Munich

5

Cleverly called a meeting of the junior Private Secretaries in his office at 9 p.m. sharp. They trooped in together – Legat, Syers, Miss Watson – and stood in a line while he perched on the edge of his desk. They were braced for what Syers liked to call his ‘staff-officer-visits-the-trenches speech’.

‘Thank you all for your efforts today. I know how hectic it’s been. Even so I need to ask everyone to be on parade again tomorrow morning by seven-thirty. I want to be sure we’re all here to give the PM a rousing send-off. He’ll leave Number Ten for the drive to Heston Aerodrome at seven-forty-five. Two aircraft will be making the trip to Munich.’ He picked up a sheaf of papers. ‘It’s been decided that on the first plane will be the PM, Sir Horace Wilson, Lord Dunglass and three officials from the Foreign Office – William Strang, Frank Ashton-Gwatkin and Sir William Malkin. We’ve also been instructed to send someone from the Private Office.’ He turned to Syers. ‘Cecil, I’d like it to be you.’

Syers’s head rocked back slightly in surprise. ‘Really, sir?’ He looked at Legat who promptly stared at his shoes: he felt nothing but relief.

‘I suggest you pack on the assumption you’ll be staying for up to three nights – the Germans are arranging hotel rooms. On the second plane will be two detectives for the PM’s protection, the PM’s doctor, and two girls from the Garden Room. Each plane has space for fourteen passengers, so if one of them develops any mechanical problem, everyone can transfer to the other.’

Syers raised his hand. ‘I appreciate the honour, sir, but wouldn’t Hugh be a better choice? His German is ten times better than mine.’

‘I’ve made my decision. Legat will stay here with Miss Watson and deal with correspondence. We have telegrams of congratulation to answer from almost every leader in the world, let alone the thousands of letters from members of the public. If we don’t make a start on it soon we’ll never get on top of it. All right?’ He looked along the line. ‘Good. Thank you all. I’ll see you in the morning.’

Once they were back in the corridor, Syers beckoned Legat into his office. ‘I’m so sorry about this, Hugh. It’s absolutely bloody ridiculous.’

‘Really, don’t give it another thought. You’re senior to me.’

‘Yes, but you’re the German expert – for God’s sake, you were in Vienna when I was still in the Dominions Office.’

‘Honestly, it’s fine.’ Legat was so touched by his concern he felt he should try to alleviate it. ‘To be perfectly frank, between you and me, I’m relieved not to be going.’

‘Why on earth wouldn’t you want to go? Don’t you want to see Hitler in the flesh? Something to tell the grandchildren?’

‘Actually, that’s just it: I’ve already seen Hitler in the flesh – in Munich, as a matter of fact, six months before he came to power – and I can assure you, once was quite enough.’

‘You’ve never mentioned that before. What happened? Did you go to a Nazi rally?’

‘No, I didn’t hear him speak.’ Suddenly Legat wished he’d never brought the subject up, but Syers was so insistent on hearing more he couldn’t really leave it at that. ‘It was only in the street one day – outside his apartment building, to be exact. We ended up being chased off by his Brownshirts.’ He closed his eyes briefly, as he always did whenever he thought of it. ‘I’d only just left Oxford, so I suppose I could at least plead youth as an excuse. Anyway, enjoy Munich – assuming you get a chance to see it.’

He escaped into the corridor. Syers called after him, ‘Thanks, Hugh – I’ll give your regards to the Führer!’

Back in his own office, Miss Watson was putting on her coat to go home. Nobody knew where she lived. Legat guessed she must be lonely but she rebuffed all invitations. ‘Oh, there you are,’ she said irritably. ‘I was just about to write you a note. Sir Alexander Cadogan’s secretary called for you. He wants to see you right away.’

Workmen, lit by floodlights, were laying sandbags outside the entrance to the Foreign Office. Legat found the sight mildly disturbing. Apparently nobody had bothered to tell the Ministry of Works that the Sudeten crisis was supposed to be over.

Cadogan’s outer office was deserted, the door to his inner sanctum slightly ajar. When Legat knocked, the Permanent Under-Secretary appeared in person, smoking a cigarette. ‘Ah, Legat. Come in.’

He was not alone. Seated on the leather sofa at the far end of the cavernous room was a man of about fifty – saturnine, elegant, with a thick moustache and deep-set staring dark eyes.

Cadogan said, ‘This is Colonel Menzies.’ He pronounced the name in the Scottish manner: Ming-ies. ‘I asked him to take a look at the document you brought in last night. You’d better sit down.’

A colonel wearing a Savile Row suit in Whitehall, thought Legat. That could only mean the Secret Intelligence Service.

The armchair matched the sofa – hard, brown, scuffed, exquisitely uncomfortable. Cadogan took its twin. He reached up and turned on a tasselled standard lamp. It too looked as if it might have been borrowed from some baronial Scottish castle. A grimy ochre light suffused their corner of the office. ‘Colonel?’

On the low table in front of Menzies was a thick manila folder. He opened it and took out the document that had been put through Legat’s door. ‘Well, the first thing to say is it’s genuine, as far as we can tell.’ He spoke in a friendly Etonian drawl that immediately put Legat on his guard. ‘It ties in with everything we’ve been hearing from various opposition figures in Germany since the beginning of the summer. But this is the first time they’ve produced actual written evidence. I gather from Alex you have no idea why it should have come to you.’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, they are a disparate lot, it must be said. A handful of diplomats, a landowner or two, an industrialist. Half of them don’t appear to be aware of the existence of the other half. The only thing they all seem to agree on is they expect the British Empire to go to war to restore the Kaiser, or at any rate his family – which considering we lost the best part of a million men getting rid of the bugger less than twenty years ago betrays a certain political naivety, to put it mildly. They say they have support within the Army but frankly, apart from a few disaffected Prussians at the top, we’re not convinced. Your chap, on the other hand, sounds as if he might be a bit more interesting.’

‘My chap?’

The colonel consulted his folder. ‘I assume the name Paul von Hartmann is not unknown to you?’

So that was it. It had happened at last. The file looked intimidatingly extensive. Legat could see no point in evasion. ‘Yes, of course. We were at Balliol together. He was a Rhodes scholar. So you think he is the one who delivered the document?’

‘Sent it rather than delivered it – he’s in Germany. When did you last see him?’

Legat pretended to think. ‘Six years ago. The summer of thirty-two.’

‘You’ve not been in contact since?’

‘No.’

‘Do you mind if I ask why not?’

‘No specific reason. We simply drifted apart.’

‘Whereabouts did you last see him?’

‘In Munich.’

‘Munich, really? Suddenly all roads seem to lead to Munich.’ The colonel smiled, but his eyes bored into Legat’s. ‘Do you mind if I ask what you were doing there?’

‘I was on holiday – a walking holiday in Bavaria, at the end of finals.’

‘On holiday with von Hartmann?’

‘Among others.’

‘And you haven’t communicated since – not even a letter?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Well, then – forgive me – it doesn’t sound as if you drifted apart so much as had a blazing row.’

Legat took his time before replying. ‘It’s true we had some political differences. In Oxford they didn’t seem to matter so much. But this was Germany, in July, in the middle of a general election campaign. You couldn’t escape politics at that time – especially in Munich.’

‘So your friend was a Nazi?’

‘No, if anything he considered himself a socialist. But he was also a German nationalist – that was what led to the arguments.’

Cadogan cut in: ‘A national socialist, then – but lower case, perhaps, rather than upper? You’re smiling? I’ve said something droll?’

‘Forgive me, Sir Alex, but that is what Paul would have called “a classic piece of English sophistry”.’

For a moment he thought he might have gone too far, but then Cadogan’s mouth twitched down slightly, which was his way of registering amusement. ‘Yes, fair enough, I suppose he would have had a point.’

The colonel said, ‘Did you know that Hartmann had entered the German diplomatic service?’

‘I did hear his name mentioned in that connection, by mutual friends from Oxford. I wasn’t surprised: it was always his intention. His grandfather was an Ambassador under Bismarck.’

‘Did you also know he’d joined the Nazi Party?’

‘No, but again it makes sense, given his belief in a Greater Germany.’

‘We’re sorry to have to ask you all these questions, Legat, but a situation has arisen and we need to understand precisely what sort of relationship you have, or had, with this particular German.’ The colonel put down the folder and it occurred to Legat that most of it probably had nothing to do with him – that it was merely a trick to fool him into thinking they knew more than they did. ‘It seems your former friend Hartmann is now working with the opposition to Hitler. His position inside the Foreign Ministry has given him access to secret material which he is willing to share with us – or more specifically, which he is willing to share with you. How do you feel about that?’

‘Surprised.’

‘But willing in principle to take matters further?’

‘In what sense?’

Cadogan said, ‘Willing to go to Munich tomorrow and meet with your old friend?’

‘Good heavens!’ Legat had not been expecting that. ‘He’s going to be in Munich?’

‘Apparently, yes.’

The colonel said, ‘One member of the German opposition whom I do take seriously has been in touch with us this evening, via a secret channel, to ask if we can arrange for you to travel to Munich as part of the PM’s party. In return they will try to make sure Hartmann is included in the German delegation. It appears Hartmann has another document in his possession, more important than the one you received last night. He has some mad notion of handing it to the Prime Minister personally, which obviously cannot be allowed to happen. However, he will give it to you. We’d very much like to know what it is. Therefore, we think you should go and meet him.’

Legat stared at him. ‘I’m utterly astonished.’

‘It’s not without risk,’ warned Cadogan. ‘Technically, at least, it will be an act of espionage on foreign soil. We wouldn’t want to mislead you about that.’

The colonel said, ‘Yes, but on the other hand, it’s hard to believe the Germans would seek to embarrass His Majesty’s Government with a spying scandal in the middle of an international conference.’

‘Are you sure about that?’ Cadogan shook his head. ‘With Hitler, anything is possible. The last thing he wants to do tomorrow is sit down with the PM and Daladier. I suspect he’s perfectly capable of seizing on exactly such an incident as an excuse to break off negotiations.’ He turned to Legat. ‘So you need to consider it carefully. The stakes are high. And there’s another point. We think it best if the Prime Minister knows nothing about this.’

‘Do you mind if I ask why?’

The colonel said, ‘Often in these delicate matters it’s better for politicians not to know the full details.’

‘You mean in case something goes wrong?’

‘No,’ said Cadogan. ‘Rather because the PM is already under the most immense strain, and it’s our duty, as public servants, to do everything we can not to add to it.’

Legat made one last feeble attempt at escape. ‘You do know that Oscar Cleverly has already told Cecil Syers that he will be travelling to Munich?’

‘That’s not an issue that need concern you. Leave Cleverly to us.’

‘Absolutely,’ said the colonel. ‘I know Oscar.’

Both men fell silent, watching him, and Legat had a peculiar sense of – what was it, he wondered afterwards? – not of déjà vu exactly, but of inevitability: that he had always known Munich was not done with him; that however far he might travel from that place and time he was forever caught in its gravitational pull and would be dragged back towards it eventually.

‘Of course,’ he said. ‘Of course I’ll do it.’

By the time he got back to Number 10, Syers had gone for the night. Cleverly was still working – he could see the light under his door and could hear his voice talking on the telephone. He crept past, anxious to avoid the possibility of an encounter, collected his overnight case from the corner of his office and set off to walk home.

Images he had consciously suppressed for half a decade stalked him at every step, memories not so much of Germany but of Oxford. As he walked past the Abbey he sensed again the impossibly tall figure loping at his side through a damp evening along the Turl (‘night is the best time for friendship, my dear Hugh’), his profile in the lamplight as he stopped to light a cigarette – beautiful, fanatical, almost cruel – and that astonishing smile after he had exhaled; the swirling skirts of his full coat brushing the cobbles; the curious combination of his manliness – he had seemed so much older and more experienced than the rest of them in the boy-world of Oxford – and yet a self-dramatising defeatism (‘my passionate melancholy’) that was entirely adolescent, indeed verging on the comic: he had once clambered up on to Magdalen Bridge and threatened to throw himself into the river in despair at what he said was their mad generation until Legat had pointed out that he would only succeed in getting himself wet and possibly catching a chill. He used to complain that he lacked ‘the one great characteristic of the English, and that is distance – not only from one another but from all experience: I believe it is the secret of the English art of living’. Legat could remember every word.

He reached the end of North Street, found his key and let himself into the house. Now that the immediate crisis seemed to be over he had half-expected to find Pamela at home with the children. But when he turned on the light he saw that the place was empty, exactly as he had left it. He set down his suitcase at the bottom of the stairs. Still wearing his coat, he went into the drawing room, picked up the telephone and dialled the operator. It was after ten, an unsociable hour for a call, especially in the English shires, but he thought the circumstances justified it. His father-in-law answered, pedantically reciting his number. Pamela always said he had done something ‘unspeakably boring’ in the City before retiring at fifty and Legat could believe it, although he had been careful never to enquire precisely what it was; he avoided speaking to his in-laws as much as possible. Somehow the conversation always turned to money and his lack of it.

‘Hello, sir. It’s Hugh. Sorry to ring so late.’

‘Hugh!’ For once the old boy actually sounded glad to hear him. ‘I must say we’ve been thinking about you rather a lot today. What a business it’s been! Were you very much involved?’

‘Oh, only on the margins, you know.’

‘Well, having been all the way through the last show, I can’t tell you the relief at avoiding another.’ He put his hand over the receiver and Legat heard him call out, ‘Darling, it’s Hugh!’ He came back on the line immediately. ‘You must tell me all about it. Were you in the House when the Prime Minister received the news?’

Legat sat in an armchair and patiently described the events of the day for a couple of minutes, until he felt he had done all that filial politeness required of him. ‘Anyway, sir, I can give you the full blow-by-blow the next time I see you. I just wanted a quick word with Pamela, if I might.’

‘Pamela?’ The voice on the other end sounded suddenly confused. ‘Isn’t she with you? She left the children with us and drove back to London about four hours ago.’

After he had hung up – ‘Actually, sir, don’t worry, I think I can hear her at the door now’ – he sat and stared at the telephone for a long while. Occasionally his eyes flickered to the diary that lay beside it – a Smythson featherweight diary, bound in red Morocco, gilt-edged, of the sort he bought her every Christmas. Why did she leave it lying around, except for him to pick it up, to leaf through it with his usual clumsy nervous fingers, to find the date, to read the number, and for once – just this once: the only time he had ever done so – to call it?

It rang a long time before it was answered. A man’s voice, vaguely familiar, came on the line – confident, relaxed. ‘Yep? Hello?’

Legat pressed the receiver very hard against his ear and listened intently. He heard the sound of the sea.

‘Hello?’ the voice repeated. ‘Who is this?’

And then in the background, distinctly enough that he suspected she might have intended it to be overheard, the voice of his wife: ‘Whoever it is, tell them to go away.’