Snow Read Online Free PDF Page B

the doctor’s family and introduced him to Jessie. As a result, he had been well paid and had earned the Germans’ trust. This collaboration had left him in possession of yet more sensitive material, and on 24 September 1938, at the height of the Munich crisis when war with the Nazis looked imminent, Owens once again visited Scotland House with what he believed was knowledge so important that the Security Service would have to take notice. The interview with Hinchley-Cooke, accompanied by a police inspector, was recorded, and the resulting transcript showed that Owens had tried to tempt Hinchley-Cooke with what was purported to be vital information, but the MI5 officer had opened the conversation by reminding Owens of their previous meetings when he had been told that the authorities wanted no further dealings with him.
    ‘Well, look here, Mr Owens, before we start, I want to make the position quite clear. Do you remember when I saw you on 23 September, 1937?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘When you signed a statement which reads: “I fully realise that I am not, and have not been employed since November 1936 by any British intelligence service?”’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You acknowledge that as your signature?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘You will also remember that some months ago I saw you?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘In the room of the Assistant Director of Naval Intelligence?’
    ‘Yes.’
    ‘And told you then, so far as the Naval, Army and Air Force intelligence services were concerned, what our view was?’
    ‘Exactly.’
    ‘Therefore, before I talk to you, it is my duty as a duly authorised person to caution you that whatever you say will be taken down and may be used in evidence. You quite understand that?’
    ‘I quite understand that. I will do the best I can.’
    ‘It is important that I caution you that whatever you say, you say voluntarily.’
    ‘I think I have done my duty.’
    ‘Do you understand the caution – that whatever you say now may, if necessary , be used in evidence at a later stage?’
    ‘Quite.’
    Having forced Owens to acknowledge the gravity of his situation, Hinchley-Cooke confronted him.
    ‘You have been in touch with the German Secret Service.’
    ‘Yes, I have. At least, they have been in touch with me.’
    ‘Were you a paid agent?’
    ‘Yes, I was.’
    ‘And how much money did you receive a month?’
    ‘Well, it varied really…’
    ‘Well, how much?’
    ‘Thirty to forty pounds a month.’
    ‘A month? Regularly?’
    ‘Not regularly. It varied.’
    ‘But ever since I saw you last?’
    ‘Oh no. Not since then. I only had that during the last three or four months. Because they treated me with suspicion until then.’
    ‘They treated you with suspicion?’
    ‘Definitely.’
    ‘Why?’
    ‘I didn’t know their method of working.’
    ‘There was then a gap from the time I saw you. Until the last three or four months you haven’t been in touch with them at all?’
    ‘Yes, I was in touch with them occasionally. I can’t exactly tell you how, but at different times – only when I got a letter from them.’
    ‘With whom were you in touch?’
    ‘Five or six different people.’
    ‘What were their names?’
    ‘Let us get away from this. I have done everything I can. I have brought you information here now – which is the most vital information – where you can obtain the German Secret Service codes.’
    ‘Do you suggest that you, as a self-admitted Secret Service agent, just came to see me…’
    ‘I have seen right from the beginning exactly what has been in the wind and I have known there has been danger. I have tried to tell you. I have phoned you several times because I have known the danger.’
    ‘Yes. The point you don’t seem quite to realise is that you seem to have been working for us against our instructions. We told you quite definitely that we did not want anything more to do with you.’
    ‘It is most difficult when anything like that starts.’
    ‘You need not have seen