Hans von Müller-Güder, born at Oln on May 26, 1900, also known as Henry Faber, a lieutenant colonel in German Intelligence. Within three months you’ll be hanged for espionage unless you turn out to be more useful to us alive than dead. Start making yourself useful, Colonel Müller-Güder.”

“No,” the man said. “No, no! I’m a
thief
, not a spy. Please!” He leaned away from Blogg’s upraised fist. “I can prove it—”

Bloggs hit him again, and Kincaid intervened for the second time. “Wait…all right, Fredericks—if that’s your name—prove you’re a thief.”

“I done three houses in Jubilee Crescent last week,” the man gasped. “I took about five hundred quid from one and some jewelry from the next one—diamond rings and some pearls—and I never got nothing from the other one because of the dog…you must know I’m telling the truth, they must have reported it, didn’t they? Oh, Jesus—”

Kincaid looked at Bloggs. “All those burglaries took place.”

“He could have read about them in the newspapers.”

“The third one wasn’t reported.”

“Perhaps he did them—he could still be a spy. Spies can steal too.” He felt rotten.

“But this was last week—your man was in London, wasn’t he?”

Bloggs was silent for a moment. Then he said, “Well, fuck it,” and walked out.

Peter Fredericks looked up at Kincaid through a mask of blood. “Who’s he, the bleedin’ Gestapo?” he said.

Kincaid stared at him. “Just be glad you’re not really the man he’s looking for.”

“WELL?”
Godliman said into the phone.

“False alarm.” Bloggs’s voice was scratchy and distorted over the long-distance line. “A small-time housebreaker who happened to carry a stiletto and look like Faber….”

“Back to square one,” Godliman said.

“You said something about an island.”

“Yes. Storm Island—it’s about ten miles off the coast, due east of Aberdeen. You’ll find it on a large-scale map.”

“What makes you sure he’s there?”

“I’m not sure. We still have to cover every other possibility—other towns, the coast, everything. But if he did steal that boat, the…”

“Marie II.”

“Yes. If he did steal it, his rendezvous was probably in the area of this island; and if I’m right about
that
, then he’s either drowned or shipwrecked on the island—”