The Interrogator Read Online Free PDF

spoken on the ship that night picked over until it was raw. He felt responsible – he was the ship’s first officer – he should have done more. Why was he alive when so many had perished? The question was always with him.
    The doctors said it was a sort of battle fatigue and that it would pass – in time.
    ‘How are you, Jones?’
    ‘Fine, sir. I’ve been visiting a friend at the Admiralty. Spot of leave, my last for a while.’ And he explained in his mellifluous Welsh way that he had become the engineering officer on a newly commissioned corvette that would begin convoy duties at the end of the month.
    ‘Of course I would rather serve on a destroyer. Our little ship has this very awkward corkscrew motion. A glorified trawler. And you, sir?’
    ‘I’m working for the Admiralty. With German prisoners,’ said Lindsay almost apologetically.
    ‘Oh, bad luck.’ Jones coloured, aware that he had said something that might offend: ‘Not that I want to suggest . . . but more comfortable.’
    ‘Yes,’ said Lindsay with a slight nod of the head. Of course it was more comfortable. They stood in awkward silence at the barrier as shoppers and servicemen bustled noisily past.
    ‘Look, I’m sorry, Jones, but I must go,’ said Lindsay at last, his voice a little strained.
    Jones was clearly disappointed: ‘I hope I haven’t said . . .’
    ‘No, no, of course not,’ said Lindsay, cutting across him. ‘I’m on my way to a meeting.’ It was a lie and it sounded very like one too, but nothing had changed since the hospital. He could not speak of the
Culloden
, of the memories they shared, and what else was there? He held out his hand again and as Jones shook it they made proper eyecontact for the first time. It was only for a moment but Lindsay recognised the deep weariness in the engineer’s eyes.
    Later, he found it difficult to shake the recollection of it from his thoughts. He stood at the edge of the Piccadilly Line platform and peered into the mouth of the tunnel, barely conscious of the passing minutes and the people who came to stand at his side. A distant speck of light began to rumble and flash towards him, almost imperceptibly at first, then it seemed to gather speed, faster, closer, faster, until it was disconcertingly close. It burst from the tunnel with a high-pitched scream that filled his mind with a familiar dull ache.
    ‘HMS
Culloden
? It was last September. She was lost in one of their first group attacks. Some of the details were in the monthly bulletin. Cut clean in two.’
    Rodger Winn pushed his chair back and reached for a cigarette. Mary was standing beside his desk with the
U-500
interrogation file in her hands. ‘Lindsay was the first officer,’ said Winn, ‘and well, he . . .’
    Winn leant forward and lifted a flimsy from the mountain of paper in front of him.
    ‘Have you seen this?’ he said, with the air of someone with more pressing matters to consider.
    ‘What were you going to say about Lieutenant Lindsay?’
    Winn blinked curiously at Mary, then looked away, but not before she had caught the suggestion of a sly smile.
    ‘Did you notice his ribbon – the Distinguished Service Cross? Fleming says he picked it up on the night the ship was lost.’
    Mary had not noticed.
    Winn took off his thick black-rimmed spectacles and placed them carefully on the desk. Head bent, he rubbed his eyes wearily with his thumb and forefinger. ‘Fleming has a high opinion of Lindsay,’ he said from behind his hand, ‘a natural interrogator, but he says the loss of the ship has hit him hard. You can see it in his face, can’t you? He’s a little over-zealous too. This business of our codes – the Director and Fleming agree with me – he needs to be careful not to overstep the mark.’
    ‘I told him you’d think it was important and would want someone to look into it,’ said Mary.
    ‘Did you?’ Winn looked up at her, his brow knotted in a deep frown. ‘You’re ready to make that