Shadows of War

September — November 1939

1

Chilton Coombe,

Somerset

3 September 1939

Dear Theo,

War was declared this morning, at eleven o’clock. I am staying with my parents on weekend leave in Somerset, and we had just got back from church when we heard the Prime Minister announcing it on the wireless. They say there have already been air-raid warnings in London. Perhaps by the time you get this the streets of London will be rubble and men will have started dying in trenches in Flanders. Again. With all the modern killing machines mankind has developed, all the aeroplanes and the tanks, this one will be worse than the last one. Millions more will die.

You and I are at war. I can’t help thinking of the oath you made me swear that night eight years ago in my rooms in Oxford, that we would not let them tell us to go and kill each other. We were both tight on college port, but I meant it then, and I haven’t forgotten it. Yet now I am in uniform and so are you. I feel guilty that I am breaking that oath. Not exactly guilty, but regretful, and I think you deserve an explanation.

I have seen war for myself, in Spain, and I know it is hell. I voted at the Union not to fight for King and Country. And I have done my best to avoid this war; you know that. I am British, but my mother is German, and Father is as firmly opposed to war of any kind as he has always been. Yet when I was in Berlin with you last year I saw what evil the Nazi regime can do, will do, unless it is stopped. That’s why I joined the army, and why I will probably soon find myself in France in the mud shooting at your compatriots, maybe even shooting at you. It is a cause that is worth fighting for; not just worth fighting for, it must be fought for, and I must fight for it. I hope you understand that.

I am sending this via the safe address in Denmark you gave me. Despite that, it might not reach you, but even if it doesn’t, at least I will have tried to get in touch.

I hope that in a year, or five years, or however long this damn war takes, we will be able to share a glass of port again. Make that a bottle.

Yours,

Conrad

2

Zutphen, Holland, 21 October 1939

In a neutral waterlogged country on the edge of a war that was already becoming phoney, Captain Sigismund Payne Best sat in his American Lincoln Zephyr and waited. Beneath him, the broad powerful waters of the River IJssel rolled down to the North Sea. Ahead, across green damp meadows, the medieval towers of Zutphen scratched grey bellies of heavy cloud.

This was Payne Best’s second war. He had been involved in intelligence in the last one, and made a decent fist of it, although he had lost some good agents along the way. But already, only six weeks into the rematch, he was on to something. Something big. Something that might, just might, bring this new war to a halt before it had even had a chance to get going.

An absurdly long barge, two hundred feet at least, nosed under the bridge, its bow and its stern visible on either side, carrying raw materials upstream to feed the German war machine.

He checked his wristwatch. They were late, over an hour. That wasn’t yet a cause for alarm; there was plenty that could delay them on the border. Payne Best tapped his fingers on the steering wheel and lit yet another cigarette. Patience was a necessity for an agent, but Payne Best had little of it. He had the languages — his Dutch and his German were perfect — he had charm, an excellent memory and people trusted him. But he hated waiting.

Two cars approached, a Citroën followed by an Opel. The Citroën swished past, but the Opel slowed down and pulled over just on the Zutphen side of the river. A German number plate.

Stubbing out his cigarette, Payne Best stepped out of his car and stood on the bridge. He adjusted his monocle to examine the two men approaching. One of them, Lieutenant Grosch, Payne Best recognized. The other was young, about thirty, with a chubby face bearing nicks and cuts picked up from duels in a German student corps. He, too, was wearing a monocle, Payne Best was glad to see. Cut a bit of dash, a monocle, Payne Best thought.

Grosch greeted Payne Best and introduced his companion in German as Captain Schämmel. They shook hands, and Schämmel performed a little heel click.

Payne Best smiled at the stranger, but disappointment and frustration nagged at him.

He turned to Grosch. ‘And the general? We were supposed to be meeting the general.’

‘I am sorry the general could not be here,’ said Schämmel. ‘As you can imagine, it is very difficult for a serving general in the Wehrmacht to travel to a neutral country without permission. But he and I are close colleagues. He has asked me to open discussions on his behalf.’

Payne Best studied the German captain. Large brown eyes, a ready smile; his words were soft and precise. An intelligent man, not some lackey.

‘And what do you wish to discuss?’

The German scanned the bridge and the road beyond it, empty now apart from their two vehicles, and then fixed Payne Best with those sharp eyes.

‘Our plans to remove Hitler. And what peace settlement your government will agree to when we do.’

3

Wiltshire, 5 November

‘Chin chin.’

‘Cheers.’ Second Lieutenant Conrad de Lancey raised his glass to his company second-in-command and knocked back half his scotch and soda. ‘I needed that.’ They were alone in the ante-room of the mess in armchairs around a blazing fire.

‘Your men did well, de Lancey,’ Captain Burkett said.

‘I heard the CO calling it a shambles.’

‘Everything is a shambles to him,’ said Burkett. ‘It was raining; the visibility was perfectly bloody. We’re getting better. You did a bloody good job considering you’ve only been with us a couple of months.’

They had spent the last thirty-six hours on exercise on Salisbury Plain with a cavalry regiment that to Conrad’s eye had yet to grasp the difference between a Matilda tank and a horse. Conrad’s battalion, however, had become adept at jumping in and out of lorries, as befitted its ‘motorized’ status, and Conrad himself could read a map and a compass and readily identify fields of fire and dead ground. He had spent enough time with his face pressed into Spanish dirt with live bullets whizzing over his head to get a feel for that kind of thing.

‘We’ll be doing it for real soon,’ Burkett said.

Conrad’s ears pricked up. ‘Are we going to France? Have you heard something?’

‘No, nothing specific. But they’ll send us sooner or later. Probably sooner.’

‘Good,’ Conrad said.

Burkett’s eyes darted up to Conrad and then away. ‘Absolutely.’ Despite being the senior officer, the recently promoted Burkett was three or four years younger than Conrad, probably in his mid twenties. He was a broad man, squat with a trim moustache and a pugnacious chin, but his eyes never stayed still. His father and grandfather had been in the regiment, and he had joined up himself straight from public school.

They drank their whiskies, thinking of France. Conrad genuinely wanted to go, not out of some kind of innocent gung-ho patriotism, but out of a desire to do his bit to stop Hitler. When Poland had been invaded and war declared, the whole country, Conrad included, had been grimly prepared for modern wholesale slaughter. Sirens had sounded, but no bombs had fallen on London or anywhere else. No German boots or tank tracks had crossed the French and Belgian borders. Given the lacklustre way the ‘phoney war’ was progressing, Conrad might just as well be drinking in a mess in Wiltshire as in northern France.

‘Are they anything like real battle?’ Burkett asked with a hint of anxiety. ‘The exercises?’

Conrad was surprised by the question. He had spent eighteen months fighting for the International Brigade in Spain, a subject that his fellow officers usually avoided. On the one hand, the idea that one of their number had fought for the socialists was awkward; on the other, Conrad had experience of real fighting and they realized that could come in handy in a war.

‘No,’ Conrad said. ‘Nothing at all.’ He thought of Madrid, Jarama Valley, Guadalajara and of the final nightmare on the slopes of Mosquito Hill. It was nothing like sitting on a damp knoll in the middle of England deciding when to order a brew-up. But he couldn’t explain all that to Burkett, so he tried to reassure him. ‘The training will help, especially when we first go into battle.’

‘Hmm.’ Burkett looked into his whisky. He was nervous, thought Conrad. Scared even. Well, that was fair enough. Rational.

‘Got any plans for next weekend?’ Conrad asked.

Burkett straightened up. ‘Meeting Angela in Winchester. We’re going to the pictures. She wants to see Gone with the Wind, although I rather think she’s been twice before.’

‘I thought Angela was Dodds’s girl? Or is that a different Angela?’ Dodds was a young subaltern in Baker Company.

‘Same Angela. He might think she is his girl, but she never was.’ Burkett grinned. ‘At least, not according to her. But he did introduce us. Which was very decent of him. All’s fair in love and war, eh?’ The captain winked.

Conrad didn’t answer. He wasn’t yet completely au fait with all the traditions of his regiment, but he was pretty sure that captains pinching second lieutenants’ girlfriends wasn’t one of them.

Burkett indicated that the mess orderly refill their glasses. ‘What about you? Are you married?’

‘Divorced,’ said Conrad.

‘Sorry to hear that, old man.’

‘I’m sure it’s for the best,’ said Conrad. Veronica running off with a racing driver while Conrad was getting shot at in Spain had not been pleasant, but the divorce, when he had finally agreed to it, had been a relief.

‘Do you have a girl?’

Conrad hesitated. Then smiled. He didn’t want to keep her a secret. ‘I do actually. In London.’

‘What’s her name?’

‘Anneliese.’

‘Pretty name,’ Burkett said, and then frowned. ‘Isn’t it…’

‘German?’ Conrad said. ‘Yes, it is. She got kicked out of Germany last year.’

‘Jewish, is she?’

Conrad glanced at his fellow officer. The question was posed innocently enough. One eyebrow was slightly raised, but Burkett’s face registered only mild curiosity. Yet Conrad realized he was being judged. Burkett knew Conrad was a leftie who had fought for the Bolshies in Spain. He knew Conrad spoke fluent German, although he didn’t yet know that Conrad’s mother was German herself. And now he had discovered that Conrad had a girlfriend who was not only German but possibly Jewish.

Conrad could deal with Burkett’s ill-informed judgements about himself, but not about Anneliese. Anneliese and people like her were why Conrad had joined the army. Conrad knew, because he had seen it, that Anneliese had courage. For her, the war against Hitler had been going for years, and it was a war in which there had already been thousands of casualties.

‘Sort of,’ he answered.

Burkett thought better of asking what that meant and took another slug of whisky.

‘There you are!’ Conrad and Burkett turned to see a tall, lanky figure with fair hair and a flushed red face standing at the door of the ante-room. The figure moved towards them, his eyes on fire.

‘Dodds! You are improperly dressed,’ Burkett barked. ‘We do not bring weapons into the mess. Go and hand it in to the armoury!’ Second Lieutenant Dodds was indeed still wearing his Sam Browne and service revolver.

Burkett squinted at Dodds more closely. ‘Are you drunk?’

At first Conrad thought Dodds was going to slug Burkett, or at least try to, but then he came to a halt in the middle of the room.

‘I might be drunk. But you are dead.’ He whipped out the revolver and pointed it at Burkett.

Colour drained from the captain’s face. He opened his mouth but nothing came out.

‘Put the gun down, Matthew,’ said Conrad, getting to his feet. The end of the barrel of the revolver was unsteady, but not unsteady enough that it would miss at a range of five yards.

‘Move out of the way, de Lancey. This has nothing to do with you.’

‘If you press that trigger you will be court-martialled,’ Conrad said. ‘Your life will be over.’

‘I don’t care,’ said the young subaltern. ‘My life is over anyway.’

Dodds was only nineteen. Conrad rather liked him. His father was a vicar in a rural parish in Lincolnshire. Although naive, he was enthusiastic, good under pressure and he had a kind of innocent charm that won over fellow officers and his men alike. Conrad had seen him reading and rereading letters from Angela, and he knew the boy was smitten. But this?

He glanced at Burkett, whose face was now white. The mess orderly, a lance corporal and the only other man in the room, was rooted to the spot.

Conrad took a step forward.

‘Stop, de Lancey! Or I’ll shoot you and then I’ll shoot Burkett.’

Conrad took a step to the left. He was as tall as Dodds, but had broader shoulders, so he hid Burkett from Dodds’s view. ‘Put the gun down now, Matthew.’

‘Out of the way!’ Dodds cried. He took a step back away from Conrad, his gun pointing straight at him. Conrad held Dodds’s eyes. They were bright blue, glittering through moisture.

‘Captain Burkett, I’m going to step twice to the left,’ Conrad said. ‘You stay behind me and then back off towards the door.’ There was a door at the back of the ante-room, which led through to the dining room. ‘Corporal O’Leary, stand back!’ he called to the mess orderly.

Conrad took two slow steps to the left. Dodds’s revolver followed him. Conrad could hear Burkett moving behind him.

‘I will shoot you, de Lancey,’ Dodds said.

‘No you won’t,’ said Conrad. ‘You might want to shoot Captain Burkett, but you don’t want to shoot me.’ He took a step forward.

He could see indecision replace anger for a moment in Dodds’s eyes, but only for a moment, before it was replaced in turn by a new decision. In that instant Conrad knew what would happen next, but before he could move, Dodds had whipped the pistol round and pointed it at his own temple.

‘Stop!’ Conrad shouted. ‘Don’t do it, Matthew!’

‘Why not?’ said Dodds. ‘I was going to kill myself after I had killed Burkett. I’m going to be court-martialled anyway — you said it. And now I’ve lost Angela, I may as well be dead.’

Conrad saw the boy’s terrible logic. ‘All right, Matthew, so you’re going to die. You’ve lost Angela. But why don’t you take a couple of the Hun with you? You’re a good officer. We’ll all be in France some time soon. You want to die, at least die fighting. Killing yourself now is the coward’s way out. And you’re no coward, Matthew. You are a soldier. A good soldier.’

Dodds was listening. ‘But after this, they won’t let me fight.’

‘I won’t say anything. Neither will Captain Burkett — will you, Captain Burkett?’ Silence. ‘Captain Burkett?’

‘No.’ Conrad heard a croak from behind him.

‘And Corporal O’Leary didn’t see anything, either, did you, O’Leary?’

‘No, sir.’

Conrad took another step forward and held out his hand. A tear crept down Dodds’s cheek. He let the gun fall to his side, and Conrad gently eased it out of his fingers.

4

Wiltshire, 6 November

‘What happened last night, Mr de Lancey?’

Lieutenant Colonel Rydal sat back in the chair behind his desk, his fingers steepled. Despite his grey hair, Rydal had a smooth face and an energetic air that suggested more youth than you would expect from a regular army colonel who had fought in the Great War.

‘Lieutenant Dodds and Captain Burkett had an argument,’ Conrad replied. ‘Over a girl. It blew over.’

‘Blew over?’

‘Yes, sir.’

‘I understand that Lieutenant Dodds drew his weapon?’

Conrad was silent. He wondered how the colonel had found out what had happened. Both Burkett and Lance Corporal O’Leary had promised to keep quiet. Conrad wasn’t sure he could trust Burkett. And O’Leary might have told his fellow NCOs. Either way, it hadn’t taken long to get back to the colonel.

‘What happened, Mr de Lancey?’

‘Lieutenant Dodds is a good officer, sir. It’s my belief that he will turn into a very good officer.’

‘Good officers don’t get drunk and wave weapons around in the mess.’

‘No, sir. But it’s likely we are all going to be in France soon. And I know that I would rather have Mr Dodds behind me, or next to me, or leading a platoon coming to relieve me. Men like him are valuable.’

‘Rather than Captain Burkett, you mean?’

That was what Conrad had meant but he couldn’t admit it. ‘In Spain I learned whom I could trust and whom I couldn’t. There were men like Lieutenant Dodds in Spain who fought bravely; many of them died bravely. And yes some of them got drunk and behaved badly. But I spoke to Lieutenant Dodds for a long time last night. I really don’t think he will cause trouble again.’

‘You don’t expect me to overlook this, Mr de Lancey? Without discipline this battalion would become a shambles.’

‘That’s right, sir. But with young officers like Lieutenant Dodds, this battalion will be able to fight and fight well.’

The colonel paused briefly, but only briefly. He was a decisive man.

‘I can’t risk Lieutenant Dodds and Captain Burkett being in the same company, can I?’

‘No, sir. But perhaps Mr Dodds could be transferred to another company?’

The colonel reached into his in tray and pulled out a sheet of paper. ‘I have a request here for the secondment of regular army officers to training camps for new recruits.’

‘Lieutenant Dodds isn’t experienced enough for that, though, is he, sir?’

‘No. But Captain Burkett is.’

Conrad tried to repress a smile. ‘I think Captain Burkett would be an excellent choice, sir.’ Conrad considered his next words carefully. ‘While I am sure that Captain Burkett would miss the opportunity for active duty, he would relish the chance to lick new recruits into shape.’

‘My thoughts exactly.’ The colonel tossed the sheet of paper on to his desk. ‘You know I was fifteen when the last war started, nineteen when it finished? I served six months in the trenches.’

‘Sir.’

Rydal examined Conrad. He saw a tall, fit officer in his late twenties, with fair hair and athletic build; the sort of man who could take care of himself and his men. ‘You and I are the only two officers in the battalion with experience of real war.’

‘Yes, sir.’ The first two regiments Conrad had attempted to join had turned him down, almost certainly because of his time in the International Brigade. He had wondered why Colonel Rydal had been different.

‘Once the last war got going, promotions accelerated, and I am sure it will be the same with this one. You haven’t been with us long, Mr de Lancey, but I like what I have seen of you so far. I need men like you as my company commanders.’

Conrad gave up repressing his smile. ‘I won’t let you down, sir.’

‘I’m sure you won’t. Now, there’s something else.’ The colonel pulled out another sheet of paper and examined it. ‘You have been ordered to report to Sir Robert Vansittart at the Foreign Office immediately.’

‘Immediately?’

‘Today,’ said the colonel. ‘I’ve no idea what it is about. Have you?’

‘No idea at all, sir. Although I did come in contact with Sir Robert last year.’

The colonel frowned. ‘Really? You have a shadowy past, Mr de Lancey.’

Whitehall, London

Conrad decided to walk from Waterloo Station to Whitehall. London was entering its third month of war, and Conrad did not feel at all out of place in his uniform. For over a year the city had been preparing, but now that war had actually arrived, there were some changes. Motor cars’ bumps and prangs in the all-encompassing blackout had demonstrated a need for white stripes on lamp-posts, kerbs and crossings. Tops of pillar boxes were daubed with yellow paint which would supposedly detect poison gas. Brown paper strips criss-crossed shop windows to minimize blast damage. And up in the sky, over the Thames, barrage balloons dipped and bobbed, now daubed a murky green rather than the silver they had sported when they were first hoisted.

Conrad was pleased with his conversation with the CO. He knew that in most other regiments, Dodds would be up for a court martial. He was convinced that he was right: Dodds would make a better officer under fire than Burkett, and he was impressed that the colonel had agreed. But he was worried that Dodds had lost his head. Conrad’s instinct was that the young lieutenant would come into his own when under the pressure of battle, but what if he was wrong?

Still, he was damned sure they would all be better off without Captain Burkett. And from what the colonel had said, Conrad might be commanding his own company in a year or two. If the war lasted that long, which Conrad feared it would.

He passed through Parliament Square and strode up Whitehall, glancing at the Cenotaph with its reminder of all those hundreds of thousands of young men, like Conrad, who had perished in the last diplomatic balls-up twenty years before. He turned left into Downing Street and, opposite Number 10, entered the grand palace that was the Foreign Office.

Conrad had met Sir Robert Vansittart, Chief Diplomatic Adviser, several times before, mostly over dinner at his parents’ house. ‘Van’, as he was known, was a friend of Conrad’s father from their school days at Eton. He was tall, almost as tall as Conrad, with square shoulders and a square jaw. He was known for his forthright opinions, especially on the subject of appeasement of Germany, and for that reason he had been shuffled out of his former position of Permanent Under-Secretary a couple of years before, although he still maintained the impressive office with its view over St James’s Park.

‘Ah, de Lancey, take a seat.’ Van indicated one of the ornate chairs in front of his desk. ‘Good to see you in uniform. How is soldiering?’

‘I’m enjoying it, Sir Robert,’ said Conrad. ‘I seem to have a facility for it.’

‘Well, let us hope you will not be called upon to fire a shot in anger.’

‘Actually, I rather hoped I would. That was the point of joining up, after all.’

Van smiled. ‘I trust your father hasn’t heard you say that?’

Conrad admired his father both for his courage and for the strength of his convictions. Viscount Oakford’s pacifism was well known. During the Great War, as Captain the Hon. Arthur de Lancey, he had won a Victoria Cross, lost an arm, and honed a determination to prevent his country’s return to such wholesale slaughter ever again. Conrad’s mother was from Hamburg. So the declaration of war two months before had been a personal disaster for Conrad’s family.

But for Conrad it was a grim necessity. He smiled. ‘Father and I differ on the subject of war and peace.’

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ said Van. ‘He never ceases to harangue me and Lord Halifax to bring this war to an early conclusion.’

‘Which is impossible to do without giving in to tyranny,’ Conrad said.

‘Perhaps. But there might be a way.’

Conrad’s pulse quickened. His suspicion as to why he had been summoned to Whitehall looked as if it was going to be confirmed. ‘Are the German generals finally going to do something?’

‘It’s an eventuality that we cannot discount. It is for that reason I summoned you here. Have you had any communication recently with your German…’ Van paused to reach for the correct word. ‘…friends?’

‘Not since this time last year.’ Conrad had received no reply to his letter to Theo on the first day of the war.

‘And who were those friends, exactly?’

‘You want names?’

Van nodded.

Conrad hesitated. When he had returned from Berlin the previous autumn, he had been determined not to betray Theo, who had warned him of leaks in the British secret service. But now Britain and Germany were at war, and Sir Robert Vansittart was at the centre of the government directing that war.

‘My friend Lieutenant Theo von Hertenberg of the Abwehr.’ The Abwehr was the German secret service. ‘His boss, Colonel Oster. Captain Heinz, another Abwehr officer. Ewald von Kleist, a well-connected Prussian aristocrat. General Beck, the former Chief of the General Staff.’

‘And who else was part of the conspiracy?’

Theo had known most of the conspirators, but had not passed their names on to Conrad. Some, though, had been obvious.

‘Well, there’s Admiral Canaris, the Chief of the Abwehr. Theo Kordt in the German Foreign Office. Count Helldorf, the Chief of the Berlin Police. General von Witzleben. General Halder, the current Chief of the General Staff. Hjalmar Schacht, the former President of the Reichsbank. Many others I don’t know.’ As he reeled off the names, Conrad was reminded how extraordinary it was that so many senior members of the German government had been willing to overthrow their leader. And had come so close.

‘Have you come across a Captain Schämmel of the OKW Transport Division?’

Conrad frowned. ‘No, I don’t think so. There were a lot of people involved. Hertenberg may know him.’

Van was listening intently as he jotted the names Conrad mentioned on a pad of paper on his desk.

‘Over the last few months we have been bombarded by peace initiatives from every quarter. Most are a waste of time.’ Van grimaced. ‘An enormous waste of time. But our people in Holland have come across one which seems promising. They have been approached by a certain Captain Schämmel to discuss possible peace terms following a successful attempt by unspecified generals to remove Hitler.’

Conrad grinned. ‘I’m very glad to hear that.’ They had come so close twelve months before; only the offer by Neville Chamberlain of peace talks at Munich had derailed their plans at the last minute, to Conrad’s intense frustration. He had assumed that now war had been declared, all thoughts of removing Hitler would have been shelved. But apparently not.

‘Schämmel seems genuine and the Cabinet have been discussing how to respond. But we need to be sure. Which is why I thought of you.’

‘Me?’

‘Yes. You are the only Briton who has had direct contact with a number of the conspirators. I want you to go to Holland at once and meet this Schämmel, with our people. I would also like you to make contact with your friend Hertenberg. We believe that he has been operating in Holland recently; as a neutral country directly between Germany and Britain, it has seen a good deal of intelligence activity. Ask him whether the generals really are planning to remove Hitler and whether this man Schämmel represents them.’

‘Hertenberg might be unwilling to tell me,’ Conrad said. ‘He always made clear to me he was a patriot first and foremost, and his country is now at war with ours.’

‘If indeed there is coup planned, and the potential new government wishes to open discussions with us, he’ll tell you.’

Conrad considered Van’s point. It made sense.

‘Can you get in touch with him yourself?’ Van said. ‘Our people could no doubt help you, but it would probably be better all round if you could contact him independently.’

Conrad could hardly telephone him or send him a wire. But Denmark might work after all. ‘I can’t guarantee it, but I can have a go,’ he said. ‘When do I go to Holland?’

‘You are booked on a flight to Amsterdam early tomorrow morning.’

Conrad felt a rush of excitement. After the tedium of all that training, finally a chance to do something that might make a difference. ‘I’m due back at Tidworth this evening. Have you cleared it with my CO?’

‘That will be done,’ said Van.

Conrad smiled. ‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘If the German generals are finally going to dump Hitler, I’m grateful for the chance to be a part of it.’

‘Good. Mrs Dougherty outside will furnish you with the details.’ Van stood up to usher Conrad out of his office. ‘You will no doubt have contact with our people in Holland, but I would like you to report directly to me when you get back to London.’ He smiled. ‘I prefer to have direct access to sources of information. It gives me a much clearer picture.

‘Certainly, Sir Robert,’ Conrad said as he shook the mandarin’s proffered hand. ‘One question?’

‘Yes?’

‘Have you discussed this with my father?’

Van smiled. ‘In very general terms. He helped me track you down.’ The smile disappeared. ‘You raise a good point. I think it would be inadvisable to discuss the details of this with him. He may well press you on the issue, but you should be firm.’

‘I will be,’ said Conrad.

Conrad was damned sure his father would press him on the issue, and he wasn’t looking forward to that at all.

Conrad didn’t have much time. He arranged with Mrs Dougherty for his aeroplane ticket to be forwarded to his club, and went there himself to compose the telegram.

When he had last seen Theo, in Berlin over a year before, Theo had suggested a means of communication in emergencies. It involved an address in Copenhagen, and the use of certain codewords. These involved people and places from the Second Schleswig War of the 1860s, which was the subject of Conrad’s unfinished thesis at Oxford. The idea was that these could credibly be buried in a letter to a Dane on the subject of his academic work.

It was the address Conrad had used for his letter in plain English in September. He didn’t know why he hadn’t received a reply. Perhaps Theo disapproved of the sentimentality, or the lack of professionalism, or, more worryingly, he had simply never received the message.

Anyway, there was no time for a letter now. Scarcely time for a telegram. It took Conrad several attempts before he was happy.

Johan Madvig had been a Danish liberal politician in the 1860s: the use of his name in the message meant ‘meet me’. Dybbøl was the major battle of the war, and that meant ‘emergency’. Three was subtracted from any dates and times, so ‘10 Nov’ meant 7 November. And there was no way that Conrad could think of to hide the name of a rendezvous near The Hague. Leiden was a nearby university town, and the Hotel Levedag was one mentioned in the guidebook to Holland in the club library. He translated the draft telegram into Danish, addressed it to Anders Elkjaer at a house in a suburb of Copenhagen, and took it along to the Post Office to be sent right away.

It was the best he could do.

Fortunately, Conrad’s passport was at his parents’ house in Kensington Square, rather than the family home in Somerset. He would also need some civilian clothes: he could hardly travel in his uniform. Unfortunately it was likely that his father would be up in town. The most natural thing would be for Conrad to stay there that night and dine with his father, but Conrad thought Van had been absolutely correct in anticipating that Lord Oakford would want to interrogate him about his mission. Much better to sneak in, grab his things, sneak out, and stay at a hotel somewhere.

The plan worked. His father was out at the House of Lords, and Conrad left a message with his valet, Williamson, apologizing that he had missed him.

Telegram sent, travel documents in order, dressed in mufti and suitcase in hand, Conrad checked into a hotel in Bloomsbury.

5

Paris

Major Edward ‘Fruity’ Metcalfe skipped up the steps of the imposing house on the boulevard Suchet out by the bois de Boulogne, and rang the doorbell. The gendarme on duty outside nodded to him in recognition. Lights peeped out beneath the curtains which barely covered the tall windows of the four-storey property. There would be no German bombers that night, and the inhabitants of Paris knew it.

The door was promptly opened by a footman, and inside a butler as tall as Fruity stepped forward.

‘Good evening, Hale,’ said Fruity, handing the man his coat and hat.

‘Good evening, Major Metcalfe.’

‘You know we are dining with your former employer this evening?’

‘Please be sure to send my regards to Mr Bedaux, sir.’

‘If you like, Hale. But I don’t want to taunt him, what?’

Hale was the best butler in France. Everyone knew it, including both his former employer — Charles Bedaux, and his present employer — the Duke of Windsor.

‘Tell His Royal Highness I’m here, would you? I’ll wait.’

‘Very good, sir.’ Hale disappeared up the stairs, and Fruity settled in his favourite Louis the somethingth chair, crossed his long legs and lit up a cigarette. He stared at the absurdly ornate clock opposite him, its dial surrounded by an exploding sun of gold leaf, and listened to its familiar restful tick. One way or the other he had spent a lot of time over the last month waiting for the duke in this hallway. The duke would either be late or very late. Fruity didn’t mind: it was all part of the job.

Fruity was HRH the Duke of Windsor’s aide-de-camp, or equerry or something. He wasn’t quite sure what his official title was, which was fine, but he was becoming increasingly unsure whether he would even be paid for it, which wasn’t. The duke had found himself in a pickle when war had broken out, and Fruity had been willing to step into the breach. The British government had tied itself in knots trying to work out how the king-in-exile should be treated in the new war. The duke and his wife had returned to England from their house in Antibes to be met with official indifference. Fruity had done his duty, inviting the duke to stay at his own modest house in Sussex, and then joining him when the powers that be had finally found a job for him in France. That’s what friends were for. And whatever else he was, Fruity was the duke’s friend. Sometimes he wondered whether he was his only friend.

He heard the scrabble of paws on the stairway and stood up. Pookie, Detto and Prisie tumbled down. Fruity bent down to scratch the ears of the largest of the cairn terriers, Detto, his favourite. Detto wagged his tail, as did the other two. The younger one, the puppy, started yapping. They were all pleased to see Fruity; animals usually were.

‘Oh, Prisie, do be quiet!’

Fruity straightened up. ‘Hello, Wallis.’ He tried his best friendly smile, but it wasn’t returned. The duchess was smartly dressed for a night in alone, in an elegant black dress with a giant diamond brooch in the shape of a star sparkling from her forbiddingly flat chest. On anyone else, Fruity would have assumed it was fake, but Wallis never wore costume jewellery. She was, after all, the woman for whom a king had given up his throne.

‘Be sure to bring him back right away, Fruity.’

‘Of course, Wallis.’

‘No going on anywhere else?’

‘Straight home for us,’ Fruity said. Wallis’s strictures were completely unnecessary, more was the pity. In the old days in London, when the duke was the Prince of Wales, he and Fruity would have gone on to the Embassy Club after dinner, and stayed up all night drinking and dancing. And of course there were plenty of tempting places to visit in Paris. But the duke was even more scared of Wallis than Fruity was; there was absolutely no chance of him going on anywhere afterwards.

‘Fruity!’ The duke himself bounded down the stairs, dressed in black tie and dinner jacket, his mane of thick blond hair carefully parted and combed. He smiled broadly at Fruity, showing off those perfect gleaming teeth, his blue eyes twinkling. ‘Are you ready?’

Fruity grinned back. ‘I certainly am.’

The duke turned to his wife.

‘Give my love to Charles, Dave,’ Wallis said. Fruity winced. The duke’s family and his closest friends called him by the seventh of his many Christian names, ‘David’, instead of the first, ‘Edward’. But Dave?

‘And to Fern,’ the duchess went on. ‘I haven’t seen her for years. See if you can arrange for all of us to meet up soon, will you, sweetheart?’

‘I will, darling. Let’s go, Fruity!’

The duke’s Buick was waiting outside, piloted by his chauffeur Webster, with a former Scotland Yard detective in the front seat next to him. Fruity and the duke climbed in the back.

‘I was just writing up my notes for the Wombat,’ said the duke. ‘The Wombat’ was Major General Howard-Vyse, the senior British liaison officer at French headquarters.

‘I’d say it was rather a successful trip,’ Fruity said. They had just spent five days together touring a portion of the French lines.

‘I suppose so,’ said the duke. ‘But they are a frightful shower, the French, aren’t they? I’ve done my best to point it out tactfully, but it’s damned difficult.’

It was their third trip. The duke had been given a job at the British Mission to the French headquarters at Vincennes, reporting to the Wombat. In that role he was to inspect the French lines in a series of tours, but he had also been given the task of reporting back to the Chief of the Imperial General Staff in London with an assessment of the strengths and especially weaknesses of the French defences.

They had started near the Channel, where the powerful French 7^th Army was poised to speed north following a German invasion of Belgium, and then worked their way east. Their most recent trip had been to the French 2^nd Army stationed along the Meuse in the Ardennes, at the hinge where the Maginot Line along the Franco-German border met neutral Luxembourg and Belgium.

The duke was right: the 2^nd Army was a frightful shower led by a complacent idiot, a general named Huntziger. But Fruity enjoyed driving around the lines with the Little Man, hundreds of miles from Wallis. The further he strayed from her petticoats, the more the duke loosened up, the more fun he was.

The Buick cruised down the wide avenue du Président-Wilson towards the centre of Paris. Headlights of oncoming motor cars were barely covered; strips of light spilled out between inadequate blinds in the cafés. Where London was battened down under a grim black cloak, Paris at night was lifting its hem to show some garter.

The Little Man might have to rush back to Mrs Nibs after dinner, but that didn’t mean Fruity had to.

‘How was Bedaux?’ the duke said. ‘I haven’t seen him for nearly two years now.’

‘Back to his old self,’ Fruity said. ‘Has a finger in every pie. Knows everything. Dashing about the place: Holland, England. I even got the impression he was going to Germany.’

‘Really? How the devil does he manage that?’

‘He’s a Yank, isn’t he? Neutral passport.’

‘He’s a man of the world, if ever there was one,’ the duke said. ‘I look forward to seeing him again. That man certainly has imagination. And energy.’

‘And he was very keen to see you.’

Very keen. Fruity was staying at the Ritz, and a few days before he had been accosted by Charles Bedaux, a fellow resident of the hotel. Bedaux was a Franco-American businessman, frightfully rich, who had amassed his pile from time-and-motion studies or something. He was a friend of a friend of Wallis’s and had made his chateau available for her wedding to the duke. It was a fine place on the Loire, and Bedaux and his American wife Fern had been the perfect hosts.

It wasn’t their fault that the wedding itself had been a cringe-making disaster. Almost no one from England had accepted their invitations, and those who had had pulled out once they had recognized their error. The disapproval of the new king and queen, and of society, was powerful and pervasive.

Of course, Fruity had done his duty to his old friend. He had been best man.

They pulled into the place Vendôme and drew up in front of the Ritz. The doorman recognized the car and leaped for the duke’s door. Inside, the hotel was buzzing, but the chatter subsided a little as the former king entered the glittering lobby.

‘Your Royal Highness!’

Fruity and the duke turned to see a short, powerfully built man with jug ears and thick black brilliantined hair bustling towards them.

‘Charles! Good to see you again!’ said the duke, holding out his hand. ‘You’re looking well.’

‘I am well, sir, I am well,’ Bedaux said in his European-film-star American accent, before turning to Fruity and shaking his hand. ‘I’ve organized a private dining room. A lot has happened in the world since we last saw each other. There is much to discuss.’

6

Schiphol Airport, Amsterdam, 7 November

Conrad found no difficulty spotting the Englishman waiting for him in the passenger terminal at Schiphol Airport. He was tall, wearing a check suit, a monocle and spats.

‘Captain Payne Best?’

The man reached for Conrad’s hand and shook it. ‘The very same. Lieutenant de Lancey, I assume. Welcome to Holland. The car’s right outside. Can I take your bag?’

‘I’m all right,’ said Conrad, gripping his suitcase.

‘Follow me.’

Payne Best led Conrad out of the building to a car park and a sleek black American car.

‘Good to be back?’

‘Back?’ said Conrad. ‘I haven’t spent much time in Holland. Once on holiday when I was a child. Other than that just en route to Germany.’

‘But you do speak Dutch?’ Payne Best said.

‘Not as such, no,’ said Conrad.

‘I was told you speak Dutch.’

‘Danish.’

Payne Best shook his head. ‘Typical of them not to know the difference between Dutch and Danish.’

Conrad decided not to ask who ‘they’ were. The onset of war had led to a mushrooming of bureaucratic screw-ups, and this one didn’t surprise him. ‘Does it matter?’

They climbed into the car. ‘My plan was that you should be my chauffeur when we go to see the Hun officers. But if you don’t speak Dutch, I’m not sure what we will do.’

‘Teach me the Dutch for “yes, sir” and “certainly, sir”,’ said Conrad. ‘I’m a good mimic.’

‘Sprechen Sie Deutsch?’ asked Payne Best.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Conrad in that language. ‘My mother is from Hamburg and I was actually born there just before the last war.’

‘Your accent is perfect,’ said Payne Best, whose German was also pretty good. ‘All right, we’ll stick to the plan.’ He guided the car out of the car park and followed a sign to ‘s Gravenhage, The Hague’s official name. He glanced at Conrad’s own suit. ‘Savile Row?’

‘Yes. Norton.’

‘We must get you something much cheaper and more obviously Dutch. I have a man who drives for me occasionally, and we’re going to make you look like him.’

Payne Best put his foot on the accelerator of the powerful car, a Lincoln Zephyr, and they roared past lesser vehicles on the highway.

‘Can you tell me something about this Major Schämmel?’ Conrad asked.

‘We’ve met him three times,’ Payne Best said. ‘He seems genuine to me. Rhineland accent, I think. Intelligent. My only question is what someone of his calibre is doing in the Transport Division.’

‘Transport is important for a modern army,’ Conrad said. ‘Especially a mobile one.’ That was one thing that his regiment had drummed into its officers. Their battalion had been ‘motorized’ two years before, and had embraced mobility with enthusiasm.

‘Perhaps,’ said Payne Best. ‘We have been supposed to meet a general, but Schämmel has some excuse about why he can’t make it. Of course the excuses may be valid; I can understand how it is difficult to smuggle a general out in wartime. We were meant to meet him tomorrow, but Schämmel has postponed again until Thursday. The idea is to get the general to agree to fly to London.’

‘Does this general have a name?’ Conrad asked.

‘Not yet,’ said Payne Best. ‘Look here. I’m not entirely sure of your role in this operation, de Lancey. I was told you would just be watching. You won’t be involved in the negotiations, will you?’

‘No, I’ll leave that to you,’ said Conrad. ‘My job is to make sure that Major Schämmel is real.’

‘Have you had contact with these generals, then?’

‘Some,’ said Conrad. ‘But we don’t want Major Schämmel to know that.’

‘Where? In Germany?’

‘Rather not say, if that’s all the same to you,’ said Conrad with a smile.

‘Fair enough,’ said Payne Best, nodding to himself with what looked like approval. ‘Or, as we say in Holland: Zeker, meneer.’

They spent the remaining half-hour driving very fast towards The Hague going over the kind of phrases that a taciturn chauffeur might say to his boss. Dutch pronunciation was tricky, but Conrad quickly picked up Payne Best’s accent. How good that was, he didn’t know, but to Conrad’s ear it sounded the genuine article.

The countryside reminded Conrad a little of the levels near his family’s home in Somerset, which he knew had been shaped by Dutch engineers a few centuries before. Green, flat, waterlogged, criss-crossed with ditches and dykes, only the odd barn or copse broke the monotony. And the windmills. Somerset didn’t have the windmills.

Once they reached The Hague, Payne Best drove to the C&A department store in the centre of the city and found Conrad a cheap off-the-peg suit and a flat cap. Not an actual chauffeur’s uniform, but rather the kind of thing that a mechanic might dress up in to look smart on a driving job. Payne Best paid.

‘Your name is Jan Lemmens,’ he said.

‘Do you have papers for me? What if I get stopped by the Dutch police?’

‘There’s a fellow from Dutch military intelligence who they insist comes along with us named Klop, although we pass him off as a British officer. He’s a good man. He’ll square them.’

‘All right. Where am I staying?’

‘I’ll take you there now. It’s a bit of a dump, I’m afraid. Too risky to have you staying at a smart hotel. The Hague is crawling with spies, don’t you know?’

True to his word, Payne Best dropped Conrad in a small scruffy hotel near the Hollands Spoor railway station. ‘Lie low tomorrow. I’ll pick you up at half past nine on Thursday morning. Wear your new suit — perhaps crumple it tonight if you can; put it under your mattress. The plan is to meet Schämmel at three o’clock near the border.’

Düsseldorf

The man whom Captain Payne Best knew as Captain Schämmel eased off his headphones and stared at the notepad on the desk in front of him. Venlo. 3 pm. 9 November.

He was in the small sitting room of a pension in Düsseldorf that had been turned into a communications room. Pride of place was given to the wireless transmitter which had been given to him by Payne Best and on which he had just confirmed the rendezvous. Accompanied by the general.

The British were pleased. He was pleased. He was getting somewhere.

He picked up one of the three telephones, the one with the direct line to Berlin. He was put through within a few seconds.

‘Heydrich.’

‘Herr Gruppenführer, this is Schellenberg.’

‘Ah, Walter. How did it go?’ The high-pitched voice of his superior immediately put Schämmel, whose real name and rank was SS Sturmbannführer Walter Schellenberg, on his guard, as it always did. You could never let your concentration slip for a moment in the presence of the head of the Gestapo.

‘I have set up a meeting in two days at Venlo. And I have just the man to play the part of the general.’

‘Do you think they suspect anything?’

‘No. And once I produce a general they will be happy.’

‘Good, good.’

Schellenberg, the head of the counter-intelligence section of the Gestapo, knew his chief. Heydrich’s tone suggested that something was not in fact good. Schellenberg waited.

‘I was speaking to the Führer about this,’ Heydrich went on.

Here we go, thought Schellenberg.

‘He is concerned about you flying to London.’

‘But if we are to get the British to tell us what they know about a plot to overthrow him, then we have to get them to believe we are real! They have insisted that the general comes to London, and if he goes, I have to go with him.’

‘I know that, Walter. But the Führer doesn’t like talking about plots to overthrow him, even fictional ones. He is going to Munich tomorrow, and he is back on the ninth. He will confirm you can go ahead then.’

‘Yes, Herr Gruppenführer!’ said Schellenberg and hung up.

The whole plan had been Heydrich’s idea, and now he was talking about pulling the plug on it at the very last minute, just as Schellenberg was getting somewhere.

But Schellenberg couldn’t worry about that; he had to assume that the rendezvous was going ahead. He needed to brief his ‘general’ and work on his strategy to negotiate with the British.

And in a couple of days, with any luck, he would discover who among the German generals really were plotting to overthrow the Führer.

The Hague

Conrad waited in his pokey room for ten minutes and then headed back outside. The Hollands Spoor station was just around the corner and there were frequent trains to Leiden. It only took twenty minutes.

Conrad had picked Leiden because of its proximity to The Hague and the famous university there. It was the sort of place where a doctoral student might meet an academic. Even when the doctoral student was actually a serving officer in the British Army? An intelligent German censor with time to check up on Conrad’s bona fides would never believe it. Conrad just had to hope that his telegram had been passed directly to the Abwehr and Theo.

It was a reasonable assumption.

Leiden reminded Conrad a little of Oxford. Lots of students acting as if they owned the place, lots of bicycles, lots of ancient buildings. But it was quieter, and prettier, and a network of canals threaded through the town. There was no war anywhere to be seen.

Despite the November breeze, it was a pleasant walk from the station to the city centre. The Hotel Levedag was on the Breestraat just past the town hall. Conrad decided to be himself as he approached the man behind the desk, whom he guessed was the hotel manager.

‘Good afternoon,’ he said in English. ‘Are there any messages for me? My name is Conrad de Lancey, and I was intending to stay at this hotel tonight, but I had to change my plans and stay in The Hague.’

‘Certainly, sir. Let me check,’ the manager replied in good English. He studied a bank of pigeonholes and then rummaged around in a drawer beneath his desk. He pouted and grimaced. ‘Nothing, sir, I am sorry.’

‘Ah.’ Conrad was disappointed, but he wasn’t giving up. ‘What about for Professor Madvig?’

‘Is he a guest at the hotel?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Conrad. ‘I was supposed to meet him here.’

‘Are you expecting a message from the professor?’

‘Either from or to,’ said Conrad.

The manager looked at Conrad doubtfully, but then turned to have another look at the pigeonholes and a large ledger. ‘We have no record of Professor Madvig staying here or making a booking. Nor a message for him.’

Conrad smiled. ‘I understand. I’m afraid there has been a frightful mix-up. I’ll come back tomorrow. And if someone does leave a message, can you keep it for me?’

The hotel manager’s doubts were rising. Conrad had a feeling he wasn’t doing the secret-agent thing very well. Theo was the professional. It was too much for Conrad to expect his friend to get the message via Copenhagen to Berlin, and get to Leiden in a day.

‘Thank you,’ said Conrad and beat a retreat.

He stood in the Breestraat and wondered what to do. A blue tram rattled past. It was past two o’clock and he was hungry. He spotted a café-restaurant, and crossed the street to examine the menu in the window, dodging bicycles whizzing past.

‘Don’t look at me,’ said a voice in German next to him. A very familiar voice. ‘The Diefsteeg, back towards the station. Ten minutes.’

Conrad managed to suppress a smile, but showed no sign that he had heard anything. After a minute or so, he moved on to another café to inspect its menu. Then he strolled back along the Breestraat the way he had come.

The Diefsteeg turned out to be a quiet narrow lane, paved with red brick and squeezed between blind sides of houses on one side and courtyard walls on the other. Conrad walked slowly down the alley. He saw a tall familiar figure ahead, sauntering towards him. Before Conrad reached him, the figure ducked into a little café. Conrad examined the sparse menu in the window for a moment and then followed him in.

Theo was sitting at a table, back to the window, facing the door. He grinned when he saw Conrad. His dark hair had receded a little in the year since Conrad had last seen him, but the duelling scar along his jawline was still visible. And his smile was as charming as ever.

‘Professor Madvig, I presume,’ Theo said in English. ‘Or am I Professor Madvig?’

‘Sorry about that,’ said Conrad, taking a seat opposite him. ‘I think technically we are both supposed to be meeting Professor Madvig, whoever the hell he is. It was the best I could think of in the time.’

‘It worked,’ said Theo. ‘Fortunately I was in Holland anyway, so I could get here today. By the way, I think it’s better we speak English than German. Fewer Dutch people understand it, and it’s a little less suspicious.’

‘I’m glad you got the message. I was worried when you didn’t respond to the letter I sent you a few weeks ago. Did you receive it?’

‘I did get it,’ said Theo. ‘I thought about replying, but I didn’t know what to say. Because I didn’t know what to think.’

‘About the war?’ Conrad asked.

‘About the war. About you. About me.’

The barman approached, and they ordered pea soup and beer.

‘I know what I think,’ said Conrad. ‘Hitler must be stopped. That’s why I joined the army: to stop him.’

‘It’s easier for you than me,’ said Theo.

‘But you do still think Hitler must be stopped, don’t you?’ asked Conrad. It was an important question. If Theo had changed his mind about that, then Conrad should halt the conversation right there and then.

‘Oh, yes,’ said Theo. ‘But I don’t want to undermine my country in a war. Unlike you, for me those two things clash.’

‘Yes, of course,’ said Conrad. He had visited Theo’s family seat in the heart of Prussian Pomerania. Theo’s father had been a general, as had his father before him. Patriotism, duty, the obligation to fight for one’s country: all these were bred deep into Theo’s bones, despite the socialist ideals he had professed at Oxford in the early 1930s.

‘You’re still in the Abwehr?’ Conrad asked.

Theo smiled. ‘You know I shouldn’t really answer that question.’

That was good enough for Conrad.

The soup came and they began eating. ‘I have dropped everything to come here,’ Theo said. ‘And I’m curious why. What’s an infantry officer doing in Holland? Shouldn’t you be in France?’

Conrad scanned the café. There was one other customer, an old man reading a newspaper and drinking a small glass of beer. He looked very Dutch. He was also out of earshot, as was the barman.

‘Do you know a Captain Schämmel? Of the OKW Transport Division?’

‘I’ve never heard of him,’ said Theo. ‘Should I have?’

Conrad hesitated. Could he trust Theo? Of course he could. Theo knew the names of most of the people who had been involved in the previous year’s conspiracy. One more name wouldn’t make any difference.

‘Perhaps,’ said Conrad. ‘He claims he is representing a group of German generals who intend to overthrow Hitler. Soon.’

Theo nodded. He was thinking. Conrad let him. ‘And you are meeting him? Here in Holland?’

Now it was Conrad’s turn to hesitate. But he had to trust Theo; he had already taken that decision. ‘Yes.’

‘And the British secret service sent you?’

‘Sir Robert Vansittart. Chief Diplomatic Adviser. Personally.’

Van had been aware of the discussions with Theo’s co-conspirators and the British government before the Munich peace conference the year before, and Theo knew that.

‘I see.’ Theo studied Conrad. ‘I haven’t heard of this Schämmel. Which is a little strange. I have spent a lot of time in Holland recently.’

‘Is there an imminent plot?’

Theo hesitated. Then he nodded.

Conrad leaned forward. ‘When?’

‘Next week. The fifteenth of November to be precise. If the generals don’t lose their nerve.’

Conrad felt a surge of excitement. ‘Which generals?’

‘Halder. And most of the others from last year.’

‘Halder is still Chief of the General Staff?’

Theo nodded. ‘Hitler intends to launch an offensive through Holland and Belgium next week.’

‘Next week?’ Conrad was stunned by what Theo had just told him. The date of a major offensive. In a lot of people’s eyes that would be treachery of the highest order. He glanced at his friend. Theo knew what he was saying.

‘That will turn the Sitzkrieg into a real war,’ Theo said. ‘Nineteen fourteen all over again. The generals think the German people won’t like that. So it’s the right time to strike.’

‘So by next week Hitler will be overthrown and the war will be over?

Theo grinned. ‘That’s the plan.’

It sounded too good to be true.

‘Do you think they will go through with it?’ Conrad asked.

‘The offensive or the coup?’

‘Both,’ said Conrad.

‘The Führer seems determined not to be put off from the date of the offensive. As for the coup? Halder has let us down before. He said he would act if Hitler invaded Poland and he didn’t, so I can’t be sure he won’t let us down again. I hope he won’t. I have to believe he won’t.’

‘I hope to God he does act this time,’ said Conrad. ‘Does that mean it’s possible Halder could have sent someone to sound out the British government about peace terms if there is a coup?’

‘Yes, it’s possible. And I suppose it is possible I wouldn’t know about it. But I can find out.’

‘Ask Canaris?’

Admiral Canaris, the Chief of the Abwehr, had given his behind-the-scenes support to the planned coup. He knew everything.

Theo avoided answering the question directly. ‘I’ll have to go back to Berlin. I might not get you an answer for a couple of days.’

‘That’s all right. I expect there will be a number of meetings to discuss possible peace terms. Schämmel is supposed to be bringing one of the generals he is working for.’

‘Do you know who that is?’ asked Theo.

‘No. Schämmel hasn’t said yet. Which is understandable.’

‘I suppose so.’ Theo narrowed his eyes. ‘Are you going with Major Stevens?’

‘Who is Major Stevens?’

‘He’s the British Passport Control Officer in the Hague, which means he is in charge of the British secret service in the Netherlands. I know a lot about Major Stevens. In fact I know a lot about everyone who works for him, and the people who work in the British Embassy. Your whole Dutch operation is full of holes. You should be very careful.’ He frowned. ‘You haven’t told them about me, have you?’

‘No,’ said Conrad. ‘I haven’t met Major Stevens yet.’

‘Good. Best not to mention me at all, and if you do, give me a code name. Say I’m in the Luftwaffe and close to Göring. That should confuse them.’

‘You are asking me to confuse my own side?’

‘You bet,’ said Theo. ‘Because if you don’t, there is a good chance that my side will find out that I have been talking to you. And the wrong people on my side.’

‘I understand,’ said Conrad. ‘But I will pass on what you said about the offensive next week. You know that?’

‘Yes,’ said Theo. ‘I know.’ He mopped up the last of his soup with some bread. ‘How’s Anneliese?’

‘She’s well,’ said Conrad.

‘How’s she settling in to life in London? Do you still see her?’

Conrad took a spoonful of soup. ‘I do, when I can,’ he said. ‘It’s difficult for the Jewish refugees in London. It’s hard to find a job, although she’s just got something working as a nurse.’

‘It’s got to be easier than Berlin,’ said Theo. ‘At least she left before Kristallnacht.’

Theo was referring to the wholesale beating-up of Jews and smashing of their property twelve months before.

‘That’s certainly true.’

‘I’m glad you are still seeing her. I admire Anneliese. She’s a strong woman. I’ve come across people who have spent time in the concentration camps; they are not quite the same afterwards.’

Conrad smiled quickly. ‘It was difficult for her,’ he said.

Theo caught something in the tone of Conrad’s voice, and looked as if he was about to pursue it, before deciding not to.

Theo signalled for the bill. ‘Oh, and please give your beautiful sister my regards when you can,’ he said. ‘Once this has all worked out as it should.’

‘I will,’ said Conrad. Theo and Millie had met briefly in Germany the previous year and Theo had clearly taken a shine to her. Although Theo had many strengths, the way he treated women wasn’t one of them, so Conrad was quite happy that Theo had only met his sister the once.

‘How will we meet next time?’ Conrad asked.

‘There’s a chemistry professor at Leiden University: W. F. Hogendoorn. He’s Dutch, but trustworthy. Leave a message with him, at the university, and he will tell you where and when.’

‘W. F. Hogendoorn,’ Conrad repeated. By ‘trustworthy’, Conrad wondered what Theo meant. Trustworthy for the Germans? The Abwehr? Theo? The cause of peace? ‘I hope you are right about the coup.’

‘So do I,’ Theo said. ‘So do I.’

Theo paid the bill and left the café walking up towards the Breestraat. Conrad waited a moment and then turned the other way.

He was still stunned by what Theo had told him. In a week’s time the Germans would launch an offensive and General Halder would arrest Hitler. Or perhaps kill him. There was hope after all that Europe wouldn’t tear itself apart again.

Conrad was looking forward to seeing Schämmel. As he had told Theo, he was prepared to fight. But much better if Theo, Schämmel and their friends could topple Hitler and sue for peace at the same time, avoiding the deaths of millions in the process. And Conrad was glad he might get to play his part in it after all.

His one regret was that he had brushed off Theo’s questioning about Anneliese, or at least not told him the whole truth. Anneliese was not ‘well’. Conrad was worried about her, very worried. He hadn’t spoken to anyone about her, but Theo was an old friend. At Oxford they had shared their feelings about everything. And Theo actually knew Anneliese, and how important she was to Conrad. Perhaps he could help; perhaps Conrad should have let him help.

As he reached the end of the Diefsteeg, Conrad realized he was heading the wrong way for the station and turned on his heel. A man was walking alone down the lane towards Conrad, hands in his coat pockets, hat tilted down over his eyes. He looked Dutch, nondescript, forty perhaps, but there was something about his nose — a little long, an upward tilt at the end — that Conrad recognized. Conrad was pretty sure that he had passed the man leaving the lobby of the Hotel Levedag an hour before.

Despite all Theo’s precautions, it looked as if someone had spotted Theo talking to Conrad after all.

Who was it? Conrad wondered.

7

Berlin, 8 November

‘Ah, come in, Hertenberg. Sit down.’

‘Thank you, excellency,’ said Theo as he took a seat in front of the admiral’s desk.

Admiral Canaris’s office was on the top floor of the Abwehr building on the Tirpitzufer in Berlin, overlooking the chestnut trees lining the Landwehr Canal. The admiral was a small, neat man with light blue eyes and fine white hair. He was stroking a rough-haired dachshund nestled with its eyes closed on his lap. With him was Colonel Oster, a debonair cavalry officer and the man who had recruited Theo into the Abwehr. As a trainee lawyer, Theo had been introduced to Oster by his father, under whom Colonel Oster had served. Paradoxically for a former pacifist, the Wehrmacht and the Abwehr had seemed to Theo a good alternative to joining the Nazi Party, which Theo would have had to do if he wanted to pass his final assessor’s exams. Officers in the Wehrmacht were still not required to become Party members.

Despite Canaris’s rank, Theo felt at ease. The Abwehr was a haven of safety in a very dangerous Reich. Canaris led by example: he felt spying was the preserve of gentlemen, and honour and duty were more important than ideology. He looked after his own, and Theo was very much one of his own.

‘What brings you to Berlin in such a hurry?’ Canaris asked.

‘A couple of things, excellency,’ Theo began. ‘I saw de Lancey yesterday.’

‘Ah, de Lancey,’ Canaris smiled. ‘I wondered when he would pop up again. I take it he is with the British secret service now?’

‘Not directly, I think. He said he was sent to Holland by Sir Robert Vansittart of the British Foreign Office. To meet a man called Captain Schämmel of the OKW’s Transport Division. Schämmel is supposed to be representing leaders of a plot to overthrow Hitler. I’ve never heard of him.’

‘Neither have I,’ said Canaris. ‘Tell me what you know about him.’

Theo related all that Conrad had told him about Schämmel and his generals.

Canaris listened closely. ‘And de Lancey didn’t say which general this Schämmel was representing?’

‘No.’

‘What do you think, Hans? Have you heard of this person?’

Colonel Oster shook his head. ‘Could he be one of Göring’s men?’

‘Possible,’ said Canaris. ‘I doubt it myself, but you never know.’

The senior echelons of the Nazi Party were by no means united; it was Hitler’s deliberate strategy to keep them rivals. Himmler’s SS, Heydrich’s Gestapo, and Göring’s little empire comprising the Luftwaffe and the Prussian Interior Ministry were all separate power blocks. Then there were the lesser Nazis like Ribbentrop and his Foreign Ministry, Goebbels’s Propaganda Ministry, Rudolf Hess and Alfred Rosenberg. The stormtroopers of the SA, once a force to be reckoned with, had been neutralized by Himmler in the ‘Night of the Long Knives’ back in 1934. Outside the Nazi Party were Canaris and the Abwehr, Schacht and the Finance Ministry, Admiral Raeder’s navy and, perhaps most powerful of all, the army led by Generals von Brauchitsch and Halder.

The conspiracy that Canaris, Oster and Theo had been involved in encompassed the army and Schacht, as well as one or two other politicians and some elements of the police. Göring was certainly not one of this group, but he was ambitious and powerful, and perhaps the most likely of Hitler’s friends to make a move against him.

‘Or it could be a trap,’ said Canaris.

‘A trap?’ said Oster. ‘Set by whom?’

‘The Gestapo,’ said Canaris. ‘We know they suspect something. They could be trying tease out from the British who among us has been talking to them.’ He gave a wry smile. ‘It’s what I would do. And it’s the kind of idea Heydrich would love.’

Theo was yet again impressed by the subtlety of his chief’s thought process. Not for him the simple giving and taking of orders. The admiral’s escapades in the last war when, as an intelligence officer aboard the Dresden in the South Atlantic, he had used bluff and double bluff to stay one step ahead of the Royal Navy, were legendary. A model of the ship stood on his desk.

‘I know there have been some Gestapo agents operating in Holland,’ Theo said. ‘Mörz, for one.’

‘I’ll talk to Schellenberg, see if he knows anything.’ Canaris and the new young head of the foreign-intelligence section of the Gestapo were neighbours in the Berlin suburb of Schlachtensee, and occasionally rode together in the Tiergarten. Although Canaris held the Gestapo in contempt, he had some respect for Schellenberg. Theo had never met Schellenberg and found the Gestapo’s efforts at spying frustrating.

‘If it is a trap, we don’t want de Lancey caught in it,’ said Oster. ‘He knows too much about us.’

‘De Lancey won’t talk,’ Theo said. ‘I mean, he will talk, but not about us. He has outwitted the Gestapo before.’

‘That’s true,’ said the admiral. ‘But we don’t want to rely on anyone keeping quiet once Heydrich has his hands on them. Warn de Lancey to be careful, Theo, until we are sure who exactly this Schämmel is.’

‘Certainly, your excellency.’

‘And the other matter?’

‘I have been having some very interesting conversations with Mr Bedaux…’

After the meeting, Theo followed Oster to his office.

‘Do you think Halder really will move on the fifteenth?’ Theo asked the colonel.

‘He’s trying to persuade Hitler that the weather will be too bad to launch an offensive,’ Oster said. ‘But Hitler won’t listen.’

‘So the coup will go ahead?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Oster. ‘I mean, if Halder really wanted to overthrow Hitler he would be urging that Case Yellow would go ahead.’ Case Yellow was the general staff’s plan to invade the Low Countries and attack France from the north. ‘That’s what we were all hoping for last year.’

It was true. Theo remembered how the conspirators had prayed for Hitler to order the invasion of Czechoslovakia so they could launch their coup. When he had called it off at the last minute in response to Chamberlain’s peace overtures, they had all been devastated.

‘It’s more difficult now we are at war,’ Theo said.

‘It is,’ said Oster. ‘You know, Theo, strictly between us, in my view it would be a disaster for our country if France was knocked out of the war.’

Theo trusted his superior. Oster was the driving force behind the conspiracy. Canaris left Oster, and through him Theo, to do the organizing. Canaris was careful to preserve the delicate balance of loyalty to the Fatherland and willingness to overthrow its leader. Oster had fewer qualms.

Theo nodded. ‘I understand, Colonel.’ He also understood how Oster’s words would be seen as treason, not just by the Nazis, but by most German officers and by Admiral Canaris himself.

Theo had intended to tell no one what he had told Conrad. But somehow telling Oster made what Theo had done less treasonable. Like Theo, Oster believed that the most important thing for Germany, the only thing for Germany, was to get rid of Hitler by any possible means.

‘I gave de Lancey the date of Case Yellow,’ Theo said.

Oster looked at Theo gravely. And then a smile spread across his face. ‘And I told the Dutch military attaché last night that we would be invading his country next week. But let’s keep this to ourselves, eh, Theo? And now, isn’t it about time you went back to Holland?’

8

Munich

Fräulein Peters stared down at the Bavarian countryside flickering beneath the clouds below her and marvelled at her good fortune. It was her first time in an aeroplane and it ranked as one of the most exciting days of her twenty years. Not only was she a thousand metres up in the sky, but she was there with the Führer! Six months before, she would never have believed it. Then she had been transferred to the Reich Chancellery secretariat, and for the last three weeks she had been working for the Führer himself.

Fräulein Peters was doing a good job; she was an efficient and competent secretary, quick thinking and able to see one step ahead. The only trouble was her nerves. On those occasions when the Führer spoke to her directly, she could sense herself blushing. She could almost feel her tongue swelling in her mouth and she was sure that at some point soon she would garble her words and make a fool of herself. Fortunately, the Führer seemed to enjoy her blushes. She had blond hair, blue eyes and a very clear complexion. She was, she knew, a true German, and she was proud of it.

They were on their way to Munich, where Hitler was giving a speech to mark the sixteenth anniversary of the 1923 Beer Hall Putsch, in which he had led his National Socialist comrades in a failed attempt to take over the city.

The ground was pressing up towards the underbelly of the aircraft. The machine juddered and Fräulein Peters was alarmed to see outside her window part of the wing detach itself and droop downwards. There was a grinding beneath her feet. She braced herself as the runway rushed upwards beneath the wings, and then they were down with barely a bump.

The machine turned towards the airport terminal building and jolted to a stop. The pilot came through to the cabin.

Hitler, who was sitting only two rows from Fräulein Peters, greeted him. ‘I need to be in Berlin tomorrow morning, Baur. Can you guarantee we can leave early? What’s the weather forecast?’

‘At the moment they are saying visibility will be good, my Führer, but it is November and fog is always a possibility. If that was to happen, there’s a chance we could be delayed for a few hours until it clears. If you have to be sure of getting to Berlin tomorrow morning I recommend you take the train tonight.’

Hitler nodded. ‘Fräulein Peters,’ he said. ‘Please arrange a train back to Berlin after the speech. It is imperative I am back there tomorrow morning. I have a meeting at ten o’clock.’

‘Certainly, my Führer,’ said Fräulein Peters. She had no idea how she would arrange it, but she was confident she would work it out. If the Führer wanted something done, it was done.

She wondered what the meeting was. She knew it wasn’t in his diary, but the whole concept of a diary when it came to the Führer’s schedule was a joke. Flexibility was the watchword.

Düsseldorf

Schellenberg paced up and down the small lounge of the pension. He had had virtually no sleep the night before. This was turning into one of the most difficult operations in his short but eventful career at the Gestapo. He was still only twenty-nine, but Heydrich had just entrusted him with the new foreign-intelligence branch of the organization, known as the Amt VI. He knew he was up to the job, but he also knew that if he screwed this operation up, it would be a high-profile failure.

Those were best avoided in Germany these days.

He heard a commotion and a familiar voice in the lobby of the pension. Familiar, but unwelcome.

‘Naujocks!’ Schellenberg exclaimed. ‘What the devil are you doing here?’

Alfred Naujocks was a colleague and rival to Schellenberg in Heydrich’s intelligence-gathering apparatus. Where Schellenberg was subtle, Naujocks was brutal. Where Schellenberg could charm, Naujocks could intimidate. Which wasn’t to say that Naujocks wasn’t cunning. He was. Cunning and dangerous.

‘The boss sent me to protect you,’ Naujocks said. ‘I’ve brought a dozen SS troopers with me.’

‘I don’t need a nursemaid!’ protested Schellenberg. ‘I’ve told Heydrich the British believe me. The last thing I want is a bunch of thugs watching my every move.’

‘Heydrich thinks the Dutch might snatch you tomorrow,’ said Naujocks. ‘You are far too important for us to lose. At least that’s what he says. We’ll be watching the meeting from the border. If the Dutch try anything, we’ll come and snatch you back.’

‘Very well,’ said Schellenberg. ‘But don’t do anything unless you are sure that there is trouble.’

Schellenberg left the pension and went for a stroll around the block. This latest development worried him. Did Heydrich know something he didn’t? Heydrich usually knew something other people didn’t. Perhaps the deception was blown. Or perhaps Heydrich just didn’t trust Schellenberg not to negotiate his own deal with the British. If anything, that was more worrying.

You didn’t want Heydrich to distrust you.

Schellenberg would just have to keep his eyes open and rely on his wits. They had served him well in the past and they would in the future.

He entered the front door of the pension and bumped into a Gestapo Kriminalassistent. ‘Herr Sturmbannführer, Admiral Canaris has been trying to get hold of you in Berlin.’

What the hell did he want? The Abwehr was not a part of this operation, and Schellenberg knew that Heydrich would require it kept that way. But if Canaris had gone to the trouble to track Schellenberg down it must be important.

Schellenberg went to the room that served as a communications centre in the pension and put through a phone call to the Tirpitzufer.

‘Ah, Walter, thank you for getting back to me,’ Canaris said. ‘How are you?’

‘Very well, Herr Admiral. Our soldiers might be sitting on their arses, but there seems plenty for us to do.’

‘That’s certainly true,’ said Canaris. ‘I wonder if you can enlighten me? Our people in Holland have come across an army captain named Schämmel. Do you know him?’

Schellenberg thought quickly. If he denied knowledge of Schämmel and Canaris discovered later that the captain and Schellenberg were one and the same person, he would have blown his credibility with the Chief of the Abwehr. And that credibility was important. So he had to admit some knowledge.

‘I do know of him,’ Schellenberg said.

‘Ah, good. He has apparently been claiming to be in touch with elements who wish to overthrow the Führer. Have you heard that?’

Now Schellenberg realized he would have to come clean, or else the Abwehr might disrupt the operation. Interesting they had found out. Never underestimate Canaris’s sources of information.

‘Actually, I know Schämmel well,’ said Schellenberg. ‘Extremely well.’

‘Really?’

‘In fact, he and I are the same man. We are running a little operation to draw out the English on whether they have been discussing such a plot with anyone within Germany.’

‘Hah! I like it!’ said Canaris. ‘So it’s you who has been in Holland talking to Payne Best and Stevens?’

‘That’s right. I’ve had several meetings with them, and in fact I am due to meet them tomorrow near the border. They appear to have fallen for it.’

‘And have they admitted to discussions with any conspirators?’

‘Not yet,’ said Schellenberg. ‘But they didn’t seem surprised at the idea that there might be some out there. I’m hoping to press them tomorrow.’

‘It’s a bold move, Walter, and I congratulate you. But it would have been courteous to let us know what you were doing. It’s dangerous to step on each other’s toes in a neutral country: it will lead to trouble.’

‘Of course, Herr Admiral.’ Schellenberg would have to play this next part carefully. ‘Heydrich was keen that this should be a Gestapo operation. Perhaps if we had bumped into each other in the Tiergarten, I might have mentioned something…’

‘Yes, Walter. I enjoy our little chats. Good luck tomorrow, and please keep me informed of developments.’

Schellenberg replaced the receiver. He thought he had done a reasonable job. He was pretty sure he had retained Canaris’s trust. And if he had denied all knowledge of Schämmel, the Abwehr would have taken action to find out about him of their own accord. It could all have turned very ugly.

Naujocks. Canaris. There were too many distractions. Schellenberg forced himself to focus on the task at hand, which was convincing the British that he and his general were genuine, and getting them to talk about other conspirators. He needed a good night’s sleep.

Munich

Fräulein Peters could listen to the Führer speak for hours. He had been talking for fifty minutes and they had flown by. He had seemed tired at the beginning of his speech, but his words and the adulation of his audience had lifted his spirits, as they always did. Fräulein Peters felt jealous of those comrades who in 1923 had gathered in this very hall and marched out into the streets to try to reclaim Germany for the Germans. They had failed, of course, but it was the first brave step on a glorious path.

Hitler was talking about Providence, how Providence was with the German people and with the National Socialists, how Providence was leading the German people — after centuries of bravery and spilling of blood — to their true destiny.

‘Fräulein Peters.’ It was Frau Kühn, the telephone operator. ‘Reichsminister von Ribbentrop.’

Fräulein Peters tore herself away from the Führer’s words and hurried to a small room just next to the hall.

‘Herr Reichsminister!’

‘Fräulein Peters, what time does the train leave for Berlin?’

‘Nine thirty-one, Herr Reichsminister.’

‘The Führer will want to talk, he always wants to talk. But it is essential that he is back in Berlin tonight. Give him a message from me to wind up his speech soon and make sure he catches that train. Put it under his nose.’

‘Yes, Herr Reichsminister!’

Fräulein Peters quelled a moment of panic at how she could tell the Führer to do anything. She scribbled out the message, making clear that it was from Ribbentrop. Then she summoned an SS trooper to deliver it: she knew that would look much better to the crowd than if she were to do it.

The trooper placed the note in front of the Führer as he was speaking. He paused, and during the applause, glanced at it. He concluded his speech: ‘Party Comrades! Long live National Socialism! Long live the German people! And especially today, long live our victorious army!’

The applause in the confines of the beer hall deafened her. Fräulein Peters checked her watch: 8.58 p.m. They would be all right so long as Hitler didn’t linger chatting, which he was very capable of doing. But he shook only a few hands and by 9.09 they were out of the hall. Fräulein Peters had arranged for an extra carriage to be placed on the Number 71 train leaving at 9.31, and they were all aboard with three minutes to go.

Relieved, Fräulein Peters settled into her seat and at 9.31 p.m. precisely the train left the station.

Despite the slightly hurried departure, there was an air of gaiety in the saloon carriage and bottles of champagne were broken out. Fräulein Peters was given a glass by a handsome SS officer she hadn’t seen before, who proceeded to strike up a conversation. The Führer was in a good mood and Goebbels was making him laugh. The relief and the champagne made Fräulein Peters feel giddy, and she was enjoying the attentions of the SS officer.

The train pulled into Nuremberg and Goebbels climbed out to see whether there were any messages. Fräulein Peters saw him return a few minutes later with a grave expression. The carriage quietened to hear what he had to say. Fräulein Peters wondered if it was some military disaster: a battleship sunk, perhaps, or a surprise Allied offensive.

She was totally unprepared for what Goebbels did say. ‘My Führer, I have just heard that at nine-twenty this evening an enormous bomb went off in the beer hall. At least a dozen comrades were killed.’

The Führer didn’t seem to take this in. Fräulein Peters refused to believe it until he believed it. All eyes were on him, waiting for a lead.

‘It’s true, my Führer,’ said Goebbels. ‘If you had not left early you would be dead.’

There was silence in the carriage. Then Hitler nodded to himself. ‘Now I know,’ he said in a low voice full of grim satisfaction. ‘The fact that I left so soon shows that Providence is looking after me. Providence will ensure I fulfil my destiny.’

Fräulein Peters felt her whole body tingle. She knew that the Führer was right. She knew, right then, that she had just witnessed an important step in the destiny of the Führer, the destiny of the German people. Her destiny. She could feel her face flush with the emotion.

‘So, Joseph,’ he said, anger rising in his voice. ‘Who is it who tried to assassinate me?’

Düsseldorf

Somehow, in the depths of a heavy slumber, Schellenberg heard the insistent ringing of the telephone. His body was thick with sleep; he had taken a pill to make sure he was rested for the morning. He checked his watch — 3.30 a.m. He climbed out of bed in his pyjamas and picked up the receiver.

‘Hello?’

‘What’s that?’

Schellenberg didn’t recognize the voice, but it sounded shaken. ‘I haven’t said anything,’ he said. ‘Who is speaking?’

The reply was clear and direct now, all nervousness gone. ‘This is Reichsführer Himmler. Finally you answer. Is that you, Schellenberg?’

‘Yes, Herr Reichsführer.’

‘Have you heard the news?’

‘No, Herr Reichsführer.’

‘There was an explosion at the beer hall in Munich. Miraculously the Führer had just left the room, but several Party comrades were murdered. There is no doubt that this is the work of the British secret service. The Führer is convinced of this. He orders you to arrest the two British agents you are meeting tomorrow in Holland and bring them back over the German border. Use the SS detachment that arrived to protect you today. Do you understand?’

‘Yes, Herr Reichsführer, but—’

‘No buts. This is an order from the Führer. Do you understand now?’

Schellenberg realized there was no point arguing.

‘Yes, Herr Reichsführer!’

Schellenberg put the phone down. It was going to be a long and dangerous day.

9

The Hague, 9 November

Conrad was waiting in the small lobby of his hotel in his freshly crumpled suit. He was nervous. There were a number of things that bothered him: the fact Theo didn’t know this Major Schämmel, the leaks in the British operation in The Hague and how to get the message about the planned German offensive to Van. He hadn’t agreed a means of communicating with Van directly, and the date of the offensive was less than a week away. He had just lost a day; he couldn’t afford to lose another. After he had met Schämmel he would insist on returning to London to report to Van directly.

He had spent most of the last twenty-four hours kicking his heels in the hotel, lying low as Payne Best had suggested.

‘Mr de Lancey, I have a telephone message for you, from a Professor Hogendoorn,’ said the woman behind the reception desk in German, handing him a note. It too was in that language, with some spelling errors; not surprisingly, the hotel receptionist’s German was not perfect. Please meet me on Sunday if you can. Prof. Madvig with me. Ask for me at the university.

That must be Theo, perhaps with some information on Schämmel. By ‘Sunday’, Theo meant that day, Thursday; he would be using the ‘subtract three’ code. But there was no chance of Conrad getting to Leiden that day. ‘Did Professor Hogendoorn leave a telephone number?’

‘I am afraid not, Mr de Lancey.’

Just then Payne Best’s long low car drew up outside the hotel. Conrad had no time to find a Leiden telephone directory and leave a message with the professor that Conrad would be unable to see Theo that morning. It was a shame: it would have been extremely useful to hear what Theo had to say about Schämmel before Conrad met him for the first time.

Conrad folded the note, stuffed it in his pocket, and went outside to greet Payne Best.

‘Not cancelled again?’ he said.

‘No. We’re on. Hop in.’

They drove through the centre of The Hague. The city was full of peacetime bustle: trams, cars and swarms of bicycles fighting for road space, with policemen expertly directing things. The frantic traffic contrasted with the sedate, quietly opulent mansions that lined the city’s streets. They passed the old Binnenhof, a complex of brown turrets and courtyards that housed the Dutch Parliament, and headed north through narrow streets to a peaceful little canal lined with bare trees and elegant townhouses.

Payne Best pulled up outside one of these, bearing a brass plate on which Conrad read the words Handelsdienst voor het Continent. They entered the building, which seemed to be a discreet office. Payne Best nodded to the man at reception, said something in Dutch to him, and led Conrad up a flight of stairs. ‘This is my business in Holland,’ Payne Best said. ‘Continental Trading Services. Pharmaceuticals mostly these days.’

He greeted a secretary sitting at a desk outside an open door. Payne Best’s office was large and comfortable with a good view down on to the canal and its little bridge outside. Bookcases and traditional Dutch landscapes lined the wall, together with a striking portrait of Payne Best himself.

A mild man with a trim, greying moustache was sitting in a leather chair by Payne Best’s desk, reading The Times. He put down the newspaper and rose to his feet.

‘De Lancey? I’m Major Stevens, the Passport Control Officer here in The Hague.’

Conrad shook Stevens’s proffered hand. So this was the head of the British secret service in Holland Theo had warned him about.

‘Major Stevens will be joining us,’ said Payne Best. ‘Isn’t Klop here yet?’

‘No sign of him,’ Stevens said. ‘In the meantime, I’ve got something for you, Best.’ Stevens produce two Browning automatic pistols from a briefcase at his feet, and gave one to Payne Best, keeping the other for himself. ‘Sorry, de Lancey, I don’t have one for you.’

‘We won’t need them, will we?’ Conrad said.

‘We shouldn’t,’ said Payne Best. ‘But we are going to be very close to the frontier, so it makes sense to be careful. Mind you, during the last show I used to meet people in a café in Limburg that was half in Holland and half in Germany. Can’t get closer than that.’

Payne Best’s secretary stuck her head around the door and said something to her boss. A moment later a tall, dashing Dutchman of about thirty appeared: Lieutenant Klop. Payne Best introduced him to Conrad in English. Klop’s accent was indeed very good; he could easily pass for a British Army captain to a non-native speaker.

The four men climbed into the Zephyr and set off for Venlo, a small town 180 kilometres away on the German border. Payne Best was driving, and he drove fast. But there was a whole series of checkpoint and tank barriers to pass through. Given what Theo had told him, Conrad was pleased to see that the Dutch were expecting visitors. Klop sat in the front with Payne Best, and Conrad in the back with Major Stevens.

‘I have a question for you, de Lancey,’ Stevens said.

‘Yes?’ said Conrad. There was something about Major Stevens’s tone that made him wary.

‘Where did you go after Best dropped you off on Tuesday?’

‘Leiden,’ said Conrad.

‘And why did you go there?’ Stevens asked.

‘To see an old friend.’

‘An old friend?’

‘Yes,’ said Conrad, keeping his voice as natural as possible.

‘And who was this old friend?’

‘Someone I went to university with. I’d rather not say his name.’

‘That’s tosh,’ said Stevens, staring hard at Conrad. ‘His name is Lieutenant von Hertenberg of the German secret service.’

So that explained the man with the long nose Conrad had spotted in the Diefsteeg. On balance Conrad was happier that it was the British and not the Germans who had been following them. But there was no point now in trying to claim that Theo was a Luftwaffe officer.

‘It’s not tosh, actually. Hertenberg and I were good friends at Oxford.’

‘You were seeing an enemy agent, de Lancey.’

‘I’d rather not say any more.’

‘In that case I’ll get Best to stop the car at the next railway station and you can take the train back to The Hague.’

Conrad realized Stevens wasn’t bluffing. He would have to give him something. ‘All right. I saw Hertenberg when I was in Berlin last year.’

‘Is he an agent of ours?’ Stevens asked. ‘A double agent?’

‘No, he’s not,’ said Conrad. ‘I can’t tell you the details of our discussions. It was related to Schämmel.’

‘Look here, de Lancey. If we are going to work together, we are going to have to trust each other.’

Stevens had a point, but then so did Theo. ‘Do you know the other British Passport Control Officers in Europe?’ Conrad asked.

‘Yes,’ said Stevens. ‘I visited a number of them last year before I took up this post.’

‘So you know Captain Foley who used to be in Berlin?’

‘I do.’

‘Ask him,’ said Conrad. ‘He can confirm my relationship with Lieutenant von Hertenberg.’

Stevens stared at Conrad. ‘All right,’ he said. ‘That will do for now. But I will get in touch with Foley as soon as we are back in The Hague.’

‘Thank you,’ said Conrad.

They drove on in silence for a minute or so.

‘Do you know Charles Bedaux?’ Stevens asked.

Conrad shook his head. ‘No, I’ve never heard of him. Who is he?’

‘He’s an American businessman based in France with operations in Amsterdam. A distinctly shady customer. Hertenberg has met him at least twice since the war began — we don’t know why.’

‘I have no idea why either,’ Conrad said. ‘But if Hertenberg has been meeting him, it is probably as part of his work for the Abwehr. He is a loyal German.’

‘Yet you are talking to him?’

Conrad nodded.

‘Well, if you happen to bump into your German friend again, could you ask him about Mr Bedaux? And tell me what he says? There’s a good fellow.’

‘I can ask him,’ said Conrad. Although that would mean explaining that Stevens had spotted Conrad with Theo, which would not please Theo at all. Things were getting complicated.

Payne Best made such good time that they stopped for a quick lunch at a roadside café-restaurant near ‘s-Hertogenbosch. The atmosphere warmed over food, and the four men were in better spirits as they took to the road again. Stevens sat in the front with Payne Best, and they discussed what to do if the Germans invaded Holland imminently, an eventuality that Payne Best suggested was prudent to anticipate. Stevens jotted down a list of names of people to be evacuated to England. Conrad was a little surprised at their willingness to discuss the people working for them in Holland in front of himself and Klop. But he was also interested to note that Payne Best’s fears tallied so closely with Theo’s warning of an imminent offensive.

Conrad had to get that information to Van quickly. If he couldn’t get back to England himself very soon, perhaps he could ask Payne Best for an unofficial way of communicating with London without using the embassy or the Passport Control Office. Payne Best gave the impression of operating with some degree of independence from Major Stevens and the Passport Control Office. Conrad was reluctant to trust him… but he might not have any choice.

The clouds were thickening and it looked as if it would soon start to rain. They passed a road sign: nine kilometres to Venlo.

Berlin

Charles Bedaux stood outside the Adlon Hotel and breathed in the crisp clear Berliner Luft. Across the Pariser Platz, the weathered bronze chariot atop the Brandenburg Gate gleamed green in the low November sun. Bedaux liked Berlin. It was the most modern city in Europe, with its powerful motor cars, its sleek buildings, its swish department stores, its broad, clean streets and above all its air of bustle, energy and efficiency.

Bedaux was the world expert on efficiency. He had made millions of dollars from the Bedaux System, which revolutionized the productivity of factory workers. He had hundreds of clients all over the world: Ford, General Motors, Standard Oil, ITT and DuPont in the United States; Anglo-Iranian Oil and Imperial Chemical Industries in Britain; Fiat in Italy and Philips and Unilever in Holland. In France his company had been appointed as consultants to the Ministry of Armaments, where he had doubled productivity, ironically by recommending more rest for the munitions workers. Germany, which in many ways was the ideal market for his ideas given the ability of its populace to take orders and its respect for efficiency, had been a difficult nut to crack. Robert Ley, the Nazi head of the Labour Front, viewed Bedaux as competition and had succeeded in keeping his system out of the country.

Bedaux was a consummate businessman. To him upheaval signalled opportunity and there was no greater upheaval than a world war. As an American citizen — he had been born in France, but moved to the United States in 1906 at the age of twenty — he was not wedded to the victory of one side or the other. But he was impressed with Germany’s economic power, and determined to ensure that if Germany did come out on top, Bedaux International would be well positioned to benefit. So he needed to find a way to bypass Ley and win the Germans round.

Bedaux was always fizzing with ideas, and he had a good one. A great one. Which was why he had had a number of discreet conversations in Holland over the previous few weeks, and why he had travelled to Berlin.

An enormous supercharged black Mercedes with two little swastika flags fluttering on its front fenders pulled up outside the hotel, disgorging uniformed lackeys on to the pavement. The elegant, trim figure of Joachim von Ribbentrop stepped out of the vehicle, wearing a uniform now war had started. Bedaux thought Ribbentrop was a pompous ass, but he was also Bedaux’s best friend in the Nazi hierarchy. Ribbentrop had been a champagne salesman before becoming a Nazi politician and, like all salesmen, he just wanted to be loved. Bedaux was good at giving him the love.

‘Great to see you, Joachim,’ said Bedaux, pumping the Foreign Minister’s hand. Ribbentrop was proud of his English, which was much better than Bedaux’s German.

‘I’m glad you could make it,’ said Ribbentrop. ‘How did you get here?’

‘Via Brussels and Cologne,’ said Bedaux.

‘Hop in,’ said Ribbentrop. It was no distance to the Chancellery, but Bedaux hadn’t been about to turn down a lift from Ribbentrop, and he guessed that Ribbentrop wanted the credit for producing his star American contact.

‘I heard about the bomb last night,’ Bedaux said. ‘I was expecting Herr Hitler to cancel our meeting.’

‘Not at all,’ said Ribbentrop. ‘He is very eager to speak to you. In fact, it is thanks to this meeting that he had to leave the beer hall early. So you could say he has something to be grateful for.’

‘I think he will find what I have to say interesting.’

‘I am sure he will,’ said Ribbentrop.

They drove the short distance down Wilhelmstrasse in two minutes: other vehicles were quick to make way for them. Bedaux had never been inside the new Reich Chancellery building before, which dominated the smaller, older Chancellery next door, abandoned a year earlier. The Mercedes nosed its way into a courtyard and the car doors were swiftly opened. Bedaux and the Foreign Minister climbed some steps and then passed through massive bronze doors to a series of reception rooms and a very long corridor. It was quite a hike to Hitler’s office, and their footsteps echoed on the marble floor as they strode past columns, statues, mosaics, tapestries and rigid black-uniformed and white-gloved SS guards. By the time he had reached Hitler’s outer office, Bedaux was in awe. Which he realized was exactly the effect the building was supposed to have on a visitor.

They were ushered straight into a massive room, at the far end of which was an oversized desk under a portrait of Prince Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian who had unified Germany.

The Führer himself was walking towards Bedaux, clad not in the brown tunic which he had habitually worn before the outbreak of war, but in a simple field-grey uniform with a swastika on his arm and an iron cross at his chest.

Bedaux stood to attention and thrust out his right arm. When in Rome salute as the Romans do. ‘Heil Hitler!’

Hitler acknowledged the American’s salute, and smiled. ‘Welcome to Berlin, Mr Bedaux. Thank you for coming. I am most anxious to hear what you have to report.’

10

Leiden

Theo sat in the café and ordered his third cup of coffee. At least they still had decent coffee in Holland, compared to the muck that had been served in Germany for the last couple of years. He had the perfect seat, back to the wall with a clear view through the window to the Rapenburg Canal and the gates of the old Leiden University Academy on the other side.

He should spot Conrad approaching the building. More importantly, in the five minutes or so it would take Conrad to find Professor Hogendoorn and be guided back to the café, Theo would be able to check whether Conrad was being followed.

If Conrad showed up. Theo would be patient. Professor Hogendoorn was trustworthy, in his way. He was pro-German and, although he was not actually a member of the Dutch National Socialist Party, pro-Nazi, which was why he was willing to help the Abwehr. Theo would have to be very careful that Hogendoorn never overheard Theo or Conrad’s true views on the Party.

It was vital that Theo get to Conrad before he met Schämmel. Conrad hadn’t specified the timing of his rendezvous with the fake captain, and Theo just had to hope that the British hadn’t betrayed Theo’s fellow conspirators already. Ironically, Conrad himself was the most vulnerable to Schellenberg’s stratagem. Neither Payne Best nor Stevens would know anything about the real Wehrmacht officers’ conspiracy against Hitler, whereas Conrad probably knew as much as anyone in Britain. He knew names, and he knew many of the details of the carefully planned coup of the previous year. Theo was glad that he had warned Conrad about the leaks in the British Embassy and Passport Control Office. Indeed the Abwehr had just received a report about the arrival of Conrad in Holland via their man in the British Embassy.

But Schellenberg was a wily operator, at least according to Canaris, who should know. Until Theo had the opportunity to warn Conrad that Schämmel was bait, he couldn’t be sure that Schellenberg wouldn’t tempt something out of him. Theo wondered what the British would do once they knew they were being played by the Gestapo. The obvious thing would be to break off negotiations right away. But intelligence services didn’t often do the obvious thing. If Canaris were in charge, he would probably entice Schellenberg to London, and then expose him as a Gestapo spy there. Theo smiled. Schellenberg was dangerous: that would be the perfect way to get rid of him.

It was good to be working with Conrad again. They had had a lot in common when they met at Oxford. Theo came from a long line of soldiers who lived in a rural corner of Prussia where honour and duty to the Fatherland were paramount. But rather than go straight into the army, he had won a Rhodes Scholarship to Oxford. He had loved it there: he was a social success; he charmed men and women alike. With Conrad he had argued late into the night about social injustice, Indian independence and peace. After the crash of 1929 it was clear that the world was broken and Conrad and Theo were determined to fix it, once they had thrashed out exactly how.

After Oxford their paths had diverged. Although they were both disillusioned by the idealism they saw all around them, be it Nazism in Theo’s case, or socialism in Conrad’s, those long discussions into the night at university gave them a common sense of what was right and what was wrong. Which was vital in a world gone mad.

In less than a week, perhaps General Halder would do what he should have done the previous year, and restore sanity. Then, careful plans had been drawn up, with Theo at the heart of them. This time Theo hadn’t been involved, but from what he could see, there had been much less preparation. That might be because Halder was assuming that those who had been involved before would know what to do from their earlier instructions. Or that in wartime a conspiracy was more obviously treachery.

Or it might just be that Halder didn’t really intend to go through with it after all. It was amazing how paralysed even the best generals could be without anyone to give them orders.

Where was Conrad? It was past noon. Students on foot and on bicycles passed back and forth along the Rapenburg, but none of them was his English friend. Perhaps Conrad hadn’t got the message. He could easily be meeting Schämmel at that very moment. Perhaps he had received Hogendoorn’s message and ignored it. Or perhaps he had been ordered back to London.

There was nothing Theo could do about any of those eventualities but wait. And have some lunch. He asked the waiter for a menu.

Venlo, Holland

Payne Best relinquished the wheel to Conrad, who drove along winding roads through a thick pine forest from the town to their destination: Café Backus, just a few yards from the frontier. The other three had met Schämmel and his colleagues there before, so they knew the place.

There was silence in the car as each man focused on the same thought, the same hope: that what was about to happen that afternoon might herald the end of both Hitler and the war. Yet there was anxiety as well as hope. Would Schämmel be there? Would he finally bring along his general? Would the German officers agree to fly to London for proper discussions? And despite what Payne Best had said about his exploits in the last war at Limburg, the German border was uncomfortably close.

They were a little late; it was three-twenty by the time they rounded a corner and Conrad saw a straight stretch of road to two barriers. The nearer, Dutch barrier was down, but the German barrier was raised. The frontier.

It was quiet. No movement around the two customs houses, and a single German soldier slouched by his barrier. A little girl was playing with a big black dog in front of the customs house.

Café Backus was a substantial white building with a verandah on the first floor, on which stood tables with folded umbrellas. A figure was leaning on the railings, looking out towards them.

‘That’s Schämmel,’ said Payne Best.

The man stood up, waved and pointed into the restaurant.

‘I think the general’s there!’ said Stevens.

‘Finally,’ said Payne Best.

Conrad pulled up outside the restaurant and reversed around the corner to park in the little car park on the far side of the building from the frontier. The plan was that Conrad, in his guise as Payne Best’s driver, would take a seat at another table in the café and listen to the conversation between Schämmel, his general and Payne Best and Stevens.

Conrad switched off the motor. Stevens got out of the car, looking up towards Schämmel.

As he opened the driver’s door, Conrad heard the sound of engines in the road, growing swiftly from a hum to a roar, and then the sharp reports of shots being fired.

He reached for the ignition of the Zephyr, but it was too late. Two large vehicles sprouting half a dozen armed men in rough civilian clothes swerved around the corner. One of them screeched to a halt bumper to bumper with the Zephyr. A machine pistol rattled. Conrad pushed open his door and jumped out. He saw one of the men grab Stevens and hold a pistol to his head.

Conrad rushed for the undergrowth beside the car park, but he was knocked to the ground by another German. As Conrad fell, he saw Klop running across the road, firing as he did so, and heard the shattering of a windscreen.

Conrad wriggled to try and break free of the man holding him, but the German stuck a Luger against Conrad’s temple. ‘Keine Bewegung!’ he growled.

Conrad froze. He stared at the scene unfolding before him. The Germans had hold of both Payne Best and Stevens and were firing at Klop, who was in the open, but dodging from right to left, firing back wildly. The German holding Conrad jerked and let out a curse. He had been hit in the thigh. From the corner of his eye, Conrad saw the man’s pistol waver, so he spun and hit him hard across his neck with the side of his hand. The pistol went off harmlessly into the air. The man dropped to the ground, and Conrad ran for the woods.

As Conrad ducked into the trees, he saw Klop crumple in the roadway. Conrad crashed through the thick undergrowth for about ten yards. He realized he was out of sight of the Germans, so he dived under a holly bush and lay flat. Running, he would be a target, like Klop. Hidden, he would be safe as long as the Germans didn’t take the time to search the woods. He was gambling they wouldn’t; they had almost certainly got Payne Best and Stevens, and from the Germans’ point of view the sooner they were back over the border the better.

He heard the two vehicles accelerate off.

He looked up, couldn’t see any Germans in the wood, and so, at a crouching run, scurried to the edge of the trees to take a look.

One of the cars was speeding to the shattered Dutch barrier. The other car halted next to Klop’s body lying in the road. Two men slung him into the back. Payne Best and Stevens were being frogmarched towards the border with Germans holding machine pistols at their backs. Schämmel accelerated past them in his own vehicle. The big black dog stood in the road barking.

Shouting came from the Dutch customs house, but no sign of armed soldiers yet. Within a few seconds, all the Germans and their captives were under the black-and-white German barrier, which swished downwards.

The often-uttered words of Colonel Rydal ran through Conrad’s head. What a shambles.

11

Whitehall, London, 10 November

Conrad sipped the cup of coffee thoughtfully provided by Mrs Dougherty as he sat and waited outside Sir Robert Vansittart’s office. He was tired and hungry.

‘You don’t happen to have a biscuit, by any chance, Mrs Dougherty?’ he asked.

‘I’m afraid not, Mr de Lancey,’ said the Chief Diplomatic Adviser’s secretary, with a look that suggested horror at his temerity and determination to take decisive action if he tried to question the Foreign Office’s policy on biscuits. Didn’t he know there was a war on?

It was sixteen hours since the Germans had snatched Payne Best and Stevens, sixteen disorienting hours. After being interviewed by Dutch military intelligence, Conrad had been bundled on to an RAF Lysander at The Hague and flown to Hendon Aerodrome, from where he had been driven straight to Whitehall and the doors of the Foreign Office.

The telephone on Mrs Dougherty’s desk buzzed and she picked it up. ‘Sir Robert will see you now.’

Van looked harassed. Sitting in one of the two chairs in front of his desk was a large man with a florid face and hair brushed back over a wide, shining forehead. His eyes were small and bright blue.

‘Lieutenant de Lancey, this is Major McCaigue of the Secret Intelligence Service. Major McCaigue is responsible for counter-espionage. As you can imagine, he is very interested in this affair.’

Conrad saluted the major and took the seat offered by Van.

‘Who is responsible for this fiasco, de Lancey?’ Van asked.

‘I don’t know, Sir Robert. It was a mistake to meet Schämmel so close to the border when we were not sure he was genuine.’

‘That would be Stevens’s mistake?’

‘I really couldn’t say,’ said Conrad.

‘And you never met Schämmel?’

‘No,’ said Conrad. ‘Venlo would have been my first meeting.’

‘Hmm.’ Van tapped his desk with his pen. ‘Do you believe Schämmel was an impostor?’

‘Once again, I don’t know. That seems the most likely explanation to me.’

‘Is there a chance he might have been genuine?’ asked Major McCaigue. He had a deep rich voice with a trace of Ulster. ‘Perhaps von Hertenberg warned his superiors that there was a plot against Hitler, and they arrested Schämmel and our men as a result?’

‘I really don’t think so,’ said Conrad. ‘It’s not just a question of Theo being my friend. We know that Theo was prepared to risk his life last year to get rid of Hitler. Why betray a conspiracy that he is most likely at the heart of?’

‘I take your point,’ said McCaigue. ‘But our two countries are now at war.’

‘This is the most almighty disaster,’ Van said. ‘Stevens knows a lot — too much. He visited most of the Passport Control Offices in Europe before he took up his post in The Hague. After the Gestapo have got hold of him, we can assume that our European intelligence operations are blown.’

‘I did get a message from Theo just as Payne Best was about to pick me up to take me to Venlo,’ Conrad said. ‘He wanted to meet me in Leiden. I have no idea what he was going to tell me. Perhaps he was warning me.’

‘Go back to Holland and talk to him,’ Van said. ‘We need to know how much Stevens and Payne Best have told the Germans. We need to know whether Schämmel was genuine. We need to know whether the coup is going ahead. Did you hear about the Munich beer hall bomb?’

Conrad looked blank. ‘Haven’t had a chance to read the paper in the last day or so.’

‘Hitler was speaking at a Party rally in a beer hall in Munich. Ten minutes after he left, a bomb went off. It would have killed him if he had stayed as planned.’

‘Who planted it?’

‘That is another question for Hertenberg. The Germans are saying it was us. They seem to be pinning the blame on “British secret agents”, meaning Payne Best and Stevens, presumably.’

‘Was it us?’ Conrad asked.

‘No,’ said McCaigue. ‘But was it the German generals? That’s the question.’

‘I’ll ask Theo,’ said Conrad. ‘I saw him in Leiden the day I arrived in Holland. He didn’t know anything about Schämmel at that point, but he did tell me the date of the planned coup. And the offensive.’

‘Really?’ said Van, leaning forward.

‘The fifteenth of November. Theo said that’s when the Germans will attack through Holland and Belgium, and that’s when the generals will strike against Hitler. Halder, the Chief of Staff, is going to arrest him.’

‘That’s less than a week away!’ said Van.

‘Is he certain about the coup?’ asked McCaigue.

‘Not entirely,’ Conrad admitted. ‘I mean he was sure that those are the current plans. But he’s not confident that the generals will see them through.’

‘And he said Holland as well as Belgium?’ McCaigue asked.

Conrad realized that was an important point. In the last war, only Belgium had been invaded and Holland had managed to stay neutral throughout. But not this time, it seemed.

‘He did,’ Conrad confirmed. ‘I’m certain of that.’

‘Did he give any other details?’ McCaigue asked.

‘No,’ Conrad shook his head. ‘Just that it would be like 1914, only worse.’

‘He’s right about that,’ said Van. ‘Thank you, de Lancey. You have done a good job. Contact me or Major McCaigue from Holland directly if you need to, but bear in mind that anything you say might be overheard. Mrs Dougherty will give you the details. Otherwise report to me when you get back.’

‘And you had better stay clear of our people in The Hague,’ said McCaigue. ‘If they were not compromised before, they certainly are now.’

‘Stevens or Payne Best may have told the Gestapo all about me,’ Conrad said.

‘They may have,’ said McCaigue. ‘So I would be careful, if I were you.’

‘Can you get back in touch with Hertenberg?’ Van asked.

‘I think so,’ said Conrad.

‘Good,’ said Van. ‘Speak to Mrs Dougherty about getting back over there as soon as possible. And in the mean time, Major McCaigue will debrief you more thoroughly.’

12

Westminster, London

Sir Henry Alston, baronet, Member of Parliament and merchant banker, strode through St James’s Park, with Freddie Copthorne struggling to keep up. Alston liked to walk through London; he frequently covered the distance from his flat in Kensington to Westminster or even the City on foot, and with taxis so hard to find in these days of petrol rationing, he was getting plenty of exercise.

St James’s Park, once the prettiest of London parks, had changed over the previous few months. Part of it was the season: the flowers had been slain by autumnal frosts, and wind and rain had stripped the trees of their leaves. But the war had taken its toll too: the lake had been half drained, the railings had been removed from the pathways for the munitions factories, and green spaces were scarred with waterlogged zigzagged trenches, into which people were supposed to dive if there was an air-raid warning. No one did: the ditches were wet and filthy, and besides, not a single German bomb had yet fallen on the city.

It was a grey day, but the park was quite full. At least half the walkers were in uniform. Whereas two months before almost everyone would have been carrying gas masks, now no one was. Alston’s eye was caught by a tall dark-haired Wren, elegant in her naval uniform, walking with a shorter, plainer friend. He watched as she chatted animatedly, her teeth flashing as she smiled. They were almost upon her when she looked up, saw him, and for the briefest moment an expression of horror touched her face before she turned away.

As they passed, Alston heard an indistinct whisper from the friend. He felt a familiar surge of anger. You would have thought that by now he would have got used to the effect his face had on people. One side, his left, was almost perfect: high cheekbone, a smooth jaw with the hint of a dimple at the chin, a straight nose, fair hair falling to a mop at his brow. In his youth it was said he looked like Rupert Brooke. But the other side was a twisted mess of white and pink scar tissue, through which, miraculously, a living blue eye stared. The humiliation of the girl’s flinch was made worse by that all-too-brief period of his adulthood before his disfigurement when he had become accustomed to surreptitious admiring looks from girls more beautiful than the Wren. Silly woman.

‘Have you heard how Chamberlain is going to reply to the King of the Belgians?’ Freddie asked, referring to the peace proposal of a couple of days before.

‘A big fat raspberry, from what I can tell,’ said Alston. ‘If he ever gets out of bed.’ The Prime Minister had been laid low with gout for a couple of days. ‘The Dutch and the Belgians are clever enough to realize that if this war carries on, their countries will be squashed. Why can’t we?’

‘You don’t think we will be squashed, do you?’

‘We might be. But that’s not the point. The point is that we can divide the world between us. Germany takes the continent of Europe and Britain keeps our empire and the high seas. We leave each other alone.’

‘But would Hitler really leave us alone?’ Freddie asked.

‘Of course he would,’ Alston said. ‘He as good as told me himself when I saw him with Rib last year.’ Alston had met Joachim von Ribbentrop in Berlin when he had travelled to Germany on bank business in the early 1930s, and kept in touch with him when Ribbentrop became German Ambassador to London in 1936 and then Foreign Minister back in Berlin. Ribbentrop had introduced Alston to Hitler the previous spring in an attempt to give the German Chancellor a better idea of the opinion of the British ruling classes beyond the government. Alston had been surprised by the positive attitude Hitler had to the British people, if not to their Prime Minister.

‘Chamberlain’s a lost cause,’ said Freddie. ‘Unless the rumours are correct and the German generals do get rid of Hitler. Then he might negotiate something.’

‘That will never happen,’ said Alston. ‘I know Germany. It’s inconceivable that a German general would break his oath and overthrow his commander-in-chief in wartime. Somehow we are going to have to make sure we have a government in this country that talks sense.’

‘The Jews won’t wear it,’ said Freddie. ‘You know, the financiers. The Rothschilds. The Sieffs. Hore-Belisha. They won’t want to stop the war. They need to protect their German cousins.’

Alston smiled at his friend. Tall, thin, with wisps of hair plastered over a bald dome, the second Baron Copthorne looked and sounded like a dim aristocrat. He wasn’t entirely dim, but he was inclined to fall for some of the more simplistic notions of his friends. Still, he was loyal, and he was well connected: everyone liked Freddie.

‘Don’t worry too much about the Jews,’ Alston said. ‘This idea of a conspiracy of Jewish financiers is overblown. It’s true that some of the Jews I know in the City are concerned about what’s going on in Germany. But I don’t believe they want an unnecessary war and, more to the point, I don’t think they have the influence to insist on one.’

‘You should know,’ said Freddie. But he looked chastened.

‘So who is this girl we are going to meet, Freddie?’

‘Her name is Constance Scott-Dunton. She’s a friend of Marjorie’s.’ Marjorie was Freddie’s 22-year-old niece.

‘And are you sure we can’t get Marjorie to help us?’ Alston had met Marjorie several times and liked her.

‘Yes, quite sure. I did ask her, but she said no. The truth is, she was scared. She’s a sensible girl most of the time, but she can be a bit of a panicker.’

‘And this Constance girl isn’t?’

‘Not according to Marjorie. She’s game for anything, apparently. Marjorie is quite taken with her.’

‘Marjorie didn’t tell her what we wanted her to do?’

‘Oh, no. I thought we would leave that to you, once you’ve decided you like her.’

‘And what is this Russian Tea Rooms place?’

‘It’s in Harrington Road, opposite South Ken tube station. It’s owned by a Russian admiral. Admiral Wolkoff.’

‘I think I’ve passed it. A White Russian, I take it?

‘Oh, very much so. He was naval attaché for the Tsar in the last war, and stayed on in London after the revolution rather than return to Russia to be shot. Marjorie spends quite a lot of time there. She says it’s the kind of place a girl can go to unaccompanied quite happily. That’s where she met Constance.’

Freddie was flagging as they reached Harrington Road and the Russian Tea Rooms. It was busy. Alston spotted Freddie’s niece talking to a girl with black hair whose back was to the door.

Marjorie stood up, waved and kissed her uncle. ‘Hello, Uncle Freddie. Hello, Sir Henry.’

She held out her gloved hand to be shaken.

‘This is my friend Constance. My uncle, Lord Copthorne, and Sir Henry Alston.’

Constance was striking: pale, with a strong chin and large lively black eyes. They looked straight at Alston as they shook hands, and she smiled. Not a flicker of revulsion.

Alston smiled back.

‘Have some tea,’ Marjorie said. ‘They serve it in samovars. It’s really rather exciting. You’re not supposed to drink milk with it.’

So they sat down and ordered tea, which came in glasses contained in metal holders with handles.

‘Constance is a fan of yours,’ said Marjorie. ‘She has been dying to meet you.’

‘I wasn’t aware that I had any fans,’ said Alston, bemused.

‘I’ve read all your speeches,’ said Constance. ‘And Marjorie says you are frightfully clever.’

Alston glanced at his friend’s niece, who blushed. ‘Shh, Constance, you weren’t meant to say that. Constance is very keen on politics,’ she explained.

‘Oh. What sort of politics?’ Alston asked.

‘Common-sense politics,’ Constance said. ‘The war is stupid. The Jews started it. If we leave Hitler alone, he’ll leave us alone. We have the greatest empire the world has ever seen, and we should be left to enjoy it.’

‘That sounds like common sense to me.’ Alston glanced at Freddie, and then back at Constance. ‘Are you a member of any political party?’

‘No, not really. I was a member of the Nordic League, but they’ve disbanded that now.’ The Nordic League was a hysterical anti-Semitic organization that had blossomed a couple of years before and then wilted with the onset of war. ‘That’s where I met my husband Patrick. He’s away at sea in the navy.’

Alston felt a tinge of regret on hearing that this intriguing girl was married, followed by relief that her husband was probably three thousand miles away in a large metal boat.

‘You are not a member of the BUF, then?’ The BUF was the British Union of Fascists led by Sir Oswald Mosley. Alston didn’t like the British Union of Fascists. Neither, it transpired, did Constance.

‘Gosh, no. All that strutting around wearing silly shirts. It’s childish, don’t you think? And Tom Mosley is a weasel.’

‘A weasel?’ Sir Oswald Mosley, known to his friends and conquests as ‘Tom’, was notorious for his ways with women. Usually other people’s wives.

‘Yes. He mistreated a friend of mine — a friend of ours,’ she nodded to Marjorie.

‘A weasel,’ Marjorie confirmed. ‘Look, shall we leave you two to talk? I know you have a scheme you want Constance to join in. Come on, Uncle Freddie. Drink up.’

Freddie did as he was told and left Alston and Constance alone over their tea.

‘So what’s this scheme, Sir Henry?’

Alston hesitated. He was enjoying the girl’s directness. ‘It’s a little delicate,’ he said.

‘Oh, I see.’ Her eyes widened. ‘So you want to veto me first?’

‘Vet, I think is the word,’ Alston said. ‘And yes, I do need to find out a little bit more about you.’

‘Fair enough,’ said Constance. ‘But first I’d like to ask you a question. How did you get those terrible scars? Was it doing something frightfully brave in the war?’

‘Sadly, not,’ said Alston. He smiled.

‘Why are you smiling?’

‘Because people are usually too timid to ask me.’

‘Are you angry with me?’

‘No,’ said Alston. ‘Not at all. Quite the contrary.’

‘Good. Because you haven’t told me how it happened.’

‘It was a lion,’ said Alston.

‘No! Really! Where?’

So Alston told Constance all about the business trip to South Africa when he was a young banker, how he had travelled up to Northern Rhodesia with a colleague whose uncle had some mining interests there, and how he and his colleague had gone big-game hunting, wounded a lion and then come face-to-face with it. The colleague had run, Alston had fired and missed, and the lion had knocked him to the ground with a blow to his face, standing over him rather than mauling him further. One of the native trackers had killed the lion with a spear. Apparently Alston had been lucky that it was a lion and not a lioness that had caught him. A lioness would have finished him off right away.

‘That’s an amazing story!’ said Constance, who did look amazed. Then she frowned. ‘Was your friend Jewish?’

‘Yes,’ said Alston. ‘How did you know?’

‘A banker and a coward. Got to be Jewish, surely?’

Alston checked Constance for a hint of humour but found none. She had a point.

‘I loathe the Jews, don’t you?’ said Constance. ‘You must come across heaps of them in banking.’

‘Some,’ said Alston. ‘They’re not all bad.’

‘But some of them are, aren’t they?’

Alston thought of the partner of Bloomfield Weiss in New York who had sold him stock in a radio company in 1928 that had almost brought his merchant bank down. It had taken all of Alston’s ingenuity to get it off the bank’s books and into his clients’ accounts at cost price.

‘Yes. Some of them are,’ he admitted. Usually he was very careful not to broadcast his mistrust of the Jewish race: he had to work with them every day after all. But there was something about Constance, her directness perhaps, that encouraged him to lower his guard.

‘My father was bankrupted by a Jewish stockbroker,’ she said. ‘Daddy owned a packaging firm in Manchester. He sold it in the twenties and then invested the money in the stock market through a Jewish firm. That and Argentine railway bonds. Nineteen twenty-nine came along and he lost it all.’ For once the enthusiasm had left her. ‘He killed himself four months later.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ said Alston. ‘So you moved up to London?’

‘Yes. My sister, my mother and I. We stayed with my aunt in Dulwich. It’s when my life started going wrong. I was fourteen.’

‘I hope it didn’t keep going wrong?’ Alston asked.

‘No,’ said Constance. ‘It’s going better now.’ She hesitated. ‘I, um… took steps.’

‘I’m glad to hear it,’ said Alston, curious as to what those ‘steps’ were. ‘Is that the owner of this place?’ He nodded towards a well-dressed man with white whiskers and a pointed beard, sitting over a glass of tea reading a book.

Constance glanced over her shoulder. ‘Yes, that’s the admiral. He’s quite a gentleman.’

Alston looked around the tea rooms. ‘What sort of people come here?’

‘Right-thinking people,’ Constance said. ‘Captain Maule Ramsay comes here a lot; you know him, don’t you?’

‘Yes. He’s a fellow Scottish MP,’ Alston said. And a fool, he could have added but didn’t. Perhaps this wasn’t such a good place to meet, after all. Alston was sure that the likes of Ramsay and certainly Mosley would attract the attention of Special Branch. He didn’t want to be added to that list.

‘So. What would you like me to do?’ Constance asked, her eyes glowing with excitement. ‘Or do you have some more questions for me?’

Alston smiled. He didn’t really know Constance; there were probably more questions he could ask. But he had a good feeling about her. He trusted her. Marjorie had said she was all right, and he knew and trusted Marjorie. She was the right person.

‘Just one,’ he said, in German. ‘Have you ever been to Germany?’

‘Oh, yes,’ Constance answered, also in German. ‘I spent a year in Berlin in 1937 as a governess and to learn the piano. I loved it. I think it’s a wonderful country. Modern, exciting, not like fuddy-duddy old England. Have you been?’

Constance’s accent was awful, but she seemed fluent and assured, although she had invented the Germanic word fuddyduddyisch.

‘Many times, working for the bank,’ Alston said. Then, switching back to English. ‘Yes. I think you’ll do very well. But I’d rather not discuss what I want you to do here.’

Constance looked around. ‘Oh, I see. We might be overheard. Where shall we go?’

Alston hesitated. ‘We could walk up to Hyde Park. It’s not too far.’

The glow in Constance’s eyes deepened. ‘It’s quite public, though. And it’s much too cold. Marjorie said you lived near here?’

‘I do, yes.’ Was Constance suggesting what Alston thought she was suggesting? He glanced at her. She was.

‘What’s the matter? Isn’t your place tidy?’

‘It’s perfectly tidy,’ said Alston. He had been married four years, and for the first two and a half he had been faithful. But it was eighteen months since he and Dorothy had had conjugal relations; he just hadn’t been able to bring himself to do it since she had had the baby. Alston had always had a healthy sexual appetite, and that hadn’t left him. So there had been a few girls, most of whom he had had to pay. At that moment Alston wanted a woman badly. This woman. ‘Why don’t I make you a cocktail and we can talk in private?’

Alston grinned as he lay in bed, sweaty, with Constance under his left arm. It was dark outside his flat now. Constance was a tiger in bed; Alston had never come across anyone like her. She had a hunger and a playfulness that had brought out feelings in him that he never knew he had, or that he had always known he had, but were kept deeply buried. It certainly wasn’t love. It was more than lust. It was a kind of joyful exuberance.

He felt much younger. And he felt handsome, as if the left half of his face had temporarily taken over the right.

They had gone back to Alston’s flat in Ennismore Gardens, a fifteen-minute walk. Dorothy, Alston’s young wife, was back in Berwickshire. Since the outbreak of war, they had decided she wouldn’t join Alston in London, where he spent most of his time with his parliamentary and banking responsibilities. Besides, it was better for their baby son Robert to be at the castle with all that fresh air.

Alston had mixed them both martinis, and explained his idea to Constance. As Marjorie had guessed, she was game. She was definitely the right girl for the job. Then, well, then they had ended up in bed.

What was it that he liked about her so much? Was it her directness? There seemed a lively intelligence about her, even though she didn’t know the difference between ‘veto’ and ‘vet’, and, like Freddie, her hatred of the Jews was of the simplistic type. Alston knew that Britain wasn’t run by Jewish financiers, nor was it the Jews who had forced Chamberlain to go to war. He thought the War Minister Hore-Belisha should be sacked because he was wrongheaded, not because he was Jewish. Alston prided himself on his ability not to be swayed by the wilder claims of some of his pro-Nazi friends.

And yet, in all his dealings with Jews, Alston had never really trusted them. Constance was right; if there was trouble, there was usually a Jew behind it. Samuel Greenberg had run from the lion in Rhodesia leaving Alston facing up to it. Bloomfield Weiss had damned near fleeced him, and a Jewish stockbroker had driven Constance’s own father to death. Maybe Hitler was on to something after all.

He stroked the black curls resting on his chest. ‘Why did you ask me about my scars?’

Constance lifted her head. ‘Why, shouldn’t I have? Was I awfully rude?’

‘No. Or at least I didn’t think so. It’s just that usually people avoid the subject. Or, even worse, they avoid looking at me at all.’

‘Silly them,’ said Constance. She pushed herself up on to her elbow. And ran her finger down the undamaged side of his face. ‘You know, half of you is terrifically handsome.’ Then she ran her finger over his scars. ‘And the other half is terrifically exciting.’

‘You don’t mean that,’ said Alston.

‘I certainly do,’ said Constance, in a tone that suggested she was offended at having her candour questioned.

Alston smiled. ‘I believe you do.’ He kissed her.

‘You know what?’ said Constance, reaching down towards his loins.

‘What?’

‘I think I’m going to enjoy working for you.’

13

St James’s, London

After his meeting with Van, Major McCaigue of the Secret Intelligence Service questioned Conrad for an hour in a small room in the depths of the Foreign Office. Conrad told him everything he could remember about his meetings with Payne Best and Stevens and the shoot-out at Venlo. McCaigue took particular interest when Conrad mentioned the list that Stevens had written out of the names of people to be evacuated from Holland in the event of an invasion, which was presumably now in the hands of the Gestapo. Conrad tried to remember the names, but could only recall three or four of them. McCaigue asked for more details about Conrad’s meeting with Theo in Leiden, and Conrad gave them.

The intelligence officer was a shrewd listener. His questions, delivered in his pleasant, rich voice with its hint of Irish, were deliberate and thorough and Conrad felt much more confidence in him than he had had in either Payne Best or Stevens.

Conrad dropped into his club for lunch, and to send a telegram to Professor Hogendoorn in Leiden. There he found a note waiting for him from his father inviting him to come to dinner and to stay the night at Kensington Square. Van must have told him about the disaster at Venlo. Conrad took the note into the library and sank into an armchair by the window.

He was lucky to be in a comfortable club in the heart of London when Payne Best, Stevens and Klop were presumably in a Gestapo interrogation cell somewhere in the heart of Germany. Poor bastards. Conrad had spent time in one of those once; he didn’t want to do it again.

That is if Klop had made it. He had taken at least two bullets that Conrad had seen.

And now Conrad was going back to Holland. He knew he had to: Van and McCaigue were right to get him to ask Theo questions, to find out what had gone wrong. But there was a chance he might not come back this time.

In which case he shouldn’t hide from his father, even though he wanted to avoid a discussion over what he was doing in Holland. So he telephoned Kensington Square and told Williamson he would be staying the night, but he might be a little late for dinner. There was someone else he wanted to see before he went.

Anneliese.

He took the tube north to Golders Green, and it was just getting dark as he walked through the peaceful tree-lined streets of Hampstead Garden Suburb. In some ways it seemed so English: neat, ordered, well kept; even the fallen leaves had been pushed by a tidy breeze into straight lines along the pavement. But in other ways it reminded him of Germany, of the bürgerlich suburbs of Berlin like Dahlem. Now Dahlem and Hampstead Garden Suburb were at war.

Anneliese and her parents lived in an upstairs room of a small white pebbledash cottage halfway up a hill. The house was owned by a widow, Mrs Cherry, who had crammed two refugee Jewish families into it. The building was in poor repair and it was clear Mrs Cherry had very little money. What was unclear was whether her motive for stuffing seven people into such a small house was kindness or greed. Anneliese’s theory was that it was both.

Anneliese herself wasn’t at home, but her parents were. They were both pleased to see Conrad, especially since he had brought along half a pound of sausages. Dr Rosen was racially Jewish, but also a devout atheist. Frau Rosen was a good rosy-cheeked Lutheran. Both of them believed in pork.

‘Are you staying for supper, Conrad?’ Frau Rosen asked in German. ‘I have enough soup for you.’ And indeed there was a pot bubbling on the little gas ring by the sink. The room itself had two beds, three armchairs, a small table and a wireless. Two stacks of books were growing ever higher. Although the Rosen family had left Germany without any the year before, one way or another they were steadily accumulating them.

‘I promised my father I would be dining with him tonight,’ Conrad said. ‘I thought I would take Anneliese out for a drink, if that’s all right.’ He had eaten with the Rosens a couple of times, but he hated to take their scant supply of food, and besides, there was only really room for three at the table.

It was all they could afford. Even with the outbreak of war, Dr Rosen had been unable to find a job as a doctor: the British Medical Association was eager to preserve its profession from the invasion of central European Jewish medics. As far as Conrad could tell, Dr Rosen spent his days at the Golders Green library. Frau Rosen was a cleaner at a variety of houses in Hampstead and Finchley. Only Anneliese had finally been able to pursue her original career as a nurse: she worked at St George’s Hospital on Hyde Park Corner.

Conrad heard the door open downstairs, and Anneliese’s voice greeting Mrs Cherry. His heart, as always, leaped to hear it.

‘Ich bin wieder zu Hause!’ she called as she opened the door. Her smile disappeared for an instant when she saw Conrad, and then returned in a different, more guarded form. She was thinner than when he had first met her. The vitality, the quick smile, the ironic laugh had gone. But she was still beautiful to Conrad. Small, with dark curly hair and large green eyes, she reminded him of the woman he had fallen in love with. The woman he believed she could be again.

They had met in Berlin at a dinner party given by Theo soon after Conrad had arrived there the previous summer. Conrad had fallen heavily for her: she was intelligent, witty, courageous, with eyes that hinted at mischief, and he had still been smarting from Veronica running off with the racing driver. Dr Rosen had been locked up in a concentration camp for giving his Jewish blood to an Aryan Nazi road-accident victim. Conrad had helped get him out of the camp and out of Germany. Conrad and Anneliese had spent a blissful few weeks together before she had been snatched away from him by the Gestapo and thrown into Sachsenhausen concentration camp herself. Eventually Captain Foley, the British Passport Control Officer in Berlin, had been able to get her out too, and she had joined her parents in London.

She had been in England for over a year, but things weren’t the same between them. Things were, well, difficult. But Conrad wasn’t one to give up.

‘Oh, Conrad. This is a surprise. I didn’t know you were in London,’ she said in German.

He bent down to kiss her, and she turned her cheek, in a gesture that could have meant she was offering it to him, or withdrawing it from him.

‘I’ve been abroad,’ he said. ‘And I’m… um… going again. I thought I would drop in and see you before I went.’

‘Ah.’

‘Can I take you out for a drink?’

Anneliese glanced at her parents, Conrad’s allies. She smiled quickly. ‘Yes. That would be nice. Shall we go now?’

It was about half a mile to the Royal Oak. As they walked through the pitch-dark streets to Finchley Road — or ‘Finchley Strasse’, as the bus conductors had taken to calling it following the recent influx of German-speaking inhabitants — Anneliese seemed to warm. She talked about her job at St George’s; she had only been there three weeks. Despite all the preparations for a flood of air-raid casualties, the hospital was filled with the victims of traffic accidents as a result of the blackout.

A warm fug of chatter and beer enveloped them as they went through to the saloon bar, and Conrad ordered drinks.

‘So where are you going?’ Anneliese said, in English this time. Her English had improved dramatically over the last year; although she had a distinct German accent, it was nowhere near as strong as it had been when she had arrived in London the previous October. It wasn’t a good idea to speak German in public places. ‘Or I suppose it is a secret?’

Conrad glanced at the stern poster from the Ministry of Information urging patrons ‘not to discuss anything that might be of national importance, the consequence of which might be loss of many lives’. True enough, of course. But he had trusted Anneliese before in a much more dangerous place than North London, with more dangerous secrets. He did, however, glance around to make sure there was no one in earshot. The saloon bar was half full, and it wasn’t possible for the two middle-aged men closest to them to hear their murmured words above the hubbub of the pub.

‘It sounds as if Theo’s friends are about to make a move again.’

Anneliese’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Really! Are you going to see him?’

‘I hope so. I don’t know. There’s been some… trouble. I need to find out what he knows about it.’

A look of concern crossed her face. ‘You’re not going to Germany, are you?’

‘No.’ Conrad shook his head. ‘Don’t worry.’

‘I am worried,’ said Anneliese. ‘Be careful, Conrad. Please be careful.’ She bit her bottom lip, in a gesture Conrad knew so well.

‘I will.’ Conrad smiled. Although he couldn’t admit it, he was pleased to see her sudden concern for him. And she was perfectly right to be concerned. It was only just over twenty-four hours since he had had a German pistol pressed against his temple.

‘Good.’ Anneliese smiled quickly. Closed her eyes. Opened them again. ‘Conrad?’

‘Yes?’

‘There is something I must tell you.’

‘What is it?’ Conrad had a feeling this wasn’t going to be good.

‘I am planning to go to New York. We are planning to go to New York. The three of us.’

‘New York?’ Conrad said. ‘You can’t do that! Can you get the papers?’

‘I’m working on it. It’s difficult, but I think I can. Father has a cousin over there, and he is prepared to help.’

Conrad could feel disappointment welling up inside him — worse than disappointment: desperation. ‘Please stay,’ he said.

‘We need to make a new life. I mean really new. Somewhere far away. It’s ridiculous that my father cannot work here.’

‘But once the war really gets going, they will need him, whatever the damned BMA says.’

‘Perhaps.’ Anneliese looked down at her drink. And then straight at him. Her eyes were dull. ‘But I need to go. I need to go somewhere new.’

Conrad reached across the table and took her hand. ‘I know I’ve asked you before. But please marry me.’

Anneliese shook her head. ‘I can’t. I told you I can’t.’

‘But why not? I love you. You love me.’ Conrad hesitated. ‘I think. I know you used to love me.’

Anneliese nodded. She squeezed Conrad’s hand. ‘I know I did. But I am a different person now. I have been trying to tell you that for the last year, but you won’t hear it. Sachsenhausen changed me. I’m sorry, I wish I was the same woman I used to be, but I am not. I’m different.’ She let go of his hand. Took a deep breath. ‘I need to start again. Somewhere else. Somewhere away from you.’

‘I can’t accept that,’ Conrad said. In Berlin they had made love several times a day. But then Anneliese had spent six weeks in solitary confinement in first Sachsenhausen and then Lichtenburg Castle. It was true: after that she had been different. She hadn’t let Conrad touch her beyond the occasional gentle kiss. She had joined her parents in London and, with a dull determination, had set herself to survive. She had refused all Conrad’s offers of financial help.

Conrad had returned to England from Germany soon after her. He had been patient. He had been understanding. Or at least he had tried to understand, but he hadn’t quite managed it. He knew she was hurt, deeply damaged, but he didn’t know exactly how, and she seemed unable to tell him.

The night before he had been due to leave for Sandhurst, he had asked her to marry him. She had said no. She hadn’t really explained why. He had been disappointed, but he hadn’t given up. He had seen her during weekend leave, either in North London or occasionally taking her out to a restaurant or club in the West End. He had even brought her down to Somerset twice to see his own family. They had had some good times; she had smiled, told him she was enjoying herself. They had even kissed. But there was always a barrier. He had been willing to wait, confident that the barrier would eventually melt away and reveal the old Anneliese.

Even now, a year later, he still didn’t understand her. All he knew was that she wanted to leave him.

‘You have to accept it, Conrad,’ Anneliese said. She had switched to German, which soon attracted the attention of the two men at the next table. ‘We shouldn’t see each other anymore.’

‘No, I don’t accept it.’

A tear leaked out of the corner of her eye.

She pushed back her chair and rose to her feet. ‘Goodbye, Conrad,’ she said, bending to kiss his cheek, and then she was gone.

Conrad stared after her. ‘Leb wohl,’ Conrad repeated.

She hadn’t said ‘Auf Wiedersehen’, or ‘when we meet again’.

He had lost her.

14

The Ritz, Paris

Fruity Metcalfe sloped into the lobby of the Ritz and headed straight for the bar. He had had a perfectly bloody day and he needed a drink. Several drinks.

He liked the bar at the Ritz. It was always lively. Although a lot of English soldiers thought that the French officers’ uniforms looked a bit effete, they certainly added colour. As did their women. Throw in a few Americans and one or two Englishmen, plus Fruity the Irishman, and you had quite an atmosphere.

‘Un Johnny Walker avec soda, Marcel,’ Fruity said to the barman while taking possession of a free stool. ‘Un grand, s’il vous plaît.’

Fruity sipped his drink with pleasure. A bloody day.

There had been trouble at the mission at Vincennes. Fruity had expected to help the duke draw up his report for the Wombat on their visit to the French lines, but the duke had rebuffed him. Which offended Fruity. Fruity had been a first-rate officer in his time, and it was important to convey accurately what they had seen, especially along the Meuse on the border with Luxembourg and Belgium. Frankly, there was a bloody great hole there that the Germans could stroll through any time they liked, once they had penetrated the forests of the Ardennes. The French troops were mostly reservists: fat, untrained and unfit. The anti-tank defences were pathetic: positioned in the wrong place, in plain view; and in many cases the anti-tank traps and the barbed wire were on top of each other, which meant they could be knocked out simultaneously by well-placed artillery fire. General Huntziger, Commander of the 2^nd Army, oozed complacency. The French 9^th Army, just to the west of the 2^nd, commanded by the obese Corap, was only a little better.

All this, Fruity and the duke had discussed. And frankly, Fruity wanted to have a part in writing it down. He wanted to be doing a soldier’s work in this phoney war.

Instead of being a bloody tourist. A tourist who had to pay for himself. Because the other thing Fruity had learned that day was that no one was going to pay him for what he was doing. The War Office had refused his demand for payment, telling him he was not in France in an official capacity, and the duke had changed the subject when Fruity had raised it. He was so damned mean! Mean about bills, mean about paying his staff. Mean about everything apart from Wallis. One of her Fulco di Verdura brooches would keep Fruity going for the duration.

Not for the first time, the Little Man was taking advantage of Fruity.

He ordered another whisky.

It was not as if Fruity had a private income. His wife did, but a chap needed to pay his own way. He loathed being beholden to Baba. She was loaded. She was the daughter of Lord Curzon, the grandest Indian viceroy, but her real wealth came from a settlement from her mother, an American department-store heiress.

He hated leaving her alone in London. Not just because he missed her — which he did, very much — but also because he had no idea whom she was seeing. He just hoped it wasn’t Tom Mosley again. He was sure he didn’t know who all his wife’s lovers were, but he knew enough of them, and Tom Mosley was the most serious. She had started writing about weekends with Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary and another former viceroy. He was about as high-minded as they came, so she ought to be safe with him, although you never knew with Baba.

Fruity needed another whisky. And he needed to take his mind off his woes. He spotted a sociable American he had had a drink with the week before, and called out to him. ‘Let me get you one, old man. What will you have?’

At least the duke was paying his bloody hotel bill.

Kensington Square, London

‘A glass of sherry, Conrad?’

After all he had been through in the last twenty-four hours, Venlo and then his conversation with Anneliese, Conrad felt like something stronger, but he accepted his father’s offer.

Lord Oakford was pleased to see his son. Conrad was relieved that he wasn’t in one of his frequent black moods. He poured Conrad a glass from a decanter with his one remaining arm, and then a glass for himself.

‘I’m sorry I’m so late for dinner,’ Conrad said. ‘Thanks for waiting for me. I wanted to see Anneliese.’

‘Oh, how is she?’ said Oakford.

I don’t know how she is, thought Conrad. I don’t understand her! Why can’t she just agree to marry me? Why does she have to run away to New York? Why won’t she see me again? What’s wrong with her? Doesn’t she know I love her? Doesn’t she know I’ll do anything for her?

‘Oh, you know,’ he said.

Oakford looked at him sharply. Conrad stared into his sherry glass.

‘I heard about Venlo,’ Oakford said.

‘I wondered,’ said Conrad. He had scanned The Times that afternoon in the club. As well as a description of the Munich beer hall bomb, it had reported a confused incident at ‘Venloo’ involving kidnapped Dutchmen. Clearly his father knew the real story.

‘I knew you were going.’

‘I thought you might.’ Conrad sipped his sherry.

‘Why didn’t you drop in and see me before you went?’

‘It was all fixed up rather quickly,’ Conrad said. ‘One moment I was at Tidworth, the next I was in Whitehall, and before I knew it I was in an aeroplane bound for Holland.’

‘What happened?’

Conrad hesitated and then decided to tell his father everything. For three years in the early 1930s Lord Oakford had been a minister in the National Government. He was a close friend of Van and Lord Halifax, and he had helped Conrad arrange the visit of emissaries from the German conspirators to Britain the year before. He knew secrets.

Oakford listened with interest. ‘A shambles,’ he said when Conrad had finished.

‘My thought exactly,’ said Conrad.

‘So the Germans have nabbed our agents. Presumably the Gestapo will interrogate them? Will they talk, I wonder?’

‘One has to assume they will,’ said Conrad. ‘Do you know a Major McCaigue? He debriefed me with Van.’

‘I’ve met him once or twice. A good man. Works for the SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service. They’re under a lot of pressure at the moment. They have a reputation for being all-seeing, but they didn’t spot the Nazi — Soviet pact coming, and this is a very public balls-up. On top of all that, their chief died last week, and they haven’t picked a successor yet. Did you contact Theo? Van said you were going to try.’

‘Yes,’ said Conrad. ‘He said he didn’t know whether Schämmel was genuine and he was going to check. I never found out his answer.’

‘Did you discuss peace terms with him?’ Oakford asked. He was trying to make the question sound casual, but Conrad could feel the quickening of his attention.

Conrad pretended not to notice. ‘No,’ he said.

‘Does he think there is still a chance of a coup?’

‘They are planning one,’ Conrad said. ‘To coincide with an offensive in the Low Countries.’

‘Interesting. Soon?’

‘In the next few days. The fifteenth to be precise. But Theo didn’t seem certain either would happen.’

‘I’ve always thought it was a mistake to rely on the generals,’ said Oakford.

‘I’m going back to Holland to see him tomorrow,’ Conrad said. ‘Van sent me. He wants me to confirm Schämmel was bait and find out if Payne Best and Stevens have talked.’

‘Oh, really?’ said Oakford, raising his eyebrows.

Conrad sensed there was something a little odd about his father’s reaction, but before he could pursue it, the door opened and a tall girl with dark hair bounded in.

‘Millie!’ Conrad leaped to his feet. She hugged him. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here! I thought you were down in Somerset.’

‘I’ve come up to find some war work,’ Millie said.

‘It’s lovely to see you.’ And it was. Conrad and Millie had always been close. There were four surviving de Lancey children: Conrad, his younger brother Reggie, Charlotte, who was married with a baby, and Millie. Edward, the eldest and Lord Oakford’s favourite, had died in a mountaineering accident when he was twenty-two. No one in the family mentioned his name, but Conrad knew they all thought about him. Millie was twenty-three and still unmarried, although Conrad knew she had turned down many advances. The suitors didn’t surprise him; in his opinion she would be quite a catch. She was attractive in a gangly kind of way, she was intelligent and she was fun.

‘What about the evacuees?’ he asked. Millie was helping billet the bewildered families who had arrived from Coventry in September in the homes of an equally bewildered village.

‘Most of them are fed up with the country and are going home. I thought I would be more use in London.’

‘And Reggie? What’s he up to?’

Reggie was twenty-seven, a year younger than Conrad. He was therefore too old to be called up yet, but certainly young enough to volunteer.

‘He says that he’s wanted on the estate,’ Millie said.

‘He’s quite right,’ said Lord Oakford. ‘The country is going to need all the food it can grow.’

Reggie had devoted his life to managing Chilton Coombe, the small family estate in Somerset, and irritating the three perfectly capable tenant farmers there. But Lord Oakford was happy to keep at least one of his sons out of harm’s way. Conrad didn’t have much respect for Reggie.

‘Father tells me you have been on another top-secret mission,’ Millie said.

‘I suppose that’s true,’ said Conrad. ‘Although it didn’t go very well.’

Oakford poured his daughter a glass of sherry.

‘Cheers!’ said Millie, raising her glass to her brother. ‘Anything to do with Theo?’

Conrad glanced at his father, who looked sheepish. He must have told his daughter more than he was letting on. Theo had made quite an impression on Millie when he had met her in Berlin the year before; Theo tended to make an impression on women when he met them.

‘Theo is in the enemy’s secret service, Millie,’ Conrad said.

‘You’re not answering the question, are you, Conrad?’

‘No, I’m not,’ said Conrad with a grin.

They went in to dinner, the three of them. Tomato soup and pheasant from Chilton Coombe. They talked about the evacuees, and about Conrad’s mother and how the village was dealing with a German woman in its midst, which was very well — with the exception of the old bat who ran the village shop, who was causing trouble.

‘How’s Anneliese?’ Millie asked. ‘How do people treat her in London?’

‘Some people think she’s a spy because she’s German,’ said Conrad. ‘Some people think she’s a profiteer because she’s Jewish. But she says it’s miles better than Berlin. Her family seem pleased to be here, although they are all crammed into one room in Hampstead.’

‘Can’t you help, her, Conrad?’

‘Anneliese is very proud,’ Conrad said. ‘And stubborn.’

‘Like your mother,’ said Lord Oakford.

‘What’s wrong, Conrad?’ Millie asked.

Conrad hesitated. Typical of Millie to notice there was something wrong, and then to come right out and ask about it. Conrad knew his family liked Anneliese, much more than they had liked his former wife Veronica. With Millie there, he abandoned his earlier reticence.

‘I don’t know, exactly,’ he said. ‘She says she doesn’t want to see me anymore. No matter how hard I try to help her, she seems to push me away. I don’t know whether it’s got something to do with what she suffered in the concentration camp, or coming to England, or worrying about her parents. I don’t know what it is.’

‘But that doesn’t make any sense!’ Millie said.

‘Sometimes these things don’t,’ said Oakford gravely. ‘The mind can work in strange ways after the kind of thing she suffered. I know.’

Conrad and Millie fell silent. Lord Oakford had come out of the Great War a severely damaged man. His life had changed the day at Passchendaele when he had taken and held a German machine-gun position, won his Victoria Cross, lost his arm, and lost his will to fight. Since then, he had done everything he could to stop war. But also since then he had suffered from occasional bouts of black, angry misery. These Conrad and Millie had grown up with. They had come to learn what triggered these moods, but still they didn’t really understand them.

‘What should I do, Father? About Anneliese?’

It was a long time since Conrad had asked his father’s advice on anything. But he had a feeling that Lord Oakford might know the answer.

‘Do you love her?’

‘Yes,’ said Conrad. ‘In fact I asked her to marry me. She turned me down.’

Oakford sipped his water. ‘Give her space to sort herself out, Conrad. When she wants you, she’ll find you. Just make sure you are available.’

Conrad exchanged glances with Millie. That sounded like good advice, although he wasn’t sure he could just let Anneliese go. Once she went to New York he might never see her again and he wasn’t sure he could bear that. But what choice did he have?

They ate in silence for a moment or two.

‘Conrad?’ Oakford said.

‘Yes?’

‘I know I’ve asked you before now, but I could use your help.’

‘With what, Father?’ But Conrad knew. He could see Millie tense up. She was right to do so. There was trouble brewing.

‘Can you have a word with Theo for me? About peace.’

‘You’ve asked me before. The answer is still no.’

Lord Oakford had asked Conrad to meet Theo in Switzerland the previous spring, before the outbreak of war. Conrad had refused: he was suspicious of his father’s desire for peace at any cost, and was concerned that his meddling would just undermine the British government’s attempt finally to stand up to Hitler. It was true that in the end he, Conrad, had travelled to Holland to talk to Schämmel about peace, but that was at the British government’s behest, not his father’s. And that little jaunt hadn’t turned out very well.

‘We need to stop this war before it really gets going,’ Lord Oakford said.

‘We need to stop Hitler, you mean.’

‘They’ve all got plans, you know. Churchill wants to invade Norway. The French want to invade Russia. Hitler wants to invade Holland and Belgium. It’s only a matter of time before the Luftwaffe comes and starts dropping bombs on London. We’ve got to stop them, Conrad, all of them. And with your links with the Wehrmacht, you can help us.’

‘Father, we’re fighting a war,’ Conrad said. ‘And it’s a just war. It’s not like the first war where your country fought Mother’s country. This is a war between good and evil. Hitler is evil, Father. If he wins, Europe will fall into darkness. He has to lose. We have to beat him.’

‘But we have no plans to beat him, do we?’ said Oakford. ‘Our plan is to sit in France and wait for him to attack us. And when he does it will be like the western front all over again. Except this time there will be tens of thousands of air-raid casualties among civilians in Britain.’

‘He won’t go away until we beat him,’ Conrad said.

‘Damn it, Conrad!’ Oakford hit his palm on the table. ‘It takes two to fight a war. We can end this if we want to.’

‘Stop it, both of you!’ said Millie.

Both men looked at her.

‘Stop it! Father, you know what Conrad’s views are. And, Conrad, you know how much Father believes in peace. Neither of you is going to change the other’s point of view. But Conrad’s going off to fight. And Father is right, a bomb might land on this house, or on the House of Lords. Maybe the Germans will invade Somerset. Maybe we won’t see each other again. I couldn’t bear it if the last time we ever saw each other ended in a fight. So please do shut up.’

Lord Oakford glared at his impertinent daughter. ‘Millie!’

The colour in Millie’s cheeks rose, but she held his gaze.

‘I’ll shut up,’ said Conrad. ‘Millie’s right.’

Oakford turned to his pheasant, stabbing it with his fork. ‘I wish you would see sense, Conrad,’ he muttered.

Conrad let his father have the last word. But, as far as he was concerned, he had seen sense. That was the whole point.

15

Kensington, London, 11 November

Millie and her father walked briskly along Kensington High Street towards the park. Lord Oakford was in good spirits, which pleasantly surprised Millie. An argument with his son about war and peace was just the kind of thing that could set Lord Oakford off on a week-long bad mood. Added to which, it was Armistice Day, which Millie had feared would only add salt to the wound. No one had mentioned the date yet that morning, although the newspapers had been full of the plan to move the two-minutes’ silence to the following day, Sunday, in order not to interrupt war production.

She was glad she had put her foot down at dinner. Although the evening had become uncomfortable, it could have been a lot worse. She hadn’t realized until she had said it how aware she had been that this might be their last time together: that something might happen to one or other of them. And she didn’t just mean Conrad. It was only then that it had truly sunk in that what she was about to do had its own danger, that she might be the one not to come back. For a moment she could feel the fear enveloping her, but she beat it back. Millie de Lancey was a brave woman, at least as brave as her elder brother.

She hated deceiving him, but she had had no choice. She couldn’t tell him she had already found her war work, which was why she was in London.

‘Where is Conrad off to?’ she asked. ‘I assumed he was returning to barracks, but he was a bit evasive. Is his battalion going over to France?’

‘Heston Airport. He’s flying to Holland to see Theo,’ Lord Oakford said.

‘No!’ That made Millie think. ‘Do we still go ahead with our plan?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Oakford. ‘It will be all right.’

‘I hope Conrad never finds out. He would be furious.’

‘He won’t find out,’ said Oakford.

Millie had been excited to help her father. She had been brought up by him as a pacifist, as had Conrad and the other de Lancey children. She understood what her father was trying to do, and thought he was right to do it. But she knew Conrad wouldn’t approve at all.

‘Here we are.’

They were outside a grand white house just to the south of the park, which had been converted into flats. Lord Oakford rang a bell, a maid answered and they followed her up some stairs to the second floor.

‘Lord Oakford and Miss de Lancey, sir,’ the maid announced as she led them into a drawing room.

Sir Henry Alston rose to greet them.

Millie repressed a shudder as she took his hand. Alston was a fellow director of her father at Gurney Kroheim, her father’s merchant bank. She had met him on a number of occasions before — at dinner parties at Kensington Square and he had been to stay the weekend at Chilton Coombe — yet she had never quite become used to his ravaged face.

‘Millie, there’s someone I want you to meet.’ Alston turned to a pale, dark-haired girl of about Millie’s own age.

‘Lord Oakford, Millie de Lancey, this is Mrs Scott-Dunton.’

‘Constance,’ said the girl, holding out her hand to Millie. She was smiling broadly. ‘I’m so pleased to meet you. This is going to be quite an adventure.’

Bloomsbury, London

It was easy for Anneliese to identify Bloomsbury House; it was the impressive mansion on the southern side of Bloomsbury Square with the queue of Jews outside it. It reminded her a bit of the British Passport Control Office in the Tiergartenstrasse in Berlin. There the Jews were queuing for visas for Britain or Palestine. Here they were queuing for food, distributed by the Jewish Refugee Committee. Just as Anneliese had managed to slip ahead of the queue in Berlin with Conrad to see Captain Foley, the Passport Control Officer, now too she walked right in, feeling just as guilty. But she had an appointment.

Wilfrid Israel had a tiny office in an upper floor of the building. He had thinning blond hair and blue, tired eyes. His suit was immaculately cut and, despite his fair complexion, he exuded the sophistication of a wealthy Berlin Jew. And he was wealthy, or at least he had been. His family had owned N. Israel, one of the most upmarket department stores in Berlin, until he had been forced to relinquish it to Aryan owners.

‘Fräulein Rosen! I’m so pleased to meet you at last,’ he said in German, smiling. ‘And in safety too. Please. Have a seat.’

‘Thank you for agreeing to see me,’ said Anneliese. ‘And in particular, thank you for getting me out of the camp.’ The wife of the commandant of Sachsenhausen concentration camp loved to shop at N. Israel, which had given Wilfrid some influence.

‘Not at all,’ said Wilfrid. ‘Mr de Lancey and Captain Foley were quite insistent.’

‘I owe you my life,’ Anneliese said. ‘As I’m sure do many of the people out there.’

Wilfrid gave a tired smile. ‘Yes. But there are so many more back in Germany whom I couldn’t help.’

‘When did you get out yourself?’

‘In the spring. Berlin finally became untenable. How do you find London?’

‘It’s hard,’ said Anneliese. ‘My father is a doctor, but they won’t allow him to take a job. And my mother is a cleaner.’

‘At least you have found something,’ Wilfrid said, indicating Anneliese’s nurse’s uniform.

‘Yes, I’m working at St George’s Hospital. There are good things about London. My family is safe. And when you bump into a bobby in the street he is more likely to give you directions than lock you up.’

‘And they know how to queue.’

‘And if you tread on their toes, they apologize.’

Wilfrid laughed. ‘But they can be difficult to get to know. Even the English Jews.’

‘I thought you were English yourself?’ Anneliese said.

‘Half-English,’ Wilfrid said. ‘But I miss Berlin. The old Berlin.’

‘Before the Nazis came,’ said Anneliese.

Wilfrid nodded. Then he checked his watch. ‘Anyway, what can I do for you Fräulein Rosen?’

‘I wanted to see if you could help me find some work.’

Wilfrid’s expression became more businesslike. ‘I’m afraid we employ all the people we can already here. And besides, I can see that you have a worthwhile job already. Unlike most of the people out there.’

‘No, not working here,’ said Anneliese. ‘Doing something for the war effort. Against the Nazis.’

Wilfrid raised his eyebrows. ‘And how would I be able to help you with that?’

‘Perhaps through Captain Foley?’ said Anneliese. ‘I did help him with some secret work once in Berlin.’ She had persuaded her uncle, who worked for an aeroplane manufacturer, to pass plans of a new fighter plane to the British. Conrad had suggested it as a way of encouraging Foley to issue her father a visa for Britain. ‘I could do it again. I speak German, obviously. I am willing to take risks. And I need to do something, anything, to stop Hitler.’

Wilfrid hesitated, and then smiled. ‘All right, I can ask Captain Foley when I next see him. He’s stationed abroad at the moment, but we do see each other when he is back in London. I can’t think what you would do for him, but he took quite a shine to you in Berlin.’

‘Thank you, Herr Israel. I won’t take up any more of your time.’

Anneliese had a spring in her step as she made her way back towards Goodge Street tube station and the Northern Line. The idea of trying to do something herself to fight the Nazis had come to her after she had seen Conrad. She had no idea where he was going, but he had said he was planning to see Theo. Which meant he was doing something to actively oppose Hitler. Something more direct than simply joining the army and training in the English countryside.

Anneliese couldn’t join the army in an active role, and there was no doubt that being a nurse was helping the war effort, even if at this stage of the war she was dealing with traffic-accident victims rather than air-raid casualties. But now, for the first time since she had arrived in England, she saw a point to life, rather than mere survival.

If only Captain Foley would take her on.

She had suffered a lot in her twenty-eight years. When Hitler had come to power, she had been a medical student at the University of Halle. She and her boyfriend had taken to the streets to protest. They had both been arrested and despatched to concentration camps; she came out after six months, his ashes after two years. Then her father had been locked up for giving his Jewish blood in an emergency transfusion to an Aryan casualty. Desperate to get him out, she had begun an affair with Klaus, a former university friend who had joined the Gestapo. That had not ended well. But somehow, in Berlin, she had always found the resilience to battle on.

In London, things were different. The grey misery of the city, of her family situation, of the loss of the Germany that she loved had borne down heavily on her. She also felt a burden of guilt. It was irrational, but she couldn’t make it go away. She felt guilty about her affair with Klaus. Guilty that she and her family had escaped when millions of other Jews were left in Germany to take their chances.

And she felt guilty about Conrad. About betraying him with Klaus. About her own feebleness. About dragging him down with her. She couldn’t marry him. He came from a wealthy aristocratic British family. She was, now, a penniless, worthless Jew. Who had deceived him. Who had run away from her country.

She knew he loved her. And she loved him, that was the worst part. That was why she didn’t want to drag him down with her. She remembered how in Berlin he had accused her of using her relationship with him to get her father out of jail, in the way she had used Klaus. He had been right.

She had tried to explain all this to him, but he hadn’t understood. Sometimes, often, she thought: Why don’t I just say yes and marry him? In the old days, she might have done — she would have done. But now? When she had first been locked up in Moringen in 1933, she had coped well mentally. But after Klaus had discovered her affair with Conrad, he had had her arrested. The solitary confinement in Sachsenhausen and then in Lichtenburg Castle had finally broken her spirit.

Conrad couldn’t help her now; she was beyond help. He would lead a much better life without her. She could at least give him that; it was all she could give him.

Life was a miserable grind, with no end in sight, which was why she had persuaded her parents to go to New York. America was the country for fresh starts. Yet it was proving extremely hard to get in, and even the process of trying was making her feel guilty. There were so many Jews in Germany and Austria whose need was greater.

But if she could do something for Captain Foley or one of his colleagues in the secret service, maybe there would be some point to her life after all.

16

Leiden

The bus from Schiphol Airport dropped Conrad by the railway station, and he walked towards the centre of the town, passing canals, barges and a couple of windmills along the way. He was looking forward to seeing Theo, to finding out what the hell had happened at Venlo.

On the bumpy flight over the North Sea, he had mulled over what his father had said to him the night before. The argument over peace or war had been inevitable, but it rattled him, nonetheless. He wished that somehow he could get his father to see his point of view.

Lady Oakford always said that of all her children, Conrad was most like her husband. As a boy he had always been proud of that, because he was proud of his father. There could be no better badge of distinction in the post-war years than a Victoria Cross. But it wasn’t just that; there was bravery in Lord Oakford’s pacifism, in his willingness to take on a cause that was unpopular with his contemporaries and to pursue it no matter what. Lord Oakford had principles, and so did his son. And in Spain Conrad had discovered that he had bravery, or at least the ability to channel his fear into a spur to defeat the enemy and protect his comrades. When Conrad had voted against the motion that he would fight for King and Country at that infamous debate in 1933, he knew his father was proud of him; he could almost feel the old soldier standing there at his shoulder in the Union.

Then things had gone wrong. Lord Oakford had never really liked Veronica and had disapproved of their marriage. He had certainly disapproved of Conrad’s decision to go and fight in Spain, and then to join the British Army. His father had been right about Veronica. He may also have been right about Spain: although Conrad had no doubts about opposing Franco, he had seen the government forces undermined by Soviet commissars. David Griffiths and Harry Reilly had both taken bullets in the back while they were storming Mosquito Hill, bullets from a Popular Army unit with Russian commissars.

But Conrad was damned sure his father was wrong about appeasing Hitler.

Then there was Anneliese. Was his father right or wrong about her? Perhaps she didn’t need Conrad after all, at least not for a while. But he hated the idea of abandoning her when she seemed so desperate.

He had no idea what to do.

He turned into the Rapenburg, a canal flanked by old university buildings. It was a Saturday, so the student bicycle count was down on his previous visit, but they still buzzed about him. The sun shone low over the gables, glinting off the still water of the canal and the damp orange leaves on the street running along its edge.

The Academy was easy to spot, a lofty hall that had the appearance of a red-brick religious building from the seventeenth century, guarded by high iron gates. Conrad walked past and then doubled back, checking for watchers. He couldn’t see any, but then he wasn’t a professional and they probably would be. Somehow he doubted that in its present circumstances the British secret service in The Hague, or what was left of it, would have decided that following Conrad was its chief priority, but perhaps the Gestapo would be on his trail. He had no idea: he would have to rely on Theo.

He walked through the iron gates and stopped at what looked like a porter’s lodge. The porter didn’t speak English but was expecting him. He led him up some ancient stairs and showed him into a small room with nothing but a table and four chairs in its centre. The porter shut the door behind him.

There was something about the proportions of the room that reminded Conrad of a cell. He was drawn to the table, which was made of old gnarled wood and covered with carvings, initials and dates. He examined them: the oldest he could see was 1641. The walls, too, were almost entirely covered with signatures from floor to ceiling.

Was this some kind of bizarre interrogation room? Was he going to be grilled by the Dutch secret police? Conrad shuddered as he remembered the night he had spent in the basement of the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, with its own sad graffiti. His thoughts turned to Payne Best and Stevens, and Klop if he was still alive.

After five minutes the door opened and a short man with thick dark hair, a full greying moustache, and a waistcoat and watch chain bustled in.

‘Mr de Lancey? I am Professor Hogendoorn.’ The man gave a sort of high-pitched giggle as he held out his hand. ‘Do you speak German, by any chance? My English is not so good.’

‘Certainly,’ said Conrad in that language.

‘Excellent,’ said the professor. ‘I hope you don’t mind waiting here.’ The professor giggled again. ‘It’s known as “The Sweatbox”. It’s where the students wait before they defend their theses in the room next door. As you can see they carve their initials while they are at it. It seemed a proper place for a spy to wait.’ Another giggle. ‘More importantly, it’s empty and we cannot be overheard.’

‘I’m not exactly a spy,’ said Conrad, stifling his irritation.

‘No, of course not. Herr von Hertenberg said you were an academic from Oxford University, a historian. But I think if anyone here asks you, you should say you are a chemist. Polymers. That’s my speciality.’

‘I will do that,’ said Conrad. ‘Now, how do I meet Herr von Hertenberg?’

Professor Hogendoorn ignored the question. ‘It’s good to meet an Englishman who appreciates modern Germany. But are you English? De Lancey sounds French to me.’

‘Huguenot,’ said Conrad. ‘My ancestors fled France a couple of hundred years ago. One of them fought at Waterloo, but not on the French side.’

‘Very wise of them,’ said the professor. ‘France’s democracy is even more decayed than England’s. As a scientist, it is clear to me that Germany represents the future. Strength, efficiency, progress. We Dutch should realize that. We are not so different from the Germans. We have the scientific knowledge. We should be their partners, not their enemy. Don’t you agree, Herr de Lancey?’

‘Absolutely,’ said Conrad, wanting to shut him up. ‘Herr von Hertenberg?’

‘Ah, yes. You should go downstairs, go through the arch into the Botanical Gardens and walk on until you get to the observatory. Turn around and walk back here. If you are not being followed, Herr von Hertenberg will approach you. If you don’t see him, it’s because Herr von Hertenberg has spotted something, so return here tomorrow morning and we will have a different plan.’

He led Conrad down the stairs to the entrance to the building, and shook his hand. ‘I don’t know what you are up to, but whatever it is, I wish you luck.’

Slightly disconcerted by his brush with the professor, Conrad strolled through an arch into a courtyard, which had been turned into a formal garden of square plots of tiny hedges, in each of which were plants and labels. Given the time of year, most of the plants were brown and stunted or slumbering underground. Conrad continued on beside a large tropical glasshouse to a canal lined with sycamores. There were half a dozen people nosing around the gardens: a young couple lost in conversation with each other; three women bending down and pointing; a couple of other lone strollers. Conrad couldn’t see Theo.

He walked along the canal as far as a grand white building with domes sprouting from its roof: the observatory, no doubt. He stopped, turned around and headed back. Unlike other canals in Leiden, this one wasn’t straight, but seemed to bend, with green space on either side. Conrad speculated it was a moat around the old town.

And there was Theo, sitting on a bench, hunched in a coat. Conrad sat down next to him.

‘I’m glad to see you,’ said Theo. ‘I was worried about you when I heard what had happened at Venlo. I knew you hadn’t been captured, so at first I thought they must have shot you. You were the chauffeur, presumably?’

‘Yes, I was,’ said Conrad. ‘I slipped away. What about the man who was shot?’

‘He died. He was a Dutch officer, apparently.’

‘I know. I’m sorry to hear that. What the hell happened, Theo?’

‘Schämmel was a plant. The SD were running the operation.’

Conrad remembered that ‘SD’ stood for Sicherheitsdienst, but he was hazy about the intricacies of the Nazi security hierarchy. ‘The Gestapo?’

‘More or less. The plan was to use Schämmel as bait to try to uncover any conspirators in Germany who had been talking to the British. As soon as I found out I came back here to try to warn you, but it was too late.’

‘I did get your message, but we were just setting off for Venlo,’ said Conrad. ‘If that’s what they were up to, why did they kidnap Payne Best and Stevens?’

‘A last-minute change of plan,’ said Theo. ‘Hitler is convinced that the British organized the beer hall bomb in Munich, and that those two British agents were behind it.’

‘They weren’t,’ said Conrad.

‘We know that,’ said Theo. ‘But it’s never a good idea to tell the Führer he is wrong.’

‘I can imagine,’ said Conrad. ‘Do you know whether Payne Best and Stevens have talked?’

‘Not yet,’ said Theo. ‘But they will. The Gestapo have found a list of names on one of them. They passed them on to us: some of them we recognize as Dutch agents in Holland working for the British. But I have a question for you, Conrad.’

‘Yes?’

‘Did you ever meet Schämmel yourself?’

‘No. Thursday at Venlo would have been the first time.’

‘Which means he didn’t get any information about us from you?’

‘No.’

‘What about Payne Best and Stevens? Did they know anything about the real conspirators?’

‘No. Nothing at all. They asked me, but I refused to tell them.’

‘Good. So they don’t know anything about me?’

‘Damn!’ Conrad glanced anxiously at Theo. ‘They do. They had me followed in Leiden last time we met. Stevens asked me what I was doing talking to you. He knew who you were, he knew you worked for the Abwehr.’

Theo frowned. ‘And what did you tell him?’

‘I refused to tell him anything. Apart from to check with Captain Foley.’

‘Damn and blast!’ said Theo. ‘I knew you were the weak link.’ He looked angry. And worried. ‘Do you know if Stevens has spoken to Foley?’

‘He won’t have had a chance to,’ said Conrad. ‘All this came out on the way to Venlo.’

‘That’s something, anyway,’ said Theo.

‘Sorry,’ said Conrad. ‘Are you afraid Stevens will tell the Gestapo about you?’

‘Eventually, yes. At the moment the Gestapo are trying to get them to confess to planning the Munich beer hall bomb.’

‘Poor bastards,’ said Conrad.

‘They will talk in time.’

They fell silent as the young couple sauntered past. A pair of swans glided along the canal. It reminded Conrad a little of the Cherwell back in Oxford. He wondered about the bend in the waterway. ‘Was this a moat once, do you think, Theo?’

‘Yes. They call it the Singel. There is one in Amsterdam, you know.’

‘You are quite the Dutch expert.’

‘It’s the place to be, these days, in our business.’

‘Your business,’ said Conrad. The couple were safely past. ‘So if it wasn’t the British who planted the bomb, who was it?’

‘They’ve arrested someone at the Swiss border. We are pretty sure he is responsible. What we don’t know is who he was working for, if anyone.’

‘So it wasn’t you chaps? Canaris and Oster?’

‘Definitely not. The current favourite theory in the Abwehr is it was a set-up. The Gestapo. It was pretty extraordinary that Hitler just happened to leave ten minutes before the bomb went off. He’s calling it Providence. Interesting how he uses the word “Providence” rather than “God”, isn’t it? It’s almost as if even he can’t believe that God would be on his side.’

Conrad could feel one of Theo’s philosophical digressions coming on, but he wasn’t in the mood. ‘What about the invasion of Holland and Belgium next week? Is that still going ahead?’

‘The weather forecast isn’t good. Halder is trying to persuade Hitler to postpone.’

‘So there won’t be a coup, after all?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Theo. ‘This Venlo business has rattled them. I hope they hold their nerve. But that’s all it is, just hope.’

Conrad could sense Theo’s impatience. The year before, his friend had risked his life to stop Hitler; they both had. It was understandable that he should be frustrated by a lack of courage from the men who were supposed to lead him.

A frustrated spy. A frustrated enemy spy.

‘Who is Charles Bedaux, Theo?’

Theo, who had been staring at the swans, turned sharply to Conrad. ‘How do you know about Bedaux?’

‘Stevens told me. He said that you had been meeting him in Holland. He said he was a shady American businessman who lives in France.’

‘He is,’ said Theo.

‘Does he have anything to do with Schämmel?’ Conrad asked.

‘Nothing at all,’ said Theo.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Conrad’s instinct was to wait. Let his friend think.

‘You know I’m an Abwehr officer?’ Theo said eventually.

‘Yes,’ said Conrad.

‘So most of my job is to try to uncover British secrets and to use them to help Germany win the war?’

‘Yes,’ said Conrad again. There was something in Theo’s voice which told him to shut up and listen.

Theo sucked his lip. ‘Sometimes I wonder if that would be a good thing.’

‘What would be a good thing?’

‘That Germany win the war.’

Conrad nodded. He knew how important that statement was to Theo. Because even when Theo was at his most rebellious, even when he was declaiming socialist theories to his fellow undergraduates, his patriotism was at his core. It was his duty to serve his country, as it had been for all his ancestors.

‘If Hitler beats the British and the French, then Germany will rule Europe and there really might be a thousand-year Reich. And that would be a disaster for the human race. For the Germans as well as all the other peoples we will have subjugated.’

‘You’re right. It would.’

‘Someone needs to investigate Charles Bedaux, Conrad.’

‘All right,’ said Conrad. ‘I will tell the secret service when I get back to England.’

‘Not your secret service,’ said Theo. ‘Someone else. You.’

‘Me?’ Conrad shook his head. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m an officer in the British Army. A real soldier, not some spy. What’s wrong with the secret service? It’s not entirely compromised, is it? I thought it was just The Hague?’

‘No, it’s not that. It’s something else. You have to trust me on this.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if someone doesn’t do something pretty soon, you are going to lose this war.’

‘What? How?’

‘Check out Bedaux and you will find out.’

‘Theo, stop playing games! Tell me what’s going on here.’

‘No!’ Theo’s vehemence startled Conrad. ‘I’m not playing games. If I tell you all of what I know, then you will have to tell the authorities in Britain and I will be betraying my country. Instead of that I would prefer to point you in the right direction and leave you to discover what you are going to discover.’

Conrad was tempted to ask Theo if that wasn’t betraying his country anyway, but he kept quiet. Theo had carefully drawn a line for himself beyond which he would not go. Conrad didn’t want him to change his mind and redraw that line.

‘It’s going to be difficult for me as a serving officer,’ said Conrad.

‘You’ll work out a way,’ said Theo. ‘I know you.’

Conrad frowned. How would he clear it with Van? How could he persuade Van, or even himself, that the best thing wasn’t just to tell Major McCaigue and let the secret service get on with it?

Theo seemed to read his mind. ‘You have to trust me on this, Conrad. Investigate Bedaux yourself. Find out what he is up to. And stop him.’

Conrad sat on the bench by the ‘Singel’ for twenty minutes, while Theo went wherever Theo was going.

Conrad had obtained clear answers to Van’s questions. He was booked on a flight back to London at noon the following day. All he had to do was kill time until then. He had left his small suitcase at the station luggage office, postponing the decision about where he stayed the night.

But what about Charles Bedaux?

Conrad and Theo had been through a lot together. Theo had a cool head and sound judgement. If he said Bedaux should be investigated, he should be investigated. In theory this could be some clever Abwehr stratagem to waste the British secret service’s time. Perhaps feed them dud information. Mislead them. Yet Theo had insisted that Conrad look into Bedaux himself, and not tell the secret service.

It could be a fiendishly clever bluff or double bluff. Conrad knew enough about Admiral Canaris to know he was capable of all sorts of devious tricks.

But Conrad knew Theo wasn’t bluffing him. In fact, Conrad was pretty sure that the Abwehr wouldn’t approve of what Theo had just told him.

So he had to trust Theo. Then what?

Conrad stood up and made his way out of the Botanical Gardens, through the Academy’s iron gates, and out into the street. He crossed a little bridge over the canal and wandered through a maze of old back alleys and red-brick courtyards.

The more he thought about it, the more sure he became that he had to find out about Charles Bedaux. And he had to do it soon, because once he returned to London, he would be sent back to his battalion. There would be little he could do stuck in Tidworth.

Where to start? Conrad checked his watch. It was just after four o’clock. Conrad had spent several years researching obscure historical subjects in libraries in Oxford, London, Berlin and Copenhagen. He needed a library.

He doubled back to the Rapenburg, and a building he had spotted earlier, on the other side of the canal from the Academy. Sure enough, it was the university library, and fortunately it was open on Saturday, but only until five o’clock.

He found a friendly librarian who spoke German and just had time to locate a couple of Dutch business directories. There was an Internationale Bedaux NV listed at Spuistraat 210 in Amsterdam. The business was marked ‘Management Consulting’.

Conrad headed back to the station to catch a train to Amsterdam.

17

Scheveningen, Holland, 12 November

The breeze skipped in from the North Sea, plucking at Constance and Millie’s dresses as they walked along the Promenade. There were a few hardy Dutch couples taking some fresh air on a Sunday afternoon, but not many. The Kurhaus, the grand hotel overlooking the beach and pier where the two women were staying, was almost empty. Scheveningen in November was not a popular place.

The customs officer at the airport had given the women a strange look when they had told him they were going for a few days’ holiday by the sea. Scheveningen had seemed a good idea to Lord Oakford and Millie. Millie was familiar with the town — Lady Oakford had fond memories of the place from her own childhood, and the family had spent two summer holidays there when Millie was small. Also, it was only a couple of kilometres from The Hague.

The perfect place to meet Theo.

‘This is rather exciting, isn’t it?’ said Constance, threading her arm through Millie’s. ‘What’s this Theo man like? Describe him to me.’

‘He’s tall. Dark hair. He has a scar running along his jaw.’

‘How did he get that?’ asked Constance.

‘A duel when he was a student, I think,’ said Millie.

‘A duel? At Oxford? With pistols?’

‘No. At Heidelberg. With a sabre, I should imagine. That kind of German does that sort of thing at university. They think it’s terribly smart to have a face cut up like a pineapple. At least Theo has only the one scar.’

‘It sounds rather dashing.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Millie. ‘Or stupid.’

‘When you say “that kind of German”, what do you mean?’

‘Oh, you know, a Prussian aristocrat. They don’t do that sort of thing quite so much in Hamburg, where my family comes from.’

‘Is he frightfully good-looking?’

Millie hesitated. She could feel herself blushing. ‘I suppose he is.’

‘I thought so!’

‘Thought what?’ said Millie.

‘Thought you were sweet on him. Don’t deny it, I can tell. Don’t worry, I won’t get in the way.’

Millie didn’t deny it. She had first met Theo when he had visited their house in Somerset when she was fifteen and Theo had been the impossibly glamorous friend of her elder brother. But then she had seen him again in the woods around the Grunewald in Berlin the year before, while delivering a secret message from the British government to Conrad. He was still glamorous and good-looking, with a roguish charm, but this time she could see from the first glance he gave her that she had made an impression on him.

Then in April her father had asked her to meet him again, in Zurich this time. Conrad had refused to go; he didn’t trust his father to negotiate behind the British government’s back. Lord Oakford couldn’t risk being seen with a young German officer in Switzerland, but Millie could. And did.

She had spent a week there conducting negotiations through Theo on behalf of Lord Oakford. At that stage, Theo and the people whom he represented, meaning Admiral Canaris and his colleagues, wanted peace, as of course did Lord Oakford and Millie. The negotiations hadn’t come to anything; Oakford couldn’t get Lord Halifax to bend, and Canaris had no real influence over Hitler. But Oakford thought them worthwhile because of the direct channel he had opened with the plotters, if they ever did succeed in getting rid of their Führer.

And Millie had spent a whole week, a wonderful week, with Theo. Much of the time was passed waiting for responses from England. They had taken the train from Zurich up to the Walensee or to Zug, and gone for long walks through Alpine meadows. They had spent a magical day wandering around the old abbey at St Gall, where Theo had told her about Notker the Stammerer, a medieval monk with a vivid imagination and plenty of ribald stories about Charlemagne. Theo was a fascinating man; although he was arrogant, with a tendency to patronize, he did listen to what she had to say. He made her think: about politics, about history, about her family. And most of all about herself.

After that, they had sent frequent letters to each other. Once war had broken out, Theo had come up with an address in Denmark she could use. And in a few minutes, she would see him again, continuing her mission where they had left it six months before.

None of which Conrad knew anything about.

They were approaching the harbour. No longer did they encounter the good burghers of The Hague in their Sunday best suits; now rougher-dressed fishermen and their women in black shawls and white lace caps, each fastened with two prominent buckles, were enjoying their day of rest. The latest craze among the children seemed to be rolling bicycle wheels along the street with sticks.

Since it was a Sunday, the fishing fleet was crammed into port, and the wind made a racket as it strummed the rigging of the sailing vessels. Millie remembered them from her childhood: they had made quite a sight in full sail setting out to sea to scoop up herring.

Whereas most of the cafés on the promenade had been closed for the winter, down by the harbour they were bustling. They found their café, secured the last table, and ordered some coffee in German. Most of the other patrons were local fishermen.

‘Where is he?’ whispered Constance.

‘He’ll be here soon,’ said Millie.

Constance looked around the café. ‘Shall we blend in? Do you think they can tell we are foreign?’

‘I think they can,’ said Millie. ‘But that’s all right. Plenty of foreigners come here in the summer.’

‘Do they have Jews in Holland?’ Constance asked.

‘I think there are rather a lot of them,’ Millie said.

‘That’s strange. I haven’t seen any,’ Constance said.

‘How do you know?’ asked Millie.

‘Oh, I can tell.’

Millie glanced sharply at her companion. ‘Don’t you like Jews, Constance?’

Constance hesitated with her response. ‘I am sure there are many perfectly decent Jews,’ she said primly.

‘There are,’ said Millie. ‘In fact, my brother is engaged to one.’ She was exaggerating a little, Anneliese wasn’t exactly a Jew and she and Conrad were not exactly engaged, but Millie liked Anneliese and she disliked the casual anti-Semitism of so many English people. What she really objected to was the way it seemed to have become more frequent since refugees had begun to arrive from Germany, Czechoslovakia and Austria.

‘Your brother is a socialist, isn’t he?’ Constance said.

‘What’s that got to do with it?’ said Millie.

‘Oh, nothing. Nothing at all,’ Constance said with a smile. ‘Look, I’m sorry, Millie. I am sure there are all sorts of decent socialists too. Really, politics isn’t my thing.’

Millie wasn’t entirely convinced. If that really was the case, why had Sir Henry Alston chosen her to accompany Millie? It was true that Millie did need someone to accompany her to Holland, and that Constance was game for any adventure, yet she seemed terribly innocent and naive. Not a natural person to select for a part in complicated diplomatic negotiations. But she had proven herself a jolly travelling companion so far, and perhaps it was better that Millie be left to deal with the discussions herself.

‘Millie!’

Millie looked up to see Theo standing over their table. The sight of him made her heart skip, and she could feel her face flush. She got to her feet. Theo reached for her hand, and in her confusion she thought he was going shake it, rather than hold it to his lips with good old-fashioned German courtesy.

‘This is Constance Scott-Dunton,’ Millie said.

She saw a flicker of interest in Theo’s eyes as he turned to her companion and kissed her hand as well. A preposterous surge of jealousy flashed through Millie’s veins. Constance was attractive, there was no doubt about that, but she was also an idiot. There was no chance that Theo, with his intellectual depths, would be interested in her. Besides which, Constance was married. She had prattled on at length about her glamorous husband Peter who was serving on a cruiser somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean.

‘Would you like some coffee, Theo?’ Millie asked, chastising herself for being so foolish.

‘I would love some,’ said Theo. They were speaking English: Theo was fluent, of course. ‘And I like the look of those cakes over there.’

They talked politely of the women’s journey, Millie confessing that she had been sick in the aeroplane, and also that she had been terrified of being shot down by German fighters.

‘Isn’t it good to be in a neutral country, though?’ said Theo. ‘Here people aren’t afraid of being bombed at any time. Or not yet.’

‘Do you think Holland will be brought into the war?’ asked Constance.

Theo hesitated.

‘You can speak to Constance as to me,’ said Millie. ‘My father chose her to accompany me. He trusts her.’

As she said it, she wasn’t absolutely certain that was true. But she knew that her father trusted Sir Henry Alston, and it was clear that Alston trusted Constance, even if Millie herself wasn’t quite sure that was wise.

‘Well, Mrs Scott-Dunton, I believe it likely that Holland will be drawn in sooner or later.’

‘Ooh. Is your army planning to invade?’ asked Constance with a lack of subtlety that appalled Millie.

Theo waited to reply as a waitress delivered some cakes. ‘I can’t really answer that question. I’m sure you understand.’

‘That’s a shame,’ said Constance.

Theo smiled quickly. ‘Well, Millie, I presume you have a message for me from your father?’

Millie reached into her bag and withdrew a plain envelope, which she handed to Theo. He opened it and pulled out a two-page letter.

‘Should I read this now?’

Millie nodded, and watched as Theo scanned the note. Millie had read it herself and discussed it in detail with her father. It said that since Britain was at war with Germany, it was very difficult for the British government to negotiate directly with the leaders of a possible replacement regime to Hitler’s, should Hitler retire suddenly. But, it went on, Lord Oakford was confident that should a new German government wish to discuss peace terms, then he, personally, would ensure they would have a sympathetic hearing from the British Cabinet, a much more sympathetic hearing than they had received the year before.

‘My father asked me to add a couple of things,’ Millie said. ‘He knows about the talks between Captain Schämmel and British representatives here in Holland, and he says that the Cabinet was prepared to take Schämmel seriously, before they found out he was a fraud. He is a fraud, isn’t he?’

‘Oh, yes. He’s a Gestapo agent.’ Theo glanced at Millie. ‘You know what happened at Venlo? Your brother was there.’

‘I know. I saw Conrad in London a couple of days ago. Apparently he’s trying to meet you here.’

‘He succeeded,’ said Theo. ‘I spoke to him yesterday. He doesn’t know you are here, does he?’

‘Oh, no. And please don’t tell him. He would be furious if he found out.’

‘I’m sure he would,’ said Theo dryly. ‘What would you like me to do with this?’

‘Can you show it to your friends? I’ll wait for a response.’

Theo examined the letter again, nodded, folded it, and put it in his breast pocket. ‘I will do as you ask.’

‘Thank you,’ said Millie, finishing her coffee. ‘We’ll be here. We’re staying at the Kurhaus.’

‘I’ll walk part of the way back with you,’ Theo said.

Millie couldn’t help grinning.

Constance noticed. ‘Look here. I think I’ll just have a root around the harbour for a bit, and then take a stroll through the town. I’ll meet you back at the hotel later, Millie.’

‘Right oh,’ said Millie, thinking that Constance wasn’t so stupid after all.

They left the café and Millie took Theo’s arm. He led her along the harbour wall past the long line of boats. The wind had picked up and Millie pulled herself close against Theo for protection. There was a strong smell of fish, coming from the boats themselves and the nets neatly stacked on the quay. Three or four hardy seagulls battled against the breeze, searching out scraps of fish that they might have missed from the day before, their cries snatched from their beaks by the wind.

‘It’s nice to see you again, Millie,’ Theo said. ‘I’ve missed you.’

‘And me you,’ said Millie. ‘Thank you for your letters. It’s horrid to think we are at war now.’

‘Very horrid,’ said Theo.

‘Are you staying in The Hague?’

‘I was last night. But now I will have to fly back to Berlin to discuss this letter. I should be back soon, perhaps the day after tomorrow.’

‘That’s a shame. I was rather hoping you would be able to stay here while we waited. Like we did in Zurich.’

‘I wish I could,’ said Theo. They were coming to the end of the wall by the small lighthouse. They looked back along the narrow strip of sand, grey rather than yellow in the gloomy November light. The grandly decorated Kurhaus with its distinctive dome preened itself behind the beach, and a little beyond that, the pier jabbed out into the sea.

‘Last time I was here they still had bathing machines,’ Millie said. ‘Do you remember those?’

‘You came here as a girl?’

‘For a couple of summers. It was fun. I loved the seaside, and it brought back memories for Mother, who used to come here herself when she was little.’

‘Now beaches are for fighting on,’ Theo said.

‘They are putting up all sorts of gruesome things on ours,’ Millie said. ‘Oh, I probably shouldn’t tell you that. Since you are a spy.’

‘I will send a message to Berlin by carrier seagull immediately. I just need to catch one.’

‘I think you will find the seagulls here are on our side,’ said Millie. ‘They have flown in from Suffolk.’

One of the birds a few yards from them squawked, wheeled and was swept back towards the town.

‘Sounded Dutch to me,’ said Theo.

Millie was tall, but she looked up at Theo. His cheeks were red in the wind, his dark hair flopping over his forehead. She had a strong desire to kiss him. He bent towards her.

And she turned away.

Theo stood back abruptly, stiffening. It was as if a wave of awkwardness had burst over them and the sea wall.

A wave Millie was determined to brush off. She turned back to Theo and reached for his hand. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, squeezing it. ‘I just think I shouldn’t kiss a German spy.’

Theo grinned, taking the opportunity to lighten the mood. ‘I suppose it’s not very patriotic. But we are allowed to enjoy each other’s company, aren’t we?’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Millie. ‘We are.’ And she left her hand in his.

Amsterdam

Spuistraat 210 turned out to be a stylish modern building called the ‘Bungehuis’ in the centre of Amsterdam. Bedaux International occupied the second floor. Conrad approached the young woman behind the desk in the reception area and asked her if she spoke English.

‘Yes, certainly I do. How can I help you, sir?’

‘My name is de Lancey. I work for a merchant bank in London, Gurney Kroheim, you may have heard of us?’

The woman shook her head.

‘Ah, well. I am visiting the Netherlands on business. A colleague asked if I would drop by and collect some information on your company. Do you have some brochures, by any chance?’

The woman smiled. ‘One moment, sir, take a seat.’

Conrad sat in the waiting area and listened as the receptionist spoke rapid Dutch on the phone to someone. Fortunately there was a pile of brochures on the table in English, Dutch, German and French. Conrad grabbed one and began to scan it. It extolled the ‘Bedaux System’, which seemed to be a scheme that improved factory productivity. There were photographs of cheerful workers in Holland, France and Britain. There were graphs. And there was a photograph of a short burly man with shiny dark hair brushed back and large jug ears, smiling as he shook the hand of a French company chairman.

Charles Bedaux.

‘Mr de Lancey?’

Conrad looked up to see a slim woman of about forty wearing a dark suit.

‘My name is Mrs ter Hart. I am the General Manager of this office. Can I help you?’ Her English was good; her accent, though slight, sounded to Conrad’s acute ear more Eastern European than Dutch.

Conrad rose and shook the woman’s hand. ‘Ah, yes. I work for Gurney Kroheim in London,’ he began, hoping that Bedaux International was not an existing client of his father’s bank.

‘I know it,’ she said.

‘Good, good. I was in Amsterdam seeing a couple of the bank’s clients, and one of my colleagues asked me to pick up information on Bedaux International.’ Conrad held up the brochure. ‘This looks very useful. Do you mind if I keep it?’

‘Not at all,’ said Mrs ter Hart. ‘Do you know why your colleague is interested in our firm?’

‘Not absolutely sure, no,’ said Conrad. ‘I think he’s interested in the Bedaux System.’

‘Yes?’

‘Yes.’

Mrs ter Hart was beginning to look suspicious. Keep it vague, Conrad told himself.

‘The system is usually implemented in factories not banks,’ said Mrs ter Hart. ‘It can often double productivity.’

‘So I have heard,’ said Conrad. ‘I think my colleague wants to see whether it can be applied to some of the more repetitive tasks that go on in a bank. He would like to discuss it with Mr Bedaux directly. Where is he? Is he here?’

‘That would be a novel application of the system,’ said Mrs ter Hart sternly. Then she seemed to consider the proposition. ‘Mr Bedaux is always very busy, but he likes novel ideas. He visits Amsterdam fairly frequently, and London occasionally. But he is based in Paris, as I am sure you know.’

‘Do you have his address there?’

The Dutchwoman picked up the French brochure and handed it to Conrad. ‘It’s on the back page.’

‘Thank you, Mrs ter Hart,’ said Conrad, deciding to make his escape before he put his foot in it.

‘Not at all,’ said the woman. ‘By the way, what is your colleague’s name?’

Conrad searched for the name of an employee at Gurney Kroheim, but all he could come up with was a couple of the directors, friends of his father. ‘Alston,’ he said. ‘Henry Alston.’

Mrs ter Hart nodded. She produced a card.

Conrad took it and smiled. ‘I’m afraid I have given all mine away this trip. Thank you so much.’ He left, clutching the brochures.

He found a café by a canal around the corner from Bedaux’s office. The canal was called ‘Singel’, just like the one in Leiden. No wonder Theo knew of its existence in Amsterdam if it was so close to the mysterious Bedaux International.

Conrad had three hours until his flight left back to London. He had found out a little about Charles Bedaux. The American ran a very successful international management-consulting business with offices all over Europe. He was based in Paris. And he had big sticking-out ears.

A start, but nothing to indicate why he could possibly be as important to the outcome of the war as Theo implied.

If Conrad went back to London, that was where his enquiries would end. He might be able to find out a little more about Charles Bedaux from friends of friends in business, but to investigate the man properly he needed to go to Paris. And the only time he could do that was right now.

He asked the waiter where the nearest post office was. It was only a few minutes’ walk away, just behind the royal palace. It took a while, but eventually his call was put through to Sir Robert Vansittart in London.

Van sounded harassed, but eager to speak to Conrad. ‘Any luck?’

Conrad remembered Van’s instructions not to be too specific on the telephone in case of listeners. Which, in this case, was very fortunate.

‘Yes, I would say so. It turns out our man was a fraud.’

‘Are you certain?’

‘Quite certain. Our friends haven’t had a chance to chat with their hosts much, but it’s likely they will eventually. The shopping list was found.’

‘I see. What about the beer?’

Conrad smiled at Van’s reference to the beer hall bomb. ‘No idea who spilled it.’ He thought a moment. ‘My old friend thinks it was the publican, but that’s just speculation.’

‘The publican? I think I know to whom you refer. It sounds odd. You are suggesting they spilled it on purpose?’

‘That’s what my old friend guesses.’ Conrad thought he had done a pretty good job of conveying Theo’s answers to Van.

‘You are flying home today, are you not? Come and see me straight from the airport and you can brief me directly.’

‘That might be difficult,’ said Conrad. ‘The thing is, I need to go to Paris this afternoon.’

‘Paris? For what purpose?’

‘Something my old friend told me. Difficult to discuss over the telephone. But I can explain everything when I get back to London.’

It was unlikely that concern over Conrad’s absence from his unit was high on Van’s list of priorities.

It wasn’t. ‘All right,’ Van said. ‘How long will you be?’

‘Not sure,’ said Conrad. ‘Two or three days.’

‘Be sure to report back here when you return.’ With that Van hung up to turn to more important matters of state.

Berlin

There was a spring in Theo’s step as he made his way down the Kurfürstendamm. The moon peeked out behind clouds, giving the street a dim, blue, illicit glow. In the blackout, the Ku’damm had lost its bright lights and its glitter, but the pavement was crowded and there was an air of tense excitement, of danger, of pleasure snatched in wartime, which Theo found exhilarating.

He needed cheering up. He had flown in to Tempelhof from Schiphol and delivered Lord Oakford’s message directly to Colonel Oster. There he had learned that the offensive on the western front had been postponed, and as a result General Halder had ordered all plans for the coup to be burned. A wave of disappointment had washed over Theo. He had known it all along: the general was a damned coward. All the generals were cowards.

But tonight Theo was going to enjoy himself.

He grinned at the image of the familiar cockatoo, drunk but happy on its sign above the doorway, and descended some steps. Inside, the Kakadu was doing great business. The trademark barmaids — brunettes alternating with blondes — were having trouble keeping to their pattern behind the bar. Theo winked at Mitzi, one of the Kakadu’s Eintanzers, wearing a typically absurd dress that laid bare her smooth pale flesh in all kinds of unexpected places. Heinie got him a table, not too far from the floor, and he ordered a bottle of ersatz champagne, a kind of fizzy alcoholic apple juice.

Theo lit a cigarette and examined the crowd. Plenty of uniforms: the grey-green of the Wehrmacht, like his own, the blue of the Luftwaffe and the occasional black of the SS. And there were girls. Lots of beautiful girls, doing their bit to encourage their fighting men.

He could feel her coming. There was a lull in the conversation, men’s eyes flicked to follow her, women’s eyebrows knitted a millimetre or two. She was tall, she was blonde and she was cool, so cool. She wore bright red lipstick, her high cheekbones were accentuated by clever use of make-up, and she never smiled. Ever.

Hedda didn’t need to smile to get what she wanted.

And what she wanted, Theo was pretty sure, was him. At least for that night.

He stood, pulled out a chair for her, poured her a glass of bubbles and lit her cigarette. ‘I’m glad you could make it,’ he said.

‘Günter is away for a couple of days. On exercise. A couple of nights.’

She didn’t smile, but there was something in the way she examined him that made him feel taller, stronger, more virile. They had met on the street during an air-raid scare in Berlin in September. They had both ignored the sirens and stared upwards at the searchlights and the flashes of anti-aircraft guns seeking out phantom British bombers. Theo had offered her his umbrella, to protect her from the bombs. She hadn’t laughed at this rather feeble joke as he had hoped she would, but she had coolly looked him up and down and then accepted it. Theo knew she was married, but it was only after their third night together that he had learned her husband was a Sturmbannführer in the SS Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler. It made her even more alluring.

‘So where have you been, Lieutenant von Hertenberg?’

‘You know I couldn’t possibly tell you that,’ Theo said.

‘Is it a secret?’

Theo looked straight into her cool blue eyes. ‘Yes.’

‘Are you some kind of spy?’

Theo’s brain tumbled. Was she joking? How the hell did she know that? He had never talked about any of his work. Perhaps that was how she knew; he wasn’t full of the usual soldier’s gripes.

He kept his face frozen. ‘Are you?’

She held his gaze and then blinked. Once. ‘Let’s dance.’

Hedda wasn’t exactly a great dancer. She didn’t have much of a sense of rhythm, but she did know how and when to press her body into her partner’s. Theo delighted in the surreptitious glances of the other men on the dance floor as they looked away from their own partners towards his.

He was horny. She was horny. This was going to be a good night. Theo deserved a good night after what he had been going through.

And then suddenly Theo thought of Millie, of her dress wrapping itself around her legs in the wind on the beach at Scheveningen, of her cheek as it turned away from his lips. The music jarred, Hedda’s legs knocked into his knee, his hand on her back felt the stickiness of sweat. Was it hers or his?

She sensed something. Hedda could always sense something. She had somehow sensed he was a spy. What the hell was he doing with the wife of a Sturmbannführer in a nightclub full of SS officers? He tried to imagine Millie in the Kakadu and he couldn’t.

She stepped back. One long, exquisitely plucked eyebrow arched inquisitively. ‘Theo?’

He pulled himself together. He couldn’t allow sentiment to spoil his evening. ‘I think we need some more champagne, don’t you?’

18

Zossen, Germany, 13 November

It had been a long, hard night with Hedda and Theo was feeling the fatigue. He could barely keep his eyes open as he drove the thirty kilometres south of Berlin to Zossen, which was the wartime command centre for the Wehrmacht. He had passed through the high-wire perimeter, two checkpoints and walked along boards laid over marshland to a large A-framed building, inside which he had taken a lift down to underground concrete corridors. There, in a tiny office, he had found Major Liss.

Major Liss woke him up.

Liss was an officer in the Foreign Armies West Intelligence Directorate. He was an artilleryman from Mecklenburg, so not one of the aristocratic Prussians from whom many of the general-staff officers were drawn, but he was a prize-winning horseman, and in the Wehrmacht that earned you respect. He was also highly intelligent and spoke English, French, Spanish and Italian.

‘Thank you for coming out here, Hertenberg. And for all the intelligence you have been providing us with over the last few weeks. As you will see, it has been very valuable.’

‘I am very glad to hear that, Herr Major.’

Theo had never met Liss before. He had passed on the information Bedaux had been giving him to Colonel Oster, who then passed it to people at Armies West Intelligence to analyse. People like Major Liss.

‘Now, what I am going to tell you, what I am going to show you, is highly confidential,’ Liss said. ‘Colonel Oster has vouched for you. I have something for you to ask your contact. To ask it properly, and to understand the answer, you need to understand the question.’

‘Yes, Herr Major.’

‘Come with me.’

Theo followed Liss through the warren. The tunnels were lined with concrete to protect them from Allied bombs, and telephone and electricity cables ran along the ceiling. They came to a large room in the middle of which was a table with a relief map of northern France, Belgium, Luxembourg and Germany.

‘We call this “the cowhide”,’ said Liss. ‘As you can see, we have marked the deployment of the French and British Armies, much of it with information given to us by you.’

Theo looked at the map. Liss pointed out the French fortifications on the Maginot Line, then the French 2^nd Army along the Meuse around Sedan, then the other French armies lined up along the Belgian border, and finally the British Expeditionary Force at the Channel coast near Calais and Dunkirk.

‘You are familiar with Case Yellow?’ Liss said.

‘Of course,’ said Theo. ‘It’s the plan for an offensive in the west. But I don’t know the current details. I assume it involves invading through Belgium and Holland.’

‘It does. Last week we played a war game in this room, trying out Case Yellow. I played the part of General Gamelin, the French commander-in-chief.’

‘What happened?’

‘You see these two armies here?’ Liss pointed to two concentrations of units on the German border with Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. The northern one, Army Group B, was much larger than the southern one, Army Group A.

‘Yes.’

‘All right. Army Group B thrusts through the flat country of Holland and Belgium, through Brussels and on into Flanders. The idea is to break through around Lille and Amiens and swing south to Paris. Army Group A moves west through the Ardennes forest to the Meuse near Sedan, and pins down the French armies there, protecting Army Group B’s flank.’

‘I see,’ said Theo. ‘And you say you fought this battle last week?’

‘We did,’ said Liss.

‘I have to ask the question,’ said Theo. ‘Who won?’

‘Army Group B broke through the Belgian army’s forward defences along the Albert Canal, and took Brussels. But then the French 7^th Army moved north into Belgium, and met our forces here.’ Liss pointed to a gap between the River Dyle and the River Meuse near Namur. ‘As you have pointed out, the 7^th Army is France’s strongest. So this is where the key battle is. Their tanks against our tanks.’

‘And we win?’

‘Not necessarily. They have as many tanks as we do. And their SOMUA S35 is as powerful as our Panzer Mark III. Coming up behind the 7^th Army is the BEF. We get bogged down. We all get bogged down. It’s 1914 all over again. Or 1915.’

‘Oh,’ said Theo.

‘Yes. Of course there is some disagreement among the general staff as to what will happen. I think it’s fair to say that the Führer is more optimistic than General Halder.’

‘And your view?’ Theo asked.

‘My view is we get bogged down.’

A return to the trench fighting of the last war was every German soldier’s nightmare. Probably every French soldier’s as well. ‘I thought our tanks would avoid that,’ said Theo. ‘A blitzkrieg, like Poland.’

‘The French have more tanks than the Poles, a lot more. And they are better tanks.’

Theo examined the map. The little markers, each one a division, represented thousands of men soon to be propelled headlong at each other in Flanders. ‘So what is your request?’

‘I told you I played the role of General Gamelin?’

‘Yes.’

‘It’s a difficult task,’ Liss said. ‘The difficulty isn’t working out what the French should do, but rather what they will do.’

‘Shouldn’t you just assume they pursue the best strategy?’ Theo asked.

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because that’s not what the French do.’ Liss smiled. ‘When we invaded Poland we left only thirty-five divisions of reservists along our western border. The French had seventy-five divisions facing us and three thousand two hundred tanks. We had none. Not one. If the French had ordered an immediate armoured offensive, they would have smashed through the Siegfried Line within a fortnight. We would have lost the war.’

It sounded extraordinary, but Theo believed Liss. He knew the results of a similar war game held in 1938, just before the impending invasion of Czechoslovakia. The Czechs held up the German army long enough for the French armour to roll through the Rhineland. Germany lost the war within months. That was why General Beck and the others had been so desperate to topple Hitler back then.

‘So why didn’t the French generals just do that in September?’

‘It would never have entered their heads. More importantly, it would never enter the heads of the French politicians. Or the British. They have their Maginot Line, and their plans are to sit there and wait for us to attack them. I don’t think they realize even now how they could have won the war.’

‘All right,’ said Theo.

‘So what I need to know’, said Liss, ‘is what the French plan to do if and when we invade Belgium. We can see from their dispositions it’s clearly something they are expecting. In particular, what will the 7^th Army do? That’s what I want you to find out. Then, next time we play this war game I can play Gamelin’s role more accurately. Can you do that?’

‘I can try,’ said Theo.

‘Thank you, Hertenberg,’ said Liss.

Theo was about to leave, when he paused. ‘What about here?’ he said, pointing to the French border with Belgium along the Meuse. ‘The information I received was that the 2^nd Army guarding this section is very weak.’

Liss smiled. ‘Yes. Of course the hills and forests of the Ardennes would slow up any armoured assault. But that is something we discussed. The Führer was particularly intrigued.’

Despite himself, Theo couldn’t help feeling a surge of pride that the Führer himself was interested in the information he had provided.

As he drove back to Berlin, Theo marvelled at his own inconsistency. On the one hand he prayed for Hitler to be removed. He dreaded a German victory over France and Britain, almost as much as the stalemate that Liss was predicting. On the other, he was helping Liss and the general staff craft a strategy that would smash the Allied armies. Both attitudes made sense. It was his bounden duty as an army officer to do all he could to help his country win a battle. It was also his duty as a good German and patriot to stop an evil madman destroying his country.

But those two conceptions of his duty were contradictory. And Theo wasn’t sure how long he could deny that contradiction.

That troubled him. It troubled him deeply.

The Hague

‘Zijn deze plaatsen nog vrij?’

Millie looked up at two Dutchmen, both about thirty, both good-looking. She and Constance were having a cup of coffee in the Passage, an elegant shopping arcade just opposite the Binnenhof parliamentary citadel.

‘We do not speak Dutch. We are English,’ she replied in that language.

The shorter of the two men smiled. ‘No matter. I can speak English and I can translate for Jan.’

‘I’m sorry,’ Millie smiled politely. ‘We are waiting for someone. He will be here any moment.’

‘I understand,’ said the English speaker, his face regretful. ‘I apologize for troubling you.’ They withdrew and found themselves a seat in the opposite corner of the café.

‘Pity,’ said Constance. ‘They looked rather nice.’

‘Better than some of the oafs that have approached us over the last couple of days,’ said Millie.

It was hardly surprising that she and Constance had drawn attention. Constance was an attractive woman, and Millie was used to dealing with strange men wanting to start conversations with her. Actually, Constance had proved to be a more amusing travel companion than Millie had expected. She and Millie were very different, but Constance had a general zest for life that was catching. They had spent a couple of days wandering around The Hague, and Constance had been bowled over by the paintings in the Mauritshuis. Millie had the impression that Constance’s enthusiasm for the Rembrandts and Vermeers was all the more rapturous because this was the first time she had ever ventured into an art gallery.

They had talked a lot, but Constance’s background remained sketchy. She had grown up in Cheshire and then moved to London with her mother to stay with relatives after her father had died, but beyond that Constance had revealed little. She gushed about her handsome husband, a naval officer, but then she also gushed about handsome Dutchmen they bumped into in The Hague.

‘So who is this man we are meeting?’ asked Millie.

‘Otto Langebrück,’ said Constance. ‘Works for Herr von Ribbentrop, who is an old friend of Henry’s.’

‘And Foreign Minister, isn’t he?’ said Millie.

‘That’s right.’

Millie frowned. ‘Should we be negotiating with the enemy’s government? I mean, shouldn’t that come through official channels?’

‘Official channels?’ Constance snorted. ‘You know what Chamberlain is like. He’s too stubborn to negotiate with anyone. That’s why we are here, Millie. That’s why Sir Henry and your father sent us.’

‘Yes, but Chamberlain is Prime Minister, isn’t he? I’m not sure we should be going behind his back.’ Millie realized she was beginning to sound like her brother.

‘I loathe Chamberlain,’ said Constance, her eyes alight. ‘He’s the one who got us into this stupid war. Have you read Rogue Male?’

‘I’ve heard of it. Came out in the summer, didn’t it?’

‘You should read it. It’s brilliant. There’s just one problem. The hero at the beginning is trying to shoot a European dictator who is obviously supposed to be Hitler. He should have been trying to shoot Chamberlain. Now that would have been worth doing.’

‘You are not serious?’ Millie said.

‘I certainly am,’ said Constance. ‘I’d do it. Especially if it would stop this war.’

Millie glanced at her companion. She didn’t seem exactly fanatical, more matter-of-fact. An odd girl, Constance.

‘I think this must be him,’ whispered Constance as a well-dressed man of about thirty approached them.

‘Mrs Scott-Dunton? Miss de Lancey? Permit me to introduce myself. My name is Otto Langebrück. May I join you?’

‘Please do, Mr Langebrück,’ said Millie.

The man oozed charm as he took the third chair around the table. His English was very good. ‘Herr von Ribbentrop sends his compliments to you and to Sir Henry.’

‘Would you like some coffee?’

‘Sadly, not. I do not have much time. I believe you have a message for Herr von Ribbentrop?’

‘I do,’ said Constance. She opened her bag and pulled out an envelope, and handed it to Langebrück, who slid it into his breast pocket without opening it.

‘We will be staying here for three days more if there is a reply,’ Millie said. ‘As I’m sure you know, my father is Lord Oakford. I would be happy to pass on any message to him or Sir Henry Alston.’

‘That’s all right,’ said Constance. ‘You’d better speak directly to me. I know Sir Henry a little better than my friend.’

Langebrück glanced at the two women. ‘Thank you,’ he said. ‘I will leave a message at your hotel if I have anything. Where are you staying?’

‘At the Kurhaus in Scheveningen.’

‘I will be in touch.’

‘Sorry about that, Millie,’ said Constance with an embarrassed smile when Langebrück was safely out of the café. ‘But Henry did give me strict instructions what to say when we hear back from him.’

Millie didn’t answer. She now knew why Constance was with her: to act as an envoy for Sir Henry Alston with the Nazi government. Presumably Father knew about this. But the guilt weighed down on her. What would Conrad think if he found out what she and Constance had done? Or Theo, for that matter?

That she should be torn between what her brother and her father expected was nothing new for Millie. But she cared what Theo thought. She cared very much.

Paris

The bar was warm, smoky and crowded. It had been a long train journey from Holland and Conrad was tired. He was also late.

He scanned the tables and saw the man he was looking for wedged in a corner reading a book, an almost empty carafe of red wine next to him. Conrad made his way over to him.

‘Hello, Warren. I’m glad I didn’t miss you.’

The American looked up and shot to his feet, pumping Conrad’s hand. He was shorter than Conrad with floppy hair that hung down over his eyes, and a wide amiable smile that showed off gleaming teeth. ‘No chance of that. I can keep myself amused here for hours. We need more wine.’ He waved a waiter over.

‘It’s good to see a friendly face,’ said Conrad. And Warren’s was a very friendly face. Conrad had met him at Oxford almost ten years before. Warren’s ambition had always been to become a novelist, but after a couple of years floundering in Paris, he had secured a job as a junior foreign correspondent for a Chicago newspaper. He had spent the last few years in Berlin and Prague, and had now returned to Paris, covering the war.

‘What the hell are you doing here?’ Warren asked. ‘I thought it was impossible for British officers to get leave in Paris?’

‘It may be,’ said Conrad. ‘I wouldn’t know. My unit is still in England.’

‘That explains nothing,’ said Warren.

Warren’s inquisitiveness didn’t surprise Conrad; he was a journalist after all.

‘I’m here on some semi-official business,’ said Conrad.

‘Ah,’ said Warren. ‘I understand.’

Conrad realized that Warren had immediately assumed he was doing something in intelligence. Which he supposed was true, sort of. The good thing about Warren’s assumption was that he wouldn’t expect further explanation.

‘How’s Paris?’ Conrad asked.

‘It’s great to be back,’ Warren said. ‘Although I’m getting a bit sick of this drôle de guerre. It would be good to report on some real fighting. Still, it has given me time to work on my novel.’

Conrad noticed that the book Warren was reading was To Have and Have Not by Ernest Hemingway, Warren’s hero. Rereading it, probably.

‘Have you read Scoop yet?’ Conrad asked. ‘It’s brilliant.’

Within seconds they had slotted back into the old familiar argument of Hemingway versus Evelyn Waugh. They talked about Paris, about Warren’s nascent novel, about the war and whether the Americans would join it. Conrad resisted the temptation to rag Warren for trying to live the cliché of the American writer in Paris. He had attempted to write his own novel while in Berlin, but given up after two chapters, and his occasional journalism for the magazine Mercury was nothing compared to Warren’s efforts.

They ordered another carafe. The warmth of the bar, Warren’s friendliness and the wine relaxed Conrad, so he felt something of a jolt when Warren reminded him of his reason for being there.

‘OK, Conrad, what’s this semi-official business?’ Warren asked. ‘And what do I have to do with it? I assume I have something to do with it?’

‘You do,’ said Conrad. ‘If you are willing. I’m trying to find out about someone. An American who lives in Paris.’

‘Ah!’ said Warren, his eyes lighting up with interest. ‘And who might that be?’

‘A fellow called Bedaux. Charles Bedaux. A wealthy businessman. You know him?’

‘You bet I do,’ said Warren.

‘Can you tell me about him?’

‘Sure. He was born here, but went over to America before the last war, to Michigan, I think. Invented his own time-and-motion system and made a fortune at it. He has companies all over Europe as well as America, although they hate him there. He fancies himself as something of an explorer: he went on a big expedition in the Yukon a few years ago.’

‘And he’s based in Paris?’

‘He moves around all over the place, but he has a company here. I’m pretty sure he has just signed up with the French Ministry of Armaments, telling them how to jazz up their munitions production.’

‘That’s interesting,’ said Conrad. ‘You do know a lot about him.’

‘Any European journalist would know him. After the wedding.’

‘The wedding?’

‘The damp-squib wedding of the century. Your Duke of Windsor and Wallis Simpson.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘They got married at Bedaux’s chateau in 1937. Candé, in the Loire. Nobody came. How did you miss that? Where were you?’

‘In Spain getting shot at,’ said Conrad.

‘Oh, yeah,’ said Warren. ‘I guess you had other things to think about. Anyway, Bedaux loaned the couple his chateau, so, as you can imagine, there were a few newspaper profiles on him at the time.’

Conrad nodded. Like everyone else he had read plenty about the duke when he was Prince of Wales, but Conrad had been fighting in Spain when, as King Edward VIII, he had abdicated the throne. Conrad hadn’t given it much consideration, apart from thinking it was careless of his country to lose such a young and energetic monarch in that way.

‘Does Bedaux have any connections with Germany?’ Conrad asked.

‘Sure,’ said Warren. ‘The Nazis grabbed his company in 1934, but he still has good contacts there. He organized the Duke of Windsor’s tour in 1937. Did you know about that?’

Conrad shook his head.

‘I covered it from Berlin. It was a big deal in Germany; they loved him. The duke and duchess visited factories and housing projects. Your compatriots weren’t so excited, though. There was a half-assed Nazi salute, playing with Göring’s train set, shaking hands with Hitler, that kind of thing.’

Conrad winced. ‘Ouch. Was Bedaux there?’

‘No. But he fixed it all up. Then he fixed a tour for them to America, which fell through when the American unions kicked up a fuss. They despise his time-and-motion system there. Bedaux had a nervous breakdown, I believe, and he’s laid low since then.’

‘Didn’t I read that the duke is in France at the moment?’ Conrad asked.

‘Yes he is. He and Wally lived here in Paris after the wedding, but they were down in Antibes when war broke out, and skedaddled back to Britain. The British government sent him over here a month ago. He’s big buddies with the US Ambassador, William Bullitt, and a lot of the other rich Americans in Paris. In fact he’s also buddies with your sister-in-law. At least I assume she’s your sister-in-law.’

‘Isobel Haldeman?’ Isobel was Veronica’s younger sister, who had married Marshall Haldeman, an American insurance executive who had moved to Paris a few years before. Conrad hadn’t seen her since he had left for Spain.

‘That’s right.’

‘Would she know Bedaux as well?’

‘Sure too. All those right-bank Americans know each other. Bedaux’s wife is much more American than him. She’s an heiress from Kalamazoo. Fern is her name.’

‘I can’t quite accept that Kalamazoo is a real place,’ said Conrad.

‘Oh, it is,’ said Warren. ‘And I wouldn’t kid Fern about her home town if I were you. Scary lady, Fern Bedaux.’

‘Are the Bedauxs and the Windsors still friends?’

‘Don’t know. Mrs Haldeman might have a better idea. You should speak to her. Someone else you might want to talk to is Fruity Metcalfe.’

‘Fruity?’

‘Hey, don’t blame me for your dumb British nicknames. Although he’s Irish, I think. He was the duke’s best man at his wedding and is acting as his royal sidekick now — what do you call it? Aide-de-camp, something like that. Swell guy. Partial to a drink or two. He’s staying at the Ritz, and likes to prop up the bar there after a hard day’s duking.’

19

Paris, 14 November

Conrad slept on Warren’s sofa. He had a small apartment above Shakespeare and Co., an English language bookshop in the rue de l’Odéon. It was run by an American woman and, according to Warren, it was the centre of American literary life in Paris. Warren loved it.

Warren also had to work, so Conrad left his apartment and, armed with Isobel Haldeman’s address, which Warren had dug out for him, found a café in which to while away a couple of hours until he could decently turn up at her house. The sun shone weakly on the quiet street, the coffee was good, and for a moment Conrad was able just to enjoy the fact he was sitting in a café in Paris instead of chasing his men around the mud of Salisbury Plain. An old soldier with a fine white moustache and one leg gave Conrad a gruff nod. He sported the red ribbon of the Légion d’honneur on his lapel, and alternated puffs at a pipe with sips of an early morning ballon de vin rouge. He was a reminder of what war could do, what it would do again once it eventually got going.

Which might be as soon as the next day, if Theo was correct about the date of the offensive. Unless Theo was also correct about the generals dumping Hitler. Conrad understood the Prussian military ethos, how difficult it was for them to move against their commander-in-chief and to break the oath that Hitler had made them all take swearing allegiance to him personally. Conrad prayed that they would have the courage to do it.

Because if they didn’t, hell would be let loose on the Low Countries and northern France. Again.

That would be a disaster. Conrad was convinced that the Munich peace talks were a colossal error, that the appeasers like his father were wrong, and that the only thing to do was to stand up to Hitler. That was, after all, why he had joined the army. But things were not that simple. Perhaps he should have helped his father negotiate with Theo, if it led to a genuine peace with honour. He knew his father’s motives were noble: if your aim was to preserve peace, why start a war? Conrad’s argument had always been that you had to show your willingness to stand up to Hitler if you wanted to stop him. If the generals did get rid of him, then Conrad would have been proved right.

But what if they didn’t? Conrad wouldn’t have stopped Hitler after all. And hundreds of thousands, possibly millions of people would die, soldiers and civilians. Lord Oakford would at least be able to say that he did everything he could have done to prevent the massacre.

It would all become clearer one way or another the next day.

So, where did Bedaux fit into all this? Perhaps he was involved in some way in the coup preparations? Or in thwarting them?

Conrad wasn’t sure how the hell to investigate the American. He had no official reason to be in Paris, no means of accessing government records, no credentials with which to approach officials. Despite what Warren thought, he wasn’t a spy. What did Theo expect him to do?

He had learned from Warren that Bedaux was working for the French Armaments Ministry. That must mean he was in possession of all kinds of arms-production data, which would no doubt be useful to the German government. But that couldn’t be what Theo was driving at. If Warren knew it, the British secret service would know it, as would the French secret service, for that matter. The British already knew that Bedaux was talking to Theo. So Bedaux’s role working for the French government could not be the whole story.

At ten o’clock, Conrad left his little café and strolled down to the Seine, crossing it by the Grand Palais. Paris seemed to be less overwhelmed by the war than London. There were uniforms and a few sandbags, but the river made its sedate way beneath the city’s beautiful bridges in much the way it had done for the last couple of hundred years.

Conrad found Isobel Haldeman’s apartment in a little place off the avenue Montaigne. He had always liked his wife’s younger sister, although he wasn’t sure what she thought of him. Isobel was much less flamboyant than Veronica: small, with a pointed chin, a pretty mouth and kind eyes, she tended to think before she spoke, something that Veronica would never have been caught doing. The fact that Isobel was the first sister to marry, and that she had snared a rich American, had infuriated Veronica. Marshall Haldeman was the son of an insurance magnate from Hartford, Connecticut, who had been placed in charge of the family firm’s European operations first in London and then in Paris. Veronica thought him dull in the extreme; Conrad thought him a decent enough chap.

Isobel welcomed Conrad into her enormous apartment warmly, although she was clearly surprised to see him. A maid served them coffee as they sat in the drawing room overlooking the fountain in the middle of the place.

‘Have you seen Veronica recently?’ she asked.

‘Not since we were divorced. Over a year ago.’

‘Poor you,’ said Isobel. ‘You always seemed much too nice for my sister. I could have warned you, but by the time I met you, you were smitten.’

‘I was,’ said Conrad. ‘Veronica was someone I could never see clearly. I probably can’t now.’

‘No one can,’ said Isobel. ‘Or at least no one male. Did you know she had split up with Alec?’

‘No, I didn’t,’ said Conrad. Alec Linaro was the motor-racing driver whom Veronica had met while Conrad was in Spain. He was married, of course, but that only seemed to encourage her.

‘Alec wanted to stay with his wife after all. Veronica was furious, poor lamb.’

‘So what’s she doing now?’

‘Driving a general around London, I think. Oh, God. I hope it’s an old and ugly general.’

Conrad laughed.

‘I’m sorry I’m so wicked. I adore Veronica really.’

Conrad stopped himself from agreeing. Veronica was trouble; always had been and always would be. He was much better off without her. He knew that, he just had to remind himself of it at regular intervals.

‘And what are you doing in Paris?’ Isobel asked.

‘Trying to find out about someone,’ Conrad said. ‘An American. Charles Bedaux.’

‘Dreadful man,’ said Isobel. ‘And an awful wife. Fern. I can’t bear her.’

‘From Kalamazoo, I understand.’

Isobel laughed. ‘I know. Isn’t it too wonderful? What do you want to know about him?’

Conrad had realized that if he wanted to get a useful answer, he couldn’t just ask an innocent question.

‘I’m not sure, precisely. A friend of mine suggested that he might be dangerous in some way. To the Allied cause. Now, I know that Bedaux is working for the French Armaments Ministry, but I think it might be something more than that. Do you have any idea what that might be?’

Isobel looked blank. ‘No. But it doesn’t surprise me. He’s very clever and he has a finger in every pie.’

‘Who are his friends?’

‘He’s the kind of person who has heaps of friends,’ Isobel said. ‘Marshall would have a better idea of who the important ones are. But Mr Bedaux hasn’t been in Paris very much over the last couple of years. He arranged a trip for the Duke of Windsor to the States, and it all fell apart. The American unions hate Bedaux and they made a real stink. Bedaux took it rather badly, I believe. Had a breakdown. I think he went to Germany for a cure. Then he did something glamorous like driving across Africa from Cairo to Cape Town. Or was it the other way? He appeared back in Paris a month or so ago: I saw him at an American Embassy do the week before last at his chateau. He seemed in good spirits, although I didn’t talk to him myself.’

‘Does he still see the Duke of Windsor?’ Conrad asked. ‘I understand the duke and duchess got married there.’

‘I haven’t seen Bedaux with them for years,’ Isobel said. ‘Not since the duke went to Germany.’

‘You see the duke yourself?’ Conrad asked.

‘From time to time,’ said Isobel. ‘We have mutual friends among the Americans here.’

‘Do you happen to know where Bedaux is living?’ Conrad asked. ‘Somewhere in Paris, or does he stay at his chateau?’

‘No, he has leased Candé to the US Embassy for the war. I’m pretty sure he is staying at the Ritz.’ Isobel frowned. ‘Why are you so interested in him?’

‘A friend wanted to know.’

‘And I suppose I can’t ask what kind of friend?’

Conrad smiled and shook his head. ‘I’m afraid not.’

The frown deepened. Something didn’t sound right to her. ‘I thought Veronica said you were in the army?’

‘I am. I’m on leave.’

‘You fought for the Reds in Spain, didn’t you, Conrad?’

‘I fought for the government, yes.’

‘The communists?’

‘The socialists. There were communists there. Some of them shot at me; they killed two of my friends. If you are wondering whether the friend I was talking about is a communist, he isn’t.’

‘But is he British?’

It was a good question, and one Conrad wasn’t going to answer. ‘Look, I really must be going. I don’t want to take up any more of your morning. Lovely to see you, Isobel.’

With that he escaped, leaving behind a very suspicious sister-in-law.

Scheveningen

Millie and Constance sat in silence, drinking their tea in the grand ballroom of the Kurhaus. Even on a gloomy Tuesday in November, the brightly painted frieze around the dome that rose high above the ballroom floor hinted at the gaiety of summer dances.

Theo was late. Although Millie knew she should be calm and businesslike, her heart was racing. It had only been forty-eight hours since she had seen him, but it had seemed far too long. Constance had caught Millie’s mood, and was nervously silent in sympathy.

There he was! He looked so grave, so handsome as he approached them. Millie smiled broadly, but Theo’s expression was frozen as he sat down next to the women. ‘I have an answer for you,’ is all he said, and handed Millie an envelope.

‘What does it say?’ Millie asked.

‘It gives some idea of what a new German government might expect from the British and French in return for peace.’

‘Can I read it?’ said Millie. She had hoped to be something more than a mere messenger.

‘No,’ said Theo. ‘I’d rather you didn’t. But it doesn’t really matter. There’s no point now.’

‘Why not?’ said Millie. Theo was making no attempt to hide his anger.

‘Because it’s not going to happen. Hitler is not going to be deposed.’

‘Have they called it off?’

‘Yes,’ said Theo. ‘We have been ordered to burn all our plans. The generals are too cowardly to take action.’ Theo looked directly at Millie. ‘We’re stuck with him. We are all stuck with him.’

‘I’m sorry, Theo,’ Millie said. Unthinkingly she reached out her hand over the table. ‘I know how hard you have worked for that.’

Theo stared at her hand and made no effort to take it. Embarrassed, Millie withdrew it. ‘Theo? What is it?’

‘Did you see a man named Otto Langebrück yesterday? At a café in the Passage in The Hague?’

‘Y-yes,’ Millie stammered.

‘Do you know who he is?’

‘He works for the Foreign Ministry, doesn’t he, Constance?’

‘He works for Herr von Ribbentrop,’ Constance said.

‘He doesn’t work for the Foreign Ministry, he works in the Ribbentrop Büro, Ribbentrop’s private office.’

‘But Ribbentrop is the Foreign Minister, isn’t he?’ Millie said.

‘Yes. And he’s a dyed-in-the-wool Nazi. He’s one of Hitler’s biggest supporters. He’s not one of us; he’s one of them.’

‘From the point of view of those of us who want peace, it makes sense to speak to people in the current German government,’ Constance said. ‘You said yourself it now seems unlikely Hitler will be overthrown. In that case the British government will have to negotiate with the existing regime.’

‘You went behind my back, Millie.’

Looking at the expression of disappointment and anger on Theo’s face, Millie felt miserable. ‘I’m sorry, Theo, but we had to.’

‘You didn’t have to. You mean your father told you to.’

Millie felt tears springing to her eyes. She had to control them. She had to control them.

‘It was Sir Henry Alston’s idea,’ said Constance. ‘Sir Henry got to know Herr von Ribbentrop on bank business in Germany before the war.’

Millie was grateful for Constance’s support, but Theo seemed unimpressed.

‘I can see why you are upset, Herr von Hertenberg,’ said Constance. ‘But you must understand that this is too important for considerations of personalities to play a role. We are talking about war or peace here.’

‘By “considerations of personality”, you mean trust, don’t you?’ said Theo.

‘I trusted my father,’ said Millie.

Theo stared at her, his eyes cold. Then he looked up at the high dome above him. A grand piano played a waltz inappropriately in the background.

‘Come with me,’ Theo said to Millie. ‘Not you, Mrs Scott-Dunton, just Millie.’

‘Where are we going?’

‘Outside.’

‘I’ll get my coat.’

‘No you won’t,’ said Theo. ‘There is something I want to tell you. Come on.’

There was a cold wind outside, and Millie started shivering. Theo led her down some steps on to the beach and she hurried after him as he strode towards the waves crashing on to the beach.

He turned to her. His composure had gone, replaced by a mixture of pain and determination.

‘I’m sorry, Theo,’ Millie said, the tears streaming hot down her wind-bitten cheeks. ‘I’m so sorry.’

‘We have to trust each other, Millie,’ Theo said. ‘People like you and me and Conrad are on the same side. The side of reason. The side of peace.’

‘I know. But so is my father. And Sir Henry Alston, and Constance. That’s why they got in touch with Herr Langebrück. To bring peace.’

Theo turned his back on Millie to stare out at the grey North Sea, flecked by white foam in the stiff breeze. Millie wrapped her arms around her chest. She was cold. But she couldn’t abandon Theo.

At last he turned to her. ‘All right, Millie. I’m going to tell you something. I hinted at it to your brother when I saw him a few days ago, but I should stop playing games with myself. The British government needs to know.’

‘Needs to know what?’

‘The Duke of Windsor, your former king, is attached to the French general headquarters and over the last couple of months he has inspected the French lines. He is a surprisingly acute observer. And he has been passing his observations on to someone who has been passing them to me. Vital information about the French deployment and in particular its weak points.’

‘Edward is a traitor?’ Millie said. ‘That doesn’t make any sense. He was our king three years ago.’

‘I can’t be sure if he is doing this intentionally or if he is just indiscreet. But I can assure you he is doing it. And it is very useful information to our intelligence people.’

‘That’s not right, Theo. Someone is lying to you.’

Theo reached out and grabbed Millie’s arms. ‘I said we have to trust each other, Millie. I am not lying. Your government has to do something about it; they have to stop him. And you must tell your father this — not Alston, your father. Do you understand?’

Millie met Theo’s intense stare. There was no doubt he believed what he was saying. She nodded. ‘I will tell him,’ she said. ‘But do you have any evidence? I mean, he might believe me, but will the government believe him? There are all sorts of rumours flying around at the moment, Father says.’

Frustration flashed in Theo’s eyes, but then he seemed to see Millie’s point. ‘Very well. I will try to get you some evidence. I’m not sure what yet, but I will think of something. How long are you staying in Holland?’

‘Another three or four days,’ Millie said. ‘We are waiting for a response from Herr Langebrück.’

‘I’ll bring you something in the next couple of days.’ Theo touched Millie’s cheek. ‘In the mean time, be careful. Don’t trust Langebrück or Ribbentrop. Don’t trust anyone.’

‘Apart from you?’

‘Apart from me.’ To Millie’s enormous relief, Theo smiled at the irony. ‘You should go back inside, you are freezing. I’ll see you again soon.’

Millie’s emotions were in turmoil as she hurried back across the sand to the warm glow of the Kurhaus. She was ashamed that she had gone behind Theo’s back; she was angry with her father for letting Alston open up a dialogue with such Nazis. She was also shocked by what Theo had said about the Duke of Windsor. She had met him once when she was nineteen and he was Prince of Wales. Like most people her age, she had been pleased to see him succeed to the throne in 1936: a young, modern king who understood the twentieth century. The politics of his abdication had baffled her, but she couldn’t help admiring a man who had put his love for a woman before everything else, even his throne.

Her father knew the duke quite well. He had railed against his interfering in the Hoare — Laval pact during the Abyssinian crisis in 1935, over which Lord Oakford had resigned his position in Cabinet. But he had been uneasy about turfing a king off his throne. Would he believe her?

She had been right to ask for evidence from Theo. She believed him, she had to believe him, but it was going to be very difficult for Oakford to persuade the government that their former king was a traitor.

But if he was, if the duke really had been passing vital secrets to the Germans, then something had to be done about it.

Constance was hovering anxiously, waiting for her in the lobby. ‘Are you all right, Millie?’

‘Oh, leave me alone!’ Millie snapped.

‘What did he say?’

‘Sir Henry Alston is a Nazi, isn’t he, Constance?’

Constance was taken aback. ‘Don’t be an ass, of course he isn’t. He just wants peace, like your father.’

‘He’s best friends with Ribbentrop and Ribbentrop is a Nazi. He’s trying to sell our country out.’

‘Is that what Theo told you?’

Although the lobby was empty, Millie realized she was talking too loudly and lowered her voice. ‘Theo thinks the Duke of Windsor is a spy. He has been giving Theo secrets about the French defences.’

‘Theo has been talking to the Duke of Windsor?’

‘Through some kind of intermediary. He wants me to tell my father.’

Constance frowned. ‘I know you like Theo, Millie, but that cannot possibly be true.’

‘He’s going to bring me proof in the next couple of days. While we wait for your friend Herr Langebrück to come back with his reply, which, by the way, I intend to rip up.’

‘You can’t do that!’ Constance said. ‘That was the whole reason we came here.’

‘We shouldn’t be negotiating with the Nazis behind our government’s back,’ Millie said. ‘Not when we are at war.’ What she meant was behind Theo’s back. And Conrad’s.

‘Why don’t we leave that to Sir Henry to decide?’ said Constance. ‘And your father.’

‘Because Sir Henry is a Nazi and my father is a fool!’ Millie said, the tears stinging her eyes as she did so.

‘What are you going to do about the Duke of Windsor?’ Constance asked.

‘Tell my father, of course, once Theo provides us with some evidence. As soon as we get back to England. I just hope he will listen.’

‘I don’t think you should do that,’ said Constance.

At that instant all Millie’s frustration focused on one person, the girl standing in front of her. ‘Leave me alone, Constance,’ she said. ‘Just leave me alone!’

With that she strode off to the lifts and her room. She needed to be by herself to make sense of all she had just heard. She needed to be away from Constance.

Constance returned to her table in the almost empty ballroom and poured herself a cup of tepid tea from the pot. She had some hard thinking to do.

After a few minutes she went up to her own room and placed a telephone call to London.

20

The Ritz, Paris

Conrad lit another cigarette and leafed through the pages of the Herald Tribune. He had finished Le Monde. He wondered how long he could safely sit in the lobby. The staff of the Ritz didn’t seem to mind; people waited for other people in grand hotels all the time.

He glanced up every time the doors opened until finally he saw a face he recognized from the brochures he had picked up in Amsterdam. The photographs had done justice to the boxer’s face and the jug ears, but not to the vitality with which Charles Bedaux bounded into the hotel. He spoke to one of the men at reception, requesting the manager.

This was interesting. Nonchalantly, Conrad got to his feet and wandered over to the desk. He asked whether there was a message for him. While the receptionist was looking, the manager appeared. He was perfectly dressed in morning coat, and succeeded in looking both authoritative and deferent at the same time. He clearly knew Bedaux.

Conrad listened to the conversation, which was in French. Bedaux had arranged a private dining room for four people and seemed very concerned about the arrangements. As did the manager. One of the people was ‘Madame Bedaux’, but Conrad didn’t catch the names of the other two. Conrad couldn’t hear the whole conversation, he had to respond to the receptionist who hadn’t been able to find a message for him, but he did catch a couple of words from the manager: ‘eight o’clock’.

Conrad checked his watch. It was half past six. He told the receptionist he would return later and asked him to keep any messages for him from a Monsieur Madvig. May as well put the old Danish Prime Minister to work again. Then he wandered out into the place Vendôme, and found himself a café on a side street.

At ten to eight he strolled back to the Ritz. He was disconcerted to see Charles Bedaux standing in the lobby, shifting impatiently from foot to foot. Conrad decided he had better not hang around there, and so made his way over to the far side of the square, outside an American bank. But it was dark in the blackout, and from that distance he couldn’t make out the occupants of the cars that pulled up at the entrance. He would have to get closer.

He moved over to the shadows outside a jeweller, only a few yards from the entrance to the hotel, confident that no one could see him in the blackout.

At twenty past eight a large Buick rolled up and two faces he recognized emerged. The appearance of the couple seemed to energize the doorman, who ushered them into the hotel. Conrad decided he could risk one more turn though the lobby himself.

Sure enough, as he passed through the blacked-out doors, he saw Bedaux fussing over his dinner guests.

The Duke and Duchess of Windsor.

He span off to the left and found himself in the bar. He ordered a whisky and soda to give himself time to think.

Could that be what Theo was getting at? Charles Bedaux’s relationship with the Duke of Windsor. Was Bedaux giving Theo secret information about the duke? And if so, what? Something about Wallis Simpson? Surely that scandal had played out.

Conrad remembered Warren mentioning Fruity Metcalfe, the duke’s ‘sidekick’. Well, here Conrad was, in the bar of the Ritz. Conrad had no idea what Metcalfe looked like; he scanned the room for likely suspects. There was really only one candidate, a tall middle-aged man in a double-breasted suit, propping up the bar, sipping a whisky and looking glum.

Worth a try.

Conrad moved over to him. ‘I say,’ he said to the man. ‘Are you English, by any chance?’

‘Irish,’ the man replied, looking up.

Conrad perched on a stool next to him. ‘I think I just saw the Duke and Duchess of Windsor in the hotel lobby. Is that possible?’

‘I’d say it’s a racing certainty,’ the man replied. ‘He’s having dinner here tonight.’

‘Oh,’ said Conrad. ‘I didn’t realize he was in France.’

‘Been here over a month,’ said the man, in soft Irish tones. ‘As have I. In fact I spent all day with him.’

‘Really?’ Conrad looked impressed. ‘I’ve never met him, myself. They say he’s charming.’

‘He is that,’ said the man, whom Conrad was now certain was Fruity Metcalfe. ‘You could never accuse the duke of lacking charm.’

‘Are you dining with him tonight?’ asked Conrad. He knew it was a stupid question, because the duke had been wearing a dinner jacket and Fruity wasn’t.

‘No. I work for him. I’m his equerry.’

‘Ah, I see,’ said Conrad. ‘The name’s de Lancey, by the way.’

‘Metcalfe,’ said Fruity. He was clearly slightly drunk, but seemed happy with the idea of talking to Conrad. The company seemed to be lifting his air of gloom. ‘What are you doing in Paris, Mr de Lancey?’

For a moment, Conrad almost panicked. What the hell was he doing in Paris? He couldn’t tell Fruity he was trying to find out about Bedaux, and from what he had heard it was difficult for a British officer to get leave in the city. ‘Seeing my sister-in-law. She lives here and she needs some help with something.’

‘Oh, who’s that?’ Fruity asked.

‘Isobel Haldeman.’

‘Oh yes, I know her. Marshall Haldeman’s wife. Must be a rum business for you to come all the way here to sort it out.’

‘I suppose it is, rather,’ said Conrad. ‘I shouldn’t really have told you her name. Didn’t think you would know her.’

‘Don’t worry,’ said Fruity. ‘I promise I’ll forget all about it.’ He took a sip of his drink and looked Conrad up and down. ‘Sister-in-law? That makes you Isobel’s brother’s… No, sister’s husband.’

Fruity was a bit befuddled, Conrad was glad to see.

‘Ex-husband,’ said Conrad. ‘So does that make Isobel an ex-sister-in-law? Somehow I don’t think it does, does it?’

Fruity pondered the question. ‘Don’t know,’ he decided eventually. ‘De Lancey, you say? Is your wife Veronica de Lancey?’

‘That’s her,’ said Conrad. ‘And she’s my ex-wife.’

‘Oh, I see. I met her once. Sat next to her at dinner somewhere. Charming woman.’

‘You could never accuse Veronica of lacking charm,’ Conrad said.

Fruity laughed. ‘Can I get you another?’ he asked Conrad. Conrad’s glass was half full; Fruity’s was entirely empty.

‘Why not?’ said Conrad, finishing his.

‘What’s it like, being divorced?’ Fruity asked.

‘I wouldn’t recommend it.’

‘Was it your idea, or hers? I hope you don’t mind me asking, old man, I know you are a stranger, but there are some things it’s easier to ask strangers.’

‘Hers,’ said Conrad. ‘I fought it for a year or so, then I gave up.’

‘Was Alec Linaro involved in any way?’ Fruity asked.

‘Yes,’ said Conrad. ‘I take it he was at that dinner party too?’

Fruity nodded. Conrad felt the anger rise inside him, the humiliation of the cuckold. While he was scrabbling around in the dust and blood of Spain, his wife was openly flirting with other women’s husbands in front of total strangers.

‘Don’t let it get to you, old man,’ Fruity said. ‘It happens to all of us.’

‘Oh?’

‘My wife is beautiful. Wealthy. The daughter of an earl. And I have no idea which man she is with at this precise moment. But I would be very surprised if she was alone.’

Conrad raised his eyebrows.

‘Are you wondering why I admit that?’ Fruity said. ‘Why shouldn’t I? I mean, she flaunts it. Why should I never mention it, just because no one ever mentions it to me?’

Conrad nodded. ‘I know what you mean.’

They stared at their drinks for a moment.

‘Do you love her?’ Fruity asked.

‘I did,’ said Conrad.

‘Do you now?’

Conrad looked at Fruity sharply. ‘No. Maybe. I don’t know.’

‘I love her,’ said Fruity. ‘That’s the problem. I’ll always love her.’

Conrad liked Fruity. He bought him another drink. They changed the subject. They talked about Paris, the phoney war, the army, Fruity’s service in India, the Duke of Windsor, the French army, Fruity’s trips around northern France.

It was several whiskies later and well past midnight before Conrad left the Ritz and made his way over the Seine to Warren’s flat, thinking he now knew why Theo wanted him to track down Bedaux.

His Royal Highness the Duke of Windsor had been passing secrets to the enemy.

And if Theo was right, in only a few hours’ time the Germans might be making use of those secrets to attack Belgium and Holland.

Time to go back to London.

Scheveningen

It was about ten o’clock. Millie was in her nightgown having ordered a light supper from room service. She lay with the lights out and her eyes open, listening to the sound of the surf outside and thinking about what Theo had said.

There was a light knock at the door.

‘Who is it?’

‘It’s Constance.’

‘Go away!’

‘Let me in, Millie! I want to apologize.’

Millie sighed, got out of bed and opened the door a crack. Constance was standing on the landing looking sheepish. ‘Can I come in?’

Millie hesitated, and then opened the door wider. Constance sat on the small chair by the desk, and Millie parked herself on the bed.

‘I just wanted to say I am sorry, Millie. I’ve been thinking about it and you are quite right. It’s wrong to negotiate with the Nazis when we are at war with them. We should have told your father and Henry that.’

Millie was surprised, but gladdened that Constance seemed to share the doubts that were growing in her own mind after her conversation with Theo.

‘It’s just so difficult when people you trust ask you to do something,’ Constance went on. ‘And I do wish someone would do something to stop this dratted war.’

‘So do I,’ said Millie. ‘But I wonder if we shouldn’t leave it to our government.’

‘Probably,’ said Constance. ‘I don’t think Henry is a Nazi, though.’

‘I’m not so sure,’ said Millie.

Constance looked as if she was going to argue, but seemed to think the better of it. ‘Oh, and I saw Theo earlier this evening.’

‘You did?’ said Millie. ‘Why didn’t you send him up to see me?’

‘I tried to, but he said he just wanted me to leave you a message. He wants you to meet someone tomorrow morning. Early.’

‘Who?’

‘He wouldn’t tell me,’ said Constance. She dropped her eyes. ‘I think he doesn’t trust me.’

‘When? Where?’

‘Half past six. In the sand dunes just beyond the beach. Below the watchtower up there. You know. We walked up there yesterday afternoon.’

A mass of low sand dunes covered in scrub stretched along the coast for several miles to the north east of Scheveningen, and Millie and Constance had explored them the day before. ‘Yes, I know where you mean. That’s frightfully early, though. It’s still dark then.’

‘It must be someone quite important,’ said Constance. ‘I asked if I could come with you, but Theo said no.’

‘All right,’ said Millie. She looked at her companion. Constance’s apology seemed genuine enough, but Millie didn’t even begin to understand her. At one moment she seemed to be impossibly naive, but she clearly understood more about international politics than she let on. With Otto Langebrück she had appeared firm and businesslike. And her relationship with Alston was a mystery. She said she was a friend of Alston’s niece, but it was odd that Alston trusted her so much.

‘Thank you, Constance,’ she said. ‘Good night.’

After Constance had left her, Millie rang down to the hotel reception to book a wake-up call.

21

Scheveningen, 15 November

The phone woke Millie before six, and she was out of the hotel by ten past. It was still dark, although a lighter shade of grey framed the Kurhaus to the east. The breeze was steady rather than strong, and the Dutch flag flapped jauntily from the cupola of the hotel.

The promenade was empty, but one man was walking his dog on the beach down by the pier. Crows and seagulls huddled on the sand. Most of the guesthouses and hotels along the front were dark.

Millie wondered whom Theo wanted her to meet. Her best guess was either someone high up in the conspiracy against Hitler, or someone with evidence against the Duke of Windsor. Millie still found it hard to believe that the duke could possibly be a traitor, but she had to trust Theo. It was odd: she trusted Theo more than her own father.

She wished she could talk to her brother about the pickle she seemed to have got herself into. He would be furious, of course, but then he would be constructive. He would know what to do.

But there was no Conrad, so Millie was left to her own devices. She should have confidence in herself; she could cope.

She lifted her chin as she came to the end of the promenade, where beach met dune. The sand there was soft and had drifted in the wind, but she trudged up to a small footpath that snaked up the dune. The sky was lightening all around now, although sea, sky and dune were still shifting shades of grey and black.

She remembered where she had walked with Constance a couple of days before. There was a Napoleonic watchtower on the highest dune with a view of The Hague to the east and Scheveningen to the south. To get there, one had to climb and descend a couple of times. She assumed that Theo and his companion, whoever he turned out to be, would be waiting for her in one of those hollows.

There was no one around, and although at the top of the dunes she could see for miles, in the hollows she was sheltered from the wind and the sound of the surf.

Scrub encroached: gorse and stunted trees. First one bird and then another announced the dawn from deep within the bushes. The path she was following was not straight, but wound through the humps. She came to a narrow section where it plunged downhill with scrub on either side.

She heard rapid footsteps behind her and the sound of feet sliding on sand.

‘Theo?’

She turned.

She saw the knife and opened her mouth to scream.

No one heard.