They watched as two paratroopers armed with Sten guns jumped down off the back of the truck. Four men got out of the car — the driver, two regimental policemen in red berets and white webbing and wearing the black-on-red RP armbands, and a man in a straitjacket and a black hood that completely covered his head.
“James Anthony Instrood,” said Nobbins softly.
“I’ll leave you to it, then,” she said.
“Remember,” he called to her as she went out, “No word about The Squad to Captain Yates or any of the Paras at this stage.”
Nobbins sat back behind the desk. There were two lamps on it, angled to point about three feet above the seat of the empty chair facing him. For the tenth time he switched the lamps on and slightly adjusted the position of the powerful beams, then switched them off again.
There was a knock at the door.
Captain Yates and his corporal pushed Instrood forward into the room.
“Delivery of the prisoner, sir.”
“Thank you, Captain. I take it Colonel Pelton checked him at Blackbushe?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then that’ll be all, Captain. But you’ll leave the Corporal on the door, of course.”
“Sir.” They withdrew and shut the door.
Nobbins undid some straps of the straitjacket: then he loosened the draw-string around Instrood’s neck and lifted off the hood.
“Sit down, Instrood. Cigarette?” He gestured at a box on the desk.
Instrood shook his head, smiling scornfully.
“I’m familiar with interrogation technique. A bit of kindness — then the rough stuff.” He shrugged. “Sometimes it works.”
“But not with James Anthony Instrood?”
“Not with me.”
The two men looked remarkably alike. Nobbins saw that Instrood too was a small man, bulging somewhat at the waist, and that he too wore glasses with steel-rimmed circular lenses. He was rather older than Nobbins, his colouring rather darker, and the three-day stubble on his face gave a tougher line to his jaw; but the two of them were similar enough in general appearance to have been brothers.
Instrood smiled again, with a contemptuous curl to his lips, and said, “You don’t really expect to get anywhere with this, do you, Nobbins?”
“You’ll crack inside a week, Instrood,” Nobbins said, with more conviction than he felt.
Instrood smiled that thin withering smile again, and said nothing.
“You’ll talk!” Nobbins said, provoked. “Before we’re done you’ll beg me to listen!”
Viciously he snapped on the two spotlights. Instrood sighed patiently, sank a little lower in his chair, and closed his eyes.
“Ask your questions, then,” he said resignedly.
“You know what I want from you.”
“Names of resident directors, cut-outs, agents — the communication chain, Yes, of course I know,” Instrood said wearily.
“On September the nineteenth two agents were dispatched to Paris — a French couple,” Nobbins intoned. “Who were they?”
“Abelard and Heloise.”
Nobbins leaned forward eagerly.
“Their code names?”
He realised he had made a fool of himself the moment the words were out of his mouth. Instrood sniggered. Nobbins boiled with fury.
“Communications network?” he demanded, on a shriller note. “Your resident director for Germany? For Italy? For Holland?”
Instrood shook his head.
“Nothing doing.”
“Names, details, facts!” Nobbins almost screamed the words, as he thumped the desk. “I want facts!”
He switched off the two spotlights abruptly and sank back in his chair. Instrood opened his eyes and saw the beads of sweat standing out on the simmering Nobbin’s brow. He smiled to himself.
“I’ll give you some facts,” he said in a quietly reasonable, almost friendly tone. “Listen. Ten years ago I did your job. A bit higher up the ladder maybe, but the same sort of job. I lived on eight hundred a year and haggled for every two quid’s worth of expenses.”
“And then you threw it all over for Peking — I know.”
“Where I’ve lived like a lord. Anything I wanted — cars, girls, the best food and wine — the good life.”
“And these were the facts you were going to give me?” Nobbins said scornfully. “All you’ve told me is that you’ve been living high on the hog. So what?”
“So I don’t forget it. Ten years ago I chose. And that’s the kind of choice you only make once. I’ve chosen — I’m not going back on it.”
Nobbins studied Instrood and was conscious again of the similarities between them. Yet there was a difference, too — the important difference between self-confidence and uncertainty, success and failure, a difference that could somehow give the prisoner a moral advantage over his gaoler.
“You’re finished, Instrood,” he said, as if reciting a formula. “Those days are over for you now. Why not make it easy for yourself?”
“You mean easy for you. But why should I? Time’s on my side.”
“No cooperation, then?” Nobbins said mechanically.
“Voluntary? No.”
“But you’ll crack, sooner or later.”
“Every man does, when the real treatment begins.” Instrood shrugged. “Oh yes, I’ll crack — in the end.”
“But not till it’s too late?”
“Exactly. Not till agents have been replaced, lines of communication changed... I’ll crack all right. But not yet. And you won’t be the man to do it.”
“How can you be so sure?”
“You’re a loser,” Instrood said more gently. “I can tell. Remember, I was like you, once. I was a loser. Time was, I wouldn’t have said boo to a goose. And they, these people” — he looked with distaste around the shabby office — “they never valued me, never appreciated me for what I was worth. But the Chinese did. They gave me power, gave me room to develop! The Chinese made me what I am today!”
And there was something very strong and sure and tough about Instrood as he leaned forward and flicked the switches of the two lamps on the desk so that his own face was flooded again with their dazzling light.
“Now I expect you’ll be anxious to get on to the nasty stuff — Mr Nobbins,” he said; and he settled back into the chair, with contempt registering in his features as before.
13
“All right, carry on, Corporal.” The Saint barked out the order with military crispness.
“Sir,” said Rockham, saluting smartly. Then to the men: “Squad — fall in!”
It was Friday morning — the last rehearsal for their afternoon mission.
“All right, lads.” Rockham was once again the calm commanding officer, his Corporal’s uniform notwithstanding. “This is the final check. For today’s fun and games you’ve got to look as Scottish as haggis.”
His gaze roamed over the line of men, their tartan trews and their tunics immaculately pressed, their rifles held parallel, their boots identically gleaming, their Tam o’shanters identically angled.
To Lembick he said: “Satisfied with all the details?”
“The Lowland Lights themselves would be proud of them, sir.”
“There’ll be no room for mistakes, Lembick.”
“You can rely on me.”
They arrived at Worplesford Cross three quarters of an hour later, Rockham and the Saint travelling in the jeep and the others in the three-tonner which had also been decorated with a small square of the Regiment’s distinctive tartan on the front fender. It took the Saint and Rockham another half hour to erect the diversion signs reading