Shadows of War

May 1940

41

Extracts from Lieutenant Dieter von Hertenberg’s Diary

10 May

It’s started! We crossed the River Sûre on the Luxembourg border at 0530 this morning with the tanks of 1^st Panzer Division. I am in the armoured command car with General Guderian; I go everywhere he goes. The roads are narrow and winding with steep wooded valleys. The weather is gorgeous; the sky is blue and clear. Tanks stretch out for kilometres — we are sitting ducks for French aircraft, but fortunately we haven’t seen any. The Luxembourg border guards were overwhelmed by detachments of our infantry and we drove straight through.

Our orders are to push through the Ardennes forest to Luxembourg and Belgium until we reach Sedan. Then we establish a bridgehead over the River Meuse.

11 May

Delayed by minefields and demolition of bridges on the Belgian border with Luxembourg. Brief fighting with French cavalry and Belgian Chasseurs Ardennais around Neufchâteau. Reached the Semois River at Bouillon. It’s not very wide, but the banks form a good defensive line for the French and Belgians. The French are digging in at the town of Bouillon.

I think we have created the largest traffic jam in Europe; apparently the columns of vehicles stretch back all the way across Luxembourg to Germany. Still seen only a couple of French reconnaissance aircraft, which is lucky because we are trapped on these narrow forest roads.

12 May

Whitsun. The French have blown the bridge over the Semois, but it is fordable in places. The French have retreated from Bouillon. Our engineers constructed a new bridge and 1^st Panzer crossed into the town.

We have suffered enemy bombing for the first time. We set up Corps HQ in the Hôtel Panorama in Bouillon, which does indeed have a wonderful view of the Semois valley. Guderian was standing by a fireplace in the parlour. Hunting trophies lined the walls, including a particularly large wild boar’s head. Suddenly some British bombs landed nearby, one of which hit an ammunition supply column. There was a series of massive explosions: glass shattered, and the trophies flew off the wall. The giant boar missed Guderian by only a few centimetres. He was badly shaken.

But I am impressed with the general. He is a hard taskmaster and drives around the forward units manically. We get very little sleep. But his doctrine of leading from the front works. We have a wireless, a map table and ciphers in the command vehicle — much better than sitting twenty kilometres to the rear with a row of telephones, which is what all the other generals do. He keeps the tanks moving, which keeps the enemy off balance.

He has just flown off in a Storch to have discussions with Cousin Paul in the rear. Expected back later this evening.

Later… Guderian returned and had some pretty nasty things to say about General Kleist. I decided not to remind him that he was being rude about my relative! Our orders are to cross the Meuse tomorrow afternoon. Kleist has heard from Berlin that the French 7^th Army with all its armour is moving north into Flanders rather than east to meet us. This is very good news, and just what Theo predicted.

A lot to do to get the orders out for tomorrow’s attack. And although we have crossed the Moselle on exercise, the Meuse will be much more difficult when properly defended. I think I will be seeing real action tomorrow.

13 May

Exhausted. I have scarcely slept at all for the last seventy-two hours. Or is it ninety-six? It’s been a long and dangerous day, but we have a toehold across the Meuse!

The morning was spent frantically trying to produce orders for the assault. I had the idea of using the same orders in our files from the war game on the Moselle we did a couple of weeks ago. Simply added six hours to everything, so the start time of 1000 became 1600.

The French have abandoned the larger part of Sedan which lies on the east bank of the Meuse. The river itself is wide and fast-flowing, and on the west bank are steep green hills with trees, pillboxes, stone towers and gun emplacements. It is like a mountain spitting fire! I thought there was no chance of us ever getting across.

Then our Stukas came, wave after wave of them. They dive down out of the sky, sirens screaming, and drop bombs on the French positions. They kept it up all afternoon. The noise is indescribable, even on our side of the river. It must be hell under it, and it seems to have kept most of the French artillery and machine guns quiet.

At 1600 our infantry paddled across the river in dinghies. They took casualties but have established a couple of bridgeheads on the far bank. Once the orders were issued, Guderian drove back and forth between 1^st Panzer and 2^nd Panzer. Then we boarded a dinghy to cross the river, under fire of course. When we got to the other side, the smart-arse commander of the 1^st Rifle Regiment said, ‘Joyriding is forbidden on the Meuse.’ To be fair to Guderian, he laughed.

At nightfall we returned here to Corps HQ. The engineers are building a pontoon over the river for the tanks to cross tomorrow.

I am so tired. I must get some sleep!

14 May

Fierce battle around Sedan. The bridge has been built and tanks have crossed over. Intelligence suggests that French armour are massing for a counter-attack. Some of the French have turned and run, but some are still fighting, and they have superb positions on the heights looking down on the river. Now we are seeing a lot of French and British aeroplanes. It’s touch and go.

At noon General von Rundstedt, Commander of Army Group A, arrived to take a look. Guderian took him, and me, out on to the centre of our new bridge in the middle of an air raid. The British bombers are not very accurate, but they are aiming at the bridge! Rundstedt tried to take it as calmly as Guderian, but you could see he was rattled. There were bodies in the river, but I didn’t jump in after them this time. These fellows weren’t struggling, they were face down in the water and covered with dark patches of blood.

The noise is extraordinary: artillery gunfire, the rattle of machine guns, the thuds and splashes of bombs, the screams of the Stukas, and the constant rumble of tanks on the move. And yet the sun shines.

15 May

French tanks arrived. Air attacks continue. We are hard pressed.

16 May

We are out in open country! We drove 65 kilometres today. Sedan is secure, as is our beachhead over the Meuse. Without warning, the French gave up their counter-attacks and turned tail. We have no orders for what to do in this situation, so Guderian decided to push west. We reached Montcornet, where we took hundreds of prisoners who had no idea we were anywhere near them.

It’s a wonderful feeling, like a long-distance runner pulling ahead of his competitors in a sprint for the finish line. Like the runner, though, I fear we will become exhausted. Guderian’s philosophy is not to bother about our flanks, but to stay moving and keep the enemy off balance. That seems to be working so far, but I can’t help worrying that when the French finally bring up serious reinforcements our flanks will be in trouble.

You can see why they call him Schneller Heinz.

17 May

Looks like I have lost a commander! General Kleist flew in first thing this morning, and without even saying ‘good morning’, let alone ‘well done’, he gave Guderian a public bollocking for disobeying his orders. Apparently we should have halted at the Meuse. Guderian calmly asked to be relieved of his command. This took Kleist aback for a moment, but then he told him to hand over to one of his divisional generals and stalked off. I think he recognized me, but didn’t show it. I always used to admire Cousin Paul, but I think his behaviour is outrageous. What is the point of sacking your best general at the moment of a stunning victory?

So we are hanging around at Montcornet until General List arrives with orders from Rundstedt to sort things out.

18 May

Guderian has been reinstated. Technically we have to keep our HQ at Montcornet, but we are permitted ‘reconnaissance in force’, which means we are off again!

2^nd Panzer reached Saint-Quentin this afternoon. The whole of northern France is opening up before us.

42

Extract from Lieutenant Dieter von Hertenberg’s Diary

19 May

Crossed the old Somme battlefield. War has changed in the last twenty years, thank God.

Close shave this afternoon. Our command vehicle was in a wood, virtually alone save for a battery of AA guns, when we heard French tanks close by. If they had found us, they would have captured us. Fortunately they moved off.

Regent’s Park, London, 19 May

It was a glorious day in the park. After a brutal winter, flowers were shooting up in the few beds that had remained undisturbed by war preparations. Even the ack-ack guns and the bobbing barrage balloons seemed to be celebrating spring. The iron railings had all been removed, turning the city park into something more akin to a lush rural meadow. There were few people about, just some old codgers snoozing in deckchairs and a group of small boys sailing their boats on the lake, untroubled by German submarines.

The weather matched Alston’s mood, if not that of his compatriots. The news from France was bleak, and getting bleaker by the day. The Germans had cut through the French like a knife through Camembert. The English press were trying to find ways of coming to terms with what was turning into a humiliating defeat. Those in the know — the MPs, the society hostesses, the generals, the gossips of club and dining room — already feared a disaster was in the making. This was worse than 1914. Some thought the French and British generals might be able to pull a Marne victory out of the hat. Realists thought that unlikely.

People laid the blame in two places: the French and Churchill.

Only the day after Churchill had taken over as PM, many Tory backbenchers wondered what they had done. At just the time when the country needed a cool rational brain, they had plumped for a leader who seemed to be struck by bizarre ideas at random, and who wrapped himself in sentimental bombast.

The party had made a mistake and they knew it. Constance was right. Between them, the French and Churchill were losing the war. Peace was the only rational alternative. But this time Alston would make sure he was in control of how that peace was achieved.

He spotted the plump Swede sauntering towards him. They ‘bumped into each other’ at the prearranged spot at the stone pillars by the rose garden where a splendid wrought-iron gate used to stand before it was melted down.

‘Ah, Lindfors, fancy seeing you here!’ said Alston loudly, holding out his hand and smiling. Karsten Lindfors was a Swedish banker whom Alston had met a number of times before the war in London and Berlin. Alston did not know him well enough to trust him, but in March Lindfors had approached Alston with a message from Joachim von Ribbentrop, who it appeared did trust him. Since then they had met twice. Lindfors was a much better intermediary than Constance and Millie de Lancey had been. Alston knew exactly where the Swedish banker’s loyalties lay. The opportunities for profitable trade finance, given all the raw materials and ordnance that were flowing from Sweden to Germany, would be extraordinary. A neutral banker’s dream.

After a few words of greeting, Alston turned to join Lindfors on his stroll, as if they were acquaintances who had met by chance, and had decided to walk together and chat for a few minutes.

‘I have a message for Joachim,’ Alston said. ‘Churchill is vulnerable; it won’t take much of a prod to topple him. It’s likely that this will happen within the next two weeks, especially if the news from France gets worse.’

‘And then what?’

‘Then we need a new regime. We have plans. But it’s vital that Herr Hitler refuses to deal with the existing British government and insists on a new regime of leaders who are sympathetic to Germany. That will give the ditherers enough of an excuse to give way to us.’

‘Who are the ditherers?’

‘Churchill. Chamberlain. Halifax.’

‘And who will be in this new regime?’

‘Lloyd George. Myself. Sam Hoare. Rab Butler. Other sympathetic souls. And be sure to tell Ribbentrop that we will invite back a king whom he can deal with.’

‘The Duke of Windsor?’

‘King Edward. Or Edward the Eighth Part Two as Shakespeare would call him.’

The Swede smiled quickly. ‘How confident are you that you can achieve this?’

‘Very confident. As long as the German government refuses to deal with Halifax and Churchill. It’s all planned.’

‘I’ll tell Joachim.’ He shook Alston’s hand again. ‘Somehow I suspect we will be seeing each other again very soon.’

Alston nodded, and turned back towards the rose garden.

Mayfair, London

‘All right, can you see anyone?’ hissed Constance.

‘No. The coast is clear,’ Anneliese replied. They were on Grosvenor Street. There were no clouds and some moonlight, just enough for them to see what they were doing. They were following Anna Wolkoff’s detailed instructions. Keep on the dark side of the street. Look out for doorways in the shadows where policemen liked to lurk.

They passed a bus stop. Always a good spot.

In a practised movement, Constance whipped the poster out of the shopping bag she was carrying, and unfurled it. The back was already covered with glue, and both women pressed it down over the timetable.

Printed on it was a little ditty written by Captain Maule Ramsay beginning:

But this time perhaps they had had a little too much to drink. The coast wasn’t clear after all.

‘Oi! What are you two doing?’

‘Run!’ shouted Constance, and they ran. Both women were fast and had avoided heels for just such an eventuality. Anneliese turned to see a helmeted silhouette after them. A bulky silhouette. The policeman blew his whistle.

They shot across Regent Street and into the warren of alleys that was Soho.

A quick left and a quick right and they thought that they had lost him.

‘Here! Let’s go in here!’

Constance pulled Anneliese down some stairs, past a doorman, into what was clearly a nightclub. As they penetrated the heavy blackout drapes over the entrance they were hit by a fug of smoke, alcohol and piano music in a dim blue light. The tables had shiny black tops, the chairs were red wicker and fake plaster columns propped up the walls, or were propped up by them. The lighting changed to red.

‘This brings back memories of Berlin,’ said Anneliese.

‘I need a drink!’ said Constance. ‘Have you got any money?’

Anneliese had. She had kept some of the cash Conrad had given her in November for just such an eventuality.

The manager found them a table in the back, and at Constance’s suggestion they ordered black velvets. Immediately, two men in army uniform approached them, bearing lopsided smiles of charm and alcohol, but Constance told them the women were waiting for someone.

She laughed as she raised her glass to Anneliese. ‘Cheers!’

‘Prost!’ said Anneliese. Then ‘Heil Hitler!’ in a whisper.

Constance giggled. ‘Heil Alston!’ she said.

‘That’s a good one,’ said Anneliese.

They were already both tipsy. They had been taken out to dinner at La Coquille by Captain Maule Ramsay, Tyler Kent and a diplomat from the Italian Embassy. Anna Wolkoff and Joan Miller, the model, had been there as well. Much alcohol had been consumed and Tyler Kent and the Italian diplomat, who was a count, were at their most charming. It was clear that Anna Wolkoff was acting as some sort of intermediary between Jock Maule Ramsay and the American Embassy employee.

‘Did I see Tyler give Jock something?’ Anneliese said.

‘You did,’ Constance said. ‘And it’s very secret. I persuaded him to keep a copy for Henry.’

‘A copy of what?’

Constance looked around the room. No one was listening to them, but two men dressed in dinner jackets were staring. ‘Tyler works as a cipher clerk in the American Embassy. He has been deciphering correspondence between Churchill and President Roosevelt. It shows Roosevelt is sympathetic to the British.’

‘Isn’t that obvious?’ asked Anneliese.

‘No, it isn’t at all.’ Constance turned to two more men approaching them. ‘Go away!’ she snarled before they had even got to the table. They went away.

‘Apparently the American public don’t want to go to war with Germany.’

‘Very sensible,’ said Anneliese.

‘Precisely. And Roosevelt must be seen to be keeping his distance.’

‘Which he isn’t, according to Tyler.’

‘Quite right. So Henry’s plan is to pass the correspondence on to an isolationist US senator he knows. The senator will publicize the messages, and Roosevelt will be forced to disown them. It should stop America from coming in to the war.’

‘Wonderful!’ said Anneliese, trying to make herself believe that the news was indeed wonderful, and succeeding. She had developed a technique when she was with Constance of persuading herself that she was in fact a loyal Nazi stuck in a foreign country. She had known enough of them in Berlin, and she tried to react to whatever she saw and heard in that role, blanking out all thoughts of the true implications until later.

Constance’s eyes were shining. She was excited, she was drunk, and she was enjoying being with Anneliese.

She wanted to talk.

‘You did something similar for Henry when you were in Holland last year, didn’t you?’ Anneliese said. ‘Something hush-hush?’

Constance frowned. For a moment, Anneliese thought she had gone too far, and raised Constance’s suspicions. Then the Englishwoman smiled and leaned forward. ‘I was talking to some representatives of the German government for Henry. It was all a bit of a disaster.’

‘Really? What went wrong?’

‘I can’t say. But I had to… take action.’

‘Take action? What do you mean?’

‘I had to kill someone.’

‘No!’ Anneliese raised her hand to her mouth. She suppressed the excitement she felt and smothered it in feigned shock. But only mild shock, not enough to put Constance off.

‘You look surprised,’ said Constance.

‘I am,’ said Anneliese. ‘Who was it?’

‘I can’t say. But wouldn’t you kill someone for the Fatherland? If it absolutely had to be done?’

‘I never have,’ said Anneliese. Then she seemed to give it consideration. ‘But if the circumstances demanded it, I would.’ She sat up straight. ‘I would be proud to.’

Constance smiled. ‘I knew you would understand. But don’t tell a soul.’

‘I won’t. Are you still in discussions with the German government?’

‘I’m not. But Henry is.’

‘Will there be peace?’ Anneliese said. ‘Surrender?’

‘Peace. It will look like a draw but it will be victory for Germany. Henry has it all worked out.’

‘A revolution? A coup?’

‘No!’ said Constance. ‘This is England. This will all be done in a very British way. No goose-stepping. No Roman salutes. In fact the public will hardly realize what has happened until it has happened. That is the beauty of his plan.’

‘Tell me,’ said Anneliese.

43

Extract from Lieutenant Dieter von Hertenberg’s Diary

20 May

Orders allow us to move as far as Amiens, so we have taken Amiens. It’s a beautiful city and a fine cathedral. Captured some English prisoners. The roads are full of French refugees. 2^nd Panzer claimed they were out of fuel, but Guderian didn’t believe them. His theory is that’s just an excuse commanders use when they are tired.

Two of our own aircraft attacked us this afternoon. We shot them down and the crew drifted to the ground under parachutes. Guderian was there to meet them and gave them a severe bollocking. Then a bottle of champagne.

Abbeville taken this evening. The Channel is only 20 kilometres away!

Suffolk, 20 May

Conrad read the cable that was waiting for him in the mess. ‘YOU MUST MEET ME IN LONDON AS SOON AS POSSIBLE VERY URGENT ANNELIESE’.

That was at least clear.

The battalion was keeping itself busy. The disasters on the Continent had injected a dose of urgency into their preparations. Intelligence analysis suggested that the Germans were considering an immediate assault on England, before France fell. If that were true, then such an invasion would have to come from the north German ports, since the Germans would not have had time to prepare the Dutch harbours they had captured to launch an armada. And if an invasion fleet left from Hamburg or Bremen, it would almost certainly alight in East Anglia.

Personally, Conrad didn’t believe the intelligence reports. In fact, from what he had learned of intelligence over the last few months, there was more bluff and double bluff going on than straightforward acquisition of genuine secrets. If he were in charge, he would junk the whole lot and rely on common sense. Common sense told him that the Germans would be as preoccupied with the invasion of France as the Allies were, and would be very unlikely to have taken the time to plan an assault on Britain right away.

So Conrad was wasting his time in Suffolk and had been desperate to get back to London. But since the German blitzkrieg, all weekend leave had been cancelled, and Colonel Rydal had been unwilling to make an exception for him.

Conrad would just have to try harder. He went to see the CO.

Colonel Rydal was at his desk. Conrad handed him the cable, on the basis that honesty was most likely to earn him Rydal’s trust.

‘Who is Anneliese?’ Rydal asked. ‘Your girl?’

‘Yes, sir. But I met her in Germany last year. And she is helping me with my investigation of the Duke of Windsor. If she wants to see me that urgently, she has discovered something important.’

‘I take it you want leave to see her right away?’

‘Yes, sir.’

The colonel raised his eyebrows. ‘And what if she wants to tell you she is pregnant?’

That stopped Conrad; the thought genuinely hadn’t occurred to him, but it was one of the classic reasons for requests for leave from his own men. ‘It’s not that, sir,’ he said. ‘If it were, Anneliese would wait to tell me. Besides which the timing is wrong.’

Rydal grunted. ‘I have received another order from the War Office not to grant you more leave.’

‘Did they say why?’

‘No. But they were firm about it.’

‘Doesn’t that rather suggest that there is something to learn in London?’ Conrad said. ‘I’m not a Soviet spy, sir. The very idea is ridiculous.’

‘I know it is,’ said Rydal.

Conrad could tell the colonel wanted to believe him. He just needed some help. ‘When I went to Holland last November I was told that the Germans had received information from the Duke of Windsor that the French lines were at their weakest at Sedan. I passed that information on to the British authorities, who seem to have ignored it. They didn’t like the idea of the duke being a German spy. Now I quite understand that — I don’t like it either. But you know where the German army broke through last week?’

‘Sedan.’ Rydal frowned. ‘And you think that your friend Anneliese has more information about the duke?’

‘She may well have. She has been investigating an MP who has been involved with the duke, or friends of the duke. An MP who is pro-Nazi. Sir Henry Alston.’

‘Is Alston pro-Nazi?’

‘Oh, yes, sir.’

‘Do you have proof?’

‘Absolutely not. That’s why I have to see Anneliese.’

Rydal stood up and turned towards the window. Conrad waited.

Rydal’s shoulders stiffened. He had made a decision. He turned back to Conrad. ‘I can’t give you leave. But I can send you to see someone at the War Office. A different department. As you know, I have been having a long-running argument with the WO about our Bedfords being armoured. Here’s the man’s name and the department.’ Rydal scribbled a name.

‘Do I have an appointment?’

‘No. And don’t make one. Just claim I told you you had one. It will sound like a typical army balls-up.’

Conrad smiled. ‘Thank you, sir.’

‘Very good. Leave an address where we can get you at short notice. Between us, there is a good chance that we may be ordered to France in the next few days as reinforcements. If that happens, I want you back with the battalion right away.’

Pall Mall, London

Alston sipped his whisky and listened to the secret-service officer. They were meeting in Alston’s club, having decided a long time before that it was more discreet to meet openly. There was nothing suspicious about a Conservative MP having a quiet conversation with a senior member of SIS, whereas a clandestine meeting would be more remarkable.

‘De Lancey is coming to London tomorrow,’ the officer said.

‘But damn it, McCaigue! I thought you had arranged for him to be confined to barracks.’

Major McCaigue shrugged. ‘His CO seems to have sent him here on an errand. There’s not much one can do about that, at least not right away.’ He raised his eyebrows. ‘But isn’t this good news? I thought you had arranged a welcome for him, next time he came to town.’

‘I suppose so,’ said Alston.

‘We’ve discussed this,’ said McCaigue. ‘I can’t help you with that kind of thing, at least not directly. I can’t be seen to be conspiring with you, even by my colleagues.’

McCaigue was Alston’s man inside the secret service. He had provided Alston with sound advice for several months now, part of which was that if the secret service was to be seen conspiring to launch a coup, any new government’s legitimacy would be questioned. So McCaigue had been very careful.

‘I understand,’ said Alston, embarrassed by his own squeamishness. ‘I’ll deal with de Lancey.’ All he needed to do was to tell Constance, and she would get Sullivan to take care of it. ‘We intend to make a move in the next week or so. Churchill is becoming more vulnerable by the day.’

‘Good,’ said McCaigue.

‘How do you think your colleagues will take it?’

‘It’s hard to say. Provided you can avoid it seeming like a coup, then I think they will go along with it. You know, “peace with honour”. And most of us are still more worried by the Soviets than the Nazis. I know I am. I don’t trust that Nazi — Soviet pact. Stalin just wanted half of Poland, and that was his way to take it. You wait until he wants the other half and see what happens then.’

Alston knew that McCaigue’s main motivation wasn’t his loyalty to Alston or even the Duke of Windsor, but a deep conviction that the Bolshevik revolution of 1917 had just been the start of a long-term grab for power by the working classes. He loathed and feared Russia, or, to be more precise, the idea that had become embodied in the Soviet Union. McCaigue was fighting for civilization against communism. In that battle, it made much more sense to have the Nazis with you rather than against you.

Alston could go along with that idea.

‘Have you heard about the arrests this morning?’ McCaigue asked.

‘What arrests?’

‘An American diplomat called Tyler Kent and a Russian woman, Anna Wolkoff.’

‘No, I hadn’t heard about them,’ said Alston.

‘Do you know them?’ McCaigue asked.

‘Isn’t Anna Wolkoff the manager of the Russian Tea Rooms?’

‘You don’t go there, do you?’ McCaigue asked with a hint of disapproval.

‘Just once or twice, but that’s all. It didn’t seem very discreet.’

‘It certainly isn’t that. And don’t go again. There will be more arrests.’

‘Ah.’ Alston sipped his whisky. ‘There is a friend of mine, Mrs Scott-Dunton — you probably remember she was in Holland last November. You helped tidy up after her then.’ Alston knew it was McCaigue who, on his own initiative, had arranged for suspicion for Millie de Lancey’s murder to fall on a German spy rather than Constance. ‘I’m afraid she spends quite a lot of time at the Tea Rooms, and she knows Mr Kent. She has been very helpful to me in various important ways over the last few months. It would be disastrous if she were arrested. It might undermine the whole plan.’

‘Oh dear,’ said McCaigue. ‘She hasn’t exactly been careful, has she?’

Alston didn’t like his tone. ‘I’m serious, McCaigue. It would be bad for all of us.’

McCaigue smiled quickly. ‘Don’t worry, Sir Henry. I’ll see what I can do to protect her.’

‘On the other hand, what about Mosley?’ said Alston. ‘It might be convenient if he was arrested. The last thing we want is him taking advantage of the government in disarray to launch his own coup.’

McCaigue grinned. ‘It would be convenient, wouldn’t it?’

44

Extract from Lieutenant Dieter von Hertenberg’s Diary

21 May

Saw the English Channel this morning! Blue sea in brilliant sunshine. There was haze to the north so we couldn’t see the white cliffs of Dover, but we are probably too far away here anyway. It’s remarkable that only eleven days ago we were crossing the border into Luxembourg. That’s 350 km! But I am so tired. We are all tired, including the tanks. But it turns out that 2^nd Panzer hadn’t run out of fuel after all.

The Allied armies are cut in two. Now — do we head north or south? The British Expeditionary Force is to the north, Paris to the south. Waiting for orders.

I am immensely proud of what we have achieved. I wonder what Theo would think. From what I can tell, the intelligence he gathered helped the High Command come up with the plan we have just followed with such success. We are taking part in possibly the most glorious victory in our country’s history. As a German officer, how can Theo not be proud of his part in that?

The French and the British must realize they have lost. Maybe now there will be peace. That must be a good thing.

St George’s Hospital, Hyde Park Corner, London, 21 May

As Conrad waited outside the entrance to the hospital, he was reminded of those times nearly two years before when he had stood outside St Hedwig’s in the Jewish quarter of Berlin, waiting for Anneliese. The uniform was different, but it was the same woman whose face lit up when she saw him. The same smile.

She kissed him quickly, and led him over the road to the park. ‘I was worried you wouldn’t be able to come.’

‘I have a very understanding CO, thank God. I’m here on official business: talking to the War Office about equipment.’

‘How long until you have to return?’

‘A week is the maximum. Unless the battalion is sent to France, in which case I will have to rejoin them immediately. What have you got to tell me?’

‘Let’s wait till we are in the park.’

They walked rapidly and in silence across Rotten Row. Only when they were a good distance from Knightsbridge did Anneliese talk.

‘Oh, Conrad. She did it! Constance killed your sister.’

‘I thought so,’ said Conrad, anger surging through his body. ‘How did you get her to admit it?’

‘She was showing off. About the secret mission she had been sent on to Holland by Alston.’

‘Did she say why?’

‘Not really. She said the trip had been a disaster and she had been forced to kill someone. She didn’t say who, but it can only have been your sister, can’t it?’

‘It must have been,’ said Conrad. ‘It’s hardly conclusive proof. I’m not even sure it would count as evidence.’

‘I’m sorry,’ said Anneliese. ‘It was the nearest to a confession I could get.’

‘Oh, no,’ said Conrad. ‘You did well. Very well. At least now I know for certain.’

‘There’s more,’ said Anneliese. ‘Constance told me Alston’s plans for a new government.’

‘Which are?’

‘He thinks Churchill is unpopular and going to fall very soon. Halifax doesn’t have the guts to become Prime Minister.’

‘So who replaces Churchill?’

‘Lloyd George. Backed up by Alston and…’

‘And who?’

‘Your father.’

‘No!’

Anneliese reached out and squeezed Conrad’s hand. The anger he had felt on hearing confirmation that Constance had killed his sister mixed with shock. Betrayal. Fear.

‘Are they going to make peace with Hitler?’ Conrad said.

‘More than that. They are going to put in place a regime that will become firm allies with Germany. They are going to bring the Duke of Windsor over from France to demand peace. They will force King George to abdicate and make the duke king again.’

‘The British people will never put up with that.’

‘There’s a newspaper campaign planned. Alston has friends in every part of the ruling class, according to Constance. It will seem like common sense, like a great escape from defeat. Or at least that’s the idea.’

‘It will never work.’

‘I’ve seen it work. So have you. In Germany. Hitler was voted into power by the people, remember? This will be different, because you British are different, but that’s why it will work. According to Constance and Alston.’ Anneliese looked up at Conrad. ‘Don’t be too quick to dismiss these things as impossible. That’s what we did in my country.’

Conrad stopped. They were in the middle of a large green meadow, bordered by trenches that had been dug a couple of years before as protection from air raids. No one had ever used them.

‘What the hell is my father doing with Alston?’ Conrad said. ‘I can’t for a moment imagine he is a willing participant. Alston must have pulled the wool over his eyes somehow. Father is much too naive.’

‘Constance said that Lord Oakford is going to France to tell the Duke of Windsor to come back to Britain and reclaim his crown. Apparently he and Alston discussed it with the duke when he was here in February.’

‘Don’t be ridiculous!’ Conrad said. ‘I can just about believe that he might help Alston make peace with the Germans. But we already have a king and he’s called George, not Edward the bloody Eighth. If my father is trying to get the duke to come back that’s treason, pure and simple. And whatever else my father is, however stupid he is, he’s not a traitor!’

‘I can only say what Constance told me,’ said Anneliese.

‘I’ll talk to him now,’ said Conrad. ‘Tell him he shouldn’t be such a fool.’ Conrad turned on his heel and walked back towards the Knightsbridge underground station.

‘No, Conrad!’ said Anneliese. ‘No. Listen to me.’ She tugged on his sleeve, urging him to stop.

Conrad turned to her. ‘Anneliese. I have to sort this out! Maybe Constance is making it up. Or she is confused.’

‘Conrad. Listen to me. Your father is involved. We don’t know how and we don’t know why, but Constance would have no reason to lie to me. She doesn’t know that I know him or you. But we have to assume that your father knows what he is doing. Which means that you can’t tell him that we know it too.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because he will stop you from doing anything about it. Your father is an idealist. If he thinks he is doing the right thing, he won’t let you get in his way. You know that, you’ve told me yourself about the arguments you’ve had with him.’

‘How could he stop me?’

Anneliese shrugged. ‘I don’t know. What I do know is that you think you are safe in nice cosy Britain and you are not. All those horrible things that happen over the English Channel are coming here soon. Very soon.’

‘My father wouldn’t hurt me.’

‘This kind of thing tears families apart in my country. It will in yours too.’

They were a few yards away from a bench and Conrad headed towards it. He sat down and leaned forward, his head in his hands. He felt Anneliese’s palm on his back.

‘I just can’t believe Father would betray his country like that,’ he said. ‘I know peace is important to him, but this is treason. He’s betraying everything he believes in. Everything I believe in. Everything!’

‘He probably doesn’t think it is,’ said Anneliese. ‘That’s the whole problem. He probably thinks he’s doing what’s right for his country. Alston and Constance think that too.’

‘When you told me just now you had proof that Constance had killed Millie, I thought I could finally go to Father and convince him that Alston was evil, that he was a traitor, that not only had he killed Millie but he was conspiring to lose the war and overthrow our king. I thought Father would listen to me, help me. I thought he was a good man and he would prove it to me. But now? Now I don’t know what to think.’

Conrad blinked. He could feel tears springing to his eyes. He could see Anneliese had noticed, and he fought to control himself.

Anneliese reached for his hand and squeezed it. ‘I’m sorry, Conrad.’

Conrad sat up and took a deep breath. ‘All right. So what do we do?’

‘We tell someone,’ said Anneliese.

‘Tell someone that my father’s a traitor?’

‘Yes,’ said Anneliese.

Conrad turned to her. Her familiar green eyes were looking into his. No irony, this time. No humour. Concern. Love even. Sincerity.

‘I can’t do it,’ he said.

‘You have to do it,’ Anneliese said. ‘This is bigger than you and me. You know that.’

What about Mama? Conrad thought. What about Millie and Charlotte and Reggie?

For a second he had forgotten Millie was dead. And Edward was dead. His family had been torn apart. More than that, it was as if a mortar bomb had landed right in the middle of it and exploded.

‘Do you know why I didn’t want to marry you when I came to London?’ Anneliese said.

‘No,’ said Conrad.

‘Because I didn’t want to drag you down with me. I felt worthless. I felt that what had happened in Germany had destroyed me. The only reason for me existing was to help my parents, and even they didn’t have much of a future. I felt that if I once was worthy of you, I wasn’t anymore. I loved you and I was absolutely certain that you would have a better life without me.’

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

‘It made sense to me. It was as if I was carrying the evil of the Nazis inside me somehow, that it had infected me like some plague and that I had brought it with me to England. I didn’t want to infect you.’

Conrad reached out his hand and stroked Anneliese’s hair.

‘Can you understand that?’ she said. Her eyes were steady, her jaw firm.

Conrad thought of all Anneliese had suffered. Of her stoic misery in London. Of the confidence that he had always felt that she loved him really, and the frustration that she wouldn’t allow him to love her.

‘I think so.’

‘But going to the Russian Tea Rooms, pretending to be some kind of Nazi myself, has made me feel better. I am worth something; I am doing something worthwhile. The world is on the edge of a thousand years of darkness. Don’t you feel it? If France surrenders, if Alston and your father create their puppet government, the Nazis will control Europe. They will control Britain. They will destroy the Jewish people. They will destroy civilization. There will be a new Dark Ages.’

Conrad nodded. She was right.

‘Doing what little I can to prevent that has given my life meaning again. You must do what you can too. Even if it means betraying your father.’

Conrad looked at Anneliese. She knew how important his father was to him; her own father meant everything to her. She knew him; she understood him.

She was right.

He stood up. ‘Let’s go,’ he said.

‘Where?’

‘We need to tell someone. Someone who can actually do something about it.’

‘Who?’

‘Sir Robert Vansittart.’

It turned out that that was much easier said than done. It was only a fifteen-minute walk across Green Park and St James’s Park to the Foreign Office, but once there it transpired that the Chief Diplomatic Adviser was busy. Conrad scribbled a note for the commissionaire to give to Mrs Dougherty, saying that he had information of national importance, and then he and Anneliese waited in the grand entrance hall of the Foreign Office.

And waited.

Eventually, two hours later, Conrad heard a familiar deep Ulster voice behind him. ‘Lieutenant de Lancey, would you be good enough to come with me?’

It was Major McCaigue. Conrad introduced Anneliese and they followed McCaigue up to a small windowless office on the third floor that he must have borrowed.

‘Sir Robert asked me to see you at short notice,’ McCaigue said. ‘He thought I would be best able to deal with what you had to say.’

With relief that someone in authority was willing to listen to him, Conrad explained everything that Anneliese had told him.

Major McCaigue listened carefully.

45

Whitehall, London

An hour later Conrad and Anneliese emerged on to Whitehall.

‘What now?’ said Anneliese.

‘I suppose we leave it to McCaigue.’

‘Do you trust him?’

‘I think so. But I’m not sure I trust those around him. The government. The “authorities”.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘Van won’t see me. The “powers that be” seem to think I’m a Russian spy. The War Office is trying to get me confined to barracks.’

‘Major McCaigue seemed confident he could stop Alston,’ said Anneliese. ‘Captain Foley did a good job in Berlin.’

‘That’s true,’ said Conrad. For a mild-mannered bureaucrat, Captain Foley had indeed been effective, springing Anneliese from a concentration camp and spiriting her and her family over to England, as well as hundreds, possibly thousands like her. ‘But somehow I think McCaigue is up against more serious opposition.’

‘Where are you going now?’

‘The hotel in Bloomsbury. I won’t stay at Kensington Square. I think you are right about Father; I don’t trust myself with him. And I have to ring up Veronica.’

‘Veronica?’ Anneliese sounded disapproving.

‘She wrote to me that Polly Copthorne had rustled up a man called Parsons with important information about her husband’s death, and I should get in touch when I was next in London.’

‘Can I come with you?’

‘To see Veronica?’

‘No,’ said Anneliese, slipping her hand in his. ‘Just to your hotel.’

‘Yes,’ said Conrad, grinning. ‘I rather hoped you would.’

Mayfair, London

It was still light as Conrad walked up the small street in Mayfair where Veronica lived. Anneliese was unhappy that he was seeing her that evening, but Veronica had insisted on meeting the mysterious Mr Parsons with him. Anneliese had decided to head off to the Russian Tea Rooms to see if she could squeeze something more out of Constance. But she had at least agreed to see him at the Bloomsbury hotel later. Conrad suspected that she just wanted to be sure where he spent the night.

Which was ridiculous. After the afternoon he and Anneliese had spent together, Veronica wasn’t a danger. Conrad was glad to be doing something rather than leaving everything to McCaigue. He wasn’t sure what to make of what Anneliese had told him. Should he really ignore his father? Was there nothing he could do or should do? McCaigue had urged him to go back to his unit, but Conrad would find that very difficult.

Perhaps he would learn something from this man Parsons.

He was taken aback for a moment to see his own name, ‘De Lancey’, on one of the four bells by the front door of the building. He pushed it, and a few moments later Mrs de Lancey appeared, wearing a stunning green dress.

‘You do look dashing in your uniform, Conrad,’ she said.

Conrad was about to compliment his ex-wife on how she looked, but decided not to. ‘Where are we meeting this fellow?’

‘We’re not seeing him until eleven. He said he wanted to wait until it was dark.’

‘So what am I doing here now, Veronica?’

‘I thought we needed a drink beforehand. We can’t go to a rendezvous unfortified, can we, darling?’

‘Do we really?’

‘Don’t look so disapproving, darling. I was clever finding this chap, wasn’t I? You might show some appreciation.’

‘Yes, you were,’ Conrad said. ‘Of course I can buy you a drink. Where do you suggest?’

They went to the Café de Paris near Leicester Square, which was crowded. Veronica said it was always crowded. They ordered cocktails; Conrad was disconcerted by Veronica’s choice of a gin and It, which had now become Anneliese’s drink in his mind. That was his fault for introducing his wife’s favourite drink to his girlfriend.

Veronica seemed to sense Conrad’s tension, and was friendly and well behaved. Conrad even found himself relaxing a little. He was careful not to discuss what Anneliese had told him about Alston and his father. Reluctantly, he danced with Veronica. Twice. He enjoyed it.

Then it was time to go. It was completely dark when they emerged on to Piccadilly.

‘Where are we meeting him?’ Conrad asked.

‘Not far. A street near Shepherd Market.’

‘That’s an interesting choice,’ said Conrad.

‘Apparently Mr Parsons thinks that no one will notice people meeting each other around there.’

‘That’s certainly true,’ said Conrad. Shepherd Market had been a haven for whores for centuries. And in wartime, it was bustling. Or perhaps rustling was a better word. Women stood around alone or in pairs, whispering to the servicemen who prowled the streets.

The corner Veronica was looking for was a few yards from Shepherd Market itself, and a little quieter. They stopped. It was exactly eleven o’clock. Veronica lit a cigarette.

‘This is all rather interesting, isn’t it?’ Veronica said, watching a French girl discussing her skills with a fat middle-aged man.

‘I don’t know,’ said Conrad.

‘Aren’t you tempted? Some of these girls look rather pretty.’

‘They look cold and they look desperate,’ said Conrad.

‘If you want to slip away afterwards, I won’t object,’ said Veronica, a hint of amusement in her voice. ‘I might even come along and watch.’

‘I know what you are doing,’ said Conrad.

‘And what’s that, darling? I would have thought bringing your wife along would make the whole thing more, I don’t know, respectable?’

‘Ex-wife,’ muttered Conrad, trying to maintain his grumpiness. But it was oddly pleasurable being teased by Veronica.

Three men sauntered past, talking loudly. They had American accents, but were probably Canadians.

‘Do you know what this Parsons looks like?’

‘I told you I haven’t a clue about him, apart from that you simply must meet him. You are sweet on this German girl, aren’t you? Anneliese.’

‘Yes,’ said Conrad. ‘Yes, I am.’

A man appeared at the top of the narrow street. A big man.

‘That’s a shame,’ said Veronica, quietly.

Conrad glanced at her keenly. She looked away from him as if embarrassed.

The man was now having difficulty keeping on the pavement. Drunk. Very drunk. And easy game for the local traders.

Not Parsons.

Veronica’s eyes widened. ‘Conrad!’ she yelled as she pushed him sharply off the pavement.

Conrad saw a blade moving rapidly towards his side. He went with Veronica’s shove and twisted. The blade ripped his tunic.

Conrad took two steps back. In the gloom he could make out the drunk, holding a thin, pointed knife, legs apart, balanced perfectly. Not drunk. He was big and he was dangerous.

Veronica screamed. The man ignored her, and Conrad backed towards the wall, hands open, eyes on the blade.

The man feinted to the right and then plunged again towards Conrad’s left side. Conrad was quick and skipped to his right, turned and somehow grabbed the man’s wrist.

The man tripped Conrad, but Conrad didn’t let go and they both fell on the street, the man on top. Conrad stared into his eyes, black in the darkness. His nose was broken, a boxer no doubt, or at least someone who had been in a few fights in his time. The man was pushing the knife downwards towards Conrad’s neck. Conrad was strong, but the man was stronger. Conrad stared at the blade as the man pressed it down to his chin; below his chin.

Then the man let out a cry, and his face contorted in pain. The downward pressure reduced a little, so Conrad could resist it. The man was trying to concentrate on the knife and Conrad’s throat but was finding it very difficult ignoring whatever was causing him such agony.

Conrad jerked suddenly to one side so that the knife struck the pavement, then he butted the man hard in the nose.

The man cried out and dropped the knife.

Conrad’s fingers knocked it away.

He saw Veronica grab it.

Both men got to their feet. Veronica held the knife in front of her.

‘Throw it to me!’ shouted Conrad as the man charged Veronica.

She did as he had asked her and he caught the spinning knife by the handle. The man had pushed Veronica into the wall, and pulled back a fist to strike her, when Conrad plunged the blade into his back. He slumped to the ground.

With difficulty Conrad withdrew the blade and stabbed him again.

The man lay face down on the pavement. Still breathing, from what Conrad could see. Dark liquid oozed out from under his body on to the cobbles.

Conrad stood up straight, panting. ‘Did you grab his balls?’ he asked Veronica.

‘Did you kill him?’

‘Not quite, unfortunately,’ said Conrad. Two men who had heard the scuffle were making their way cautiously towards them down the alley. ‘Time to go. Let’s split up: you run that way!’

‘Shouldn’t we wait for the police?’ said Veronica. ‘If you have killed him, it was self-defence.’

‘No!’ said Conrad, grabbing Veronica by the arm and propelling her up the street. ‘We run. Now!’

Veronica hesitated and set off.

Once Conrad was sure she was moving, he slipped down an alleyway, brushing off a relatively sober corporal who tried to grab him. He emerged from the other end of the alleyway as he heard the first police whistle and slowed to a stagger, just another one of the many men looking for a little fun in the middle of a war.

Conrad took a long route back to Veronica’s flat. He rang the bell, and her flatmate answered, a very thin blonde woman who introduced herself as Betty. She looked shocked.

Conrad walked up the four flights of stairs to find Veronica on the sofa of their tiny sitting room, still wearing her green dress.

‘We don’t have a drop to drink in the house,’ she said.

‘I could use a stiff one myself,’ said Conrad. ‘But you should stay here. Betty can look after you.’

‘Hold me, Conrad.’

Conrad hesitated, but then sat down next to Veronica and held her. Her smell was familiar, yet she was shaking in a most unfamiliar way.

‘What if you killed that man?’ she said when they broke apart.

‘I’ve killed a few men,’ said Conrad. ‘He was trying to kill me.’

‘Why?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Conrad. ‘But I can guess. Are you sure that wasn’t Parsons?’

‘I don’t know if it was bloody Parsons!’ said Veronica. Then: ‘Sorry. Sorry, Conrad. I’ll ask Polly about him tomorrow.’

‘Find out who he is, how well she knows him.’

‘Yes. Yes, I’ll do that.’

‘Now I have to go.’

‘Please stay, Conrad.’

‘No. I have to go.’

Conrad smiled encouragingly at a still-stunned Betty, and left.

Anneliese was waiting for him back at the Bloomsbury hotel. Conrad wondered briefly how she had managed to get up to his room. Hotel-keepers really were lowering their standards in time of war, although she was still wearing her nurse’s uniform, which might have helped.

‘Where were you?’ she said as soon as he entered his room. And then, when she saw his expression. ‘What happened?’

Conrad told her about the attack. Anneliese had her own news from the Russian Tea Rooms. Tyler Kent and Anna Wolkoff had been arrested the previous morning. Constance hadn’t been there; in fact none of the regulars were there. Anneliese herself had left quickly and returned to the hotel.

‘I’m glad you waited for me,’ said Conrad.

‘I’m scared,’ said Anneliese.

‘Come here.’ Conrad pulled her close to him and held her tight. He kissed her forehead and then her lips.

46

Extract from Lieutenant Dieter von Hertenberg’s Diary

22 May

Ordered to head north. Advanced on Boulogne. Heavy fighting.

Hampstead Garden Suburb, London, 22 May

Anneliese got up at five-thirty to get an early bus back to her home in Hampstead Garden Suburb. She was frightened for Conrad, and a little concerned for herself. She was worried about the war, about Alston’s plan, and about what would happen to her own family if he succeeded. It was hard to imagine British anti-Semitism at the level of what was occurring in Germany. Yet in the 1920s Germany had been the most accommodating country in Europe for Jews. Things had changed there; they could change here.

But despite her worries, her fears, she felt alive. She could face this. Especially if she had Conrad she could face this.

It was a lovely morning. The birds were singing and a paper boy gave her a cheery greeting. She walked down the road to her little white cottage, thinking how similar this seemed to the tidy suburbs of Berlin. She passed an empty police car and two bicycles leaning against a hedge. The police in this country were just not as threatening as those in Germany, let alone the Gestapo. Despite what she had said to Conrad she couldn’t imagine a British Gestapo.

She noticed a group of four policemen ahead of her walking down the pavement looking at the houses. Perhaps one of the neighbours had had a burglary.

They stopped outside her house. Went through the gap in the hedge where the iron gate used to be. Rapped on the door.

It was only then that Anneliese realized what was happening. She halted. One of the policemen glanced up the street and saw her.

She turned and ran. There was a shout as they followed.

But this wasn’t Soho in the dark. This was an empty suburb in broad daylight. She darted to the left into a small wood, hoping to find somewhere to hide. But one of the policemen was young and very fast.

She reached the wood, but the trees were thinned and there were no bushes. She heard footsteps and panting closing in on her, and then hands on her shoulders knocking her to the ground.

She looked up to see a tall bobby several years younger than her getting to his feet. ‘Madam, you are under arrest,’ he said politely.

Bloomsbury, London

Conrad couldn’t get back to sleep after Anneliese had left. The fact that it hadn’t bothered him that he had stabbed his attacker twice the night before bothered him. The first thrust was understandable, unavoidable. The man was about to hit Veronica. But the second? With the second he had been trying to kill. Like it or not, he was a killer now. So much for all that pacifism. In 1940, if you turned the other cheek, your enemy would blast your head off from close range.

That’s just the way it was.

Had the attacker survived? It was possible; Conrad had no way of knowing. But he thought it highly unlikely that the man would finger Conrad as the person who had stabbed him. Unless he was some kind of officially sanctioned killer.

Which also seemed unlikely. Far more probable was that the man had been working for Alston. Alston had killed Freddie Copthorne and Millie. Why not Conrad? But had he had help? Help from ‘the authorities’, ‘the powers that be’, ‘the high-ups’?

Who were these people? Right-wing aristocrats like Freddie Copthorne? Confused pacifists like his father? The army? The police? The secret service?

Van?

Van was an old school friend of Lord Oakford. From what Conrad knew of him, he was famous for his anti-appeasement, anti-German foreign policy. But could he have been got at in some way?

And then there was the secret service. Naturally, Conrad knew next to nothing about them. In November his father had let slip that the head of the SIS had died and they were looking for a successor. Who was he? It couldn’t be McCaigue, could it?

Conrad had met four members of the SIS: Foley in Berlin, Payne Best and Stevens in Holland, and McCaigue in London. Foley was impressive. Payne Best and Stevens unimpressive. McCaigue seemed trustworthy, but could Conrad really be sure even of him?

And even if Alston had had no help, he was still dangerous. He could find himself another killer to go after Conrad. McCaigue had suggested Conrad return to his unit. Ironically, that would be the safest place to lie low. Conrad could leave it to McCaigue to wrap up Alston and his friends. But that was a tall order. Perhaps McCaigue could manage it, or perhaps the major himself would be the next victim: arrested, sidelined or even murdered. And if that happened, there would be no one to stop Alston.

Apart from Conrad. But what could he do? See his father for a start. Anneliese was right that he shouldn’t try to confront him with his treachery. But if Conrad approached him with the right degree of innocence, he might discover when Lord Oakford was leaving for France. Maybe McCaigue had already arrested him? Dreadful thought though that was, it was the best outcome to hope for.

Then he should go to see McCaigue. Tell him what had happened the night before and see if there was anything more constructive Conrad could do to help. Perhaps he should see Polly Copthorne himself, or telephone her, to find out more about the mysterious Parsons. And he should also drop in at the War Office to discuss armoured Bedford lorries, for Colonel Rydal’s sake as much as his own.

Conrad arrived at his family’s house in Kensington Square just before nine.

Williamson answered the door, with surprise and pleasure. ‘We weren’t expecting you, sir.’

‘Leave is becoming more and more unpredictable, Williamson. Is Father in?’

‘No, sir. He left for Paris this morning.’

‘Did he really?’ said Conrad. ‘What is he doing there?’

‘Government business of some kind, I believe. It all came up rather suddenly.’

‘Do you happen to know where he is staying?’

‘Presumably the Meurice, sir. If he gets a room. It’s where we usually stay. He promised to let me know.’

So Lord Oakford had left his valet behind and Williamson had missed out on a trip to Paris. Given what the newspapers were saying about the situation in France, he probably didn’t mind this time.

‘Is my mother here?’

‘No, her ladyship is at Chilton Coombe. Will you be staying?’

‘I don’t know, Williamson. But I’ll come in for now.’

Conrad thought he had done a reasonable job of registering only mild surprise in front of Williamson, but he was troubled. His father was already on his way to fetch the Duke of Windsor.

And what was Conrad going to do about that?

He went out into the garden at the back of the house. It was looking lovely; the wisteria was just popping out, as was the climbing rose on the back wall.

His father had to be stopped. And Conrad couldn’t trust anyone else to stop him.

If McCaigue could wrap up the plot in London, arresting Alston and whoever else was necessary, all well and good. Conrad couldn’t do much more about that. But he could stop his father. If he could get to Paris.

He went back into his father’s study and telephoned Thomas Cook’s. There were no seats on any commercial flights to Paris and the agent seemed to think he was a bit of a fool for thinking there might be. He would need official help, of the kind his father had no doubt had.

Who could get him a seat on an aeroplane? That day, preferably.

Van?

No.

McCaigue?

Possibly. Probably not. In fact McCaigue would be much more likely to forbid him from going to France.

Who then?

Conrad had an idea. He dialled a number in Suffolk, and asked to be put through to Colonel Rydal.

‘Rydal.’

‘Lieutenant de Lancey here.’

‘Ah, Mr de Lancey. Are you having any success?’

‘I’m making progress. But I need to get to France urgently. And I thought you might be able to help me.’

‘How could I do that?’

‘I don’t know. Send me as an advance party. Liaison officer. Or something.’

‘I will be in trouble enough for sending you to London as it is.’

‘It’s vital I get to Paris.’

‘Mr de Lancey, you told me it was vital you get to London.’

‘And it was!’ Conrad realized he was going to have to tell Rydal the truth. Or at least most of the truth. ‘Look, sir. An envoy has been sent to France to invite the Duke of Windsor to return to England and lead a new regime to make peace with Hitler. I know that envoy and I can stop him. But only if I fly to Paris today.’

‘Good God,’ said Colonel Rydal. ‘You are not exaggerating, are you?’

‘No, sir. These are desperate times.’

‘You are damn right there.’ There was silence for a few seconds. ‘I might have an idea. Give me your number and I’ll ring you back in half an hour.’

Conrad gave him the telephone number of the house in Kensington Square and waited, staring at the phone. As he sat there, his whole being focused on how to get to France. How to stop his father.

Half an hour passed. Thirty-five minutes. Then the phone rang.

‘De Lancey,’ Conrad answered.

‘This is Rydal.’ The name was familiar, the voice less so. ‘I’m with the Air Ministry. I understand you have been speaking to my brother.’

‘I have,’ said Conrad.

‘All right. Go straight to Hendon Aerodrome, taking only a light bag and your passport. When you get there ask for Squadron Leader Ebsworth and tell him who you are. He will put you on an aeroplane to Paris — there is a spare seat but it’s leaving at eleven-thirty so you will have to be quick. On no account tell anyone at all why you are going. If they ask, just say you are not at liberty to answer. That usually works.’

‘Thank you, sir.’

‘When you get to Paris, you’re on your own. And you will have to make your own way back.’

‘I understand. Thank you so much, sir.’

‘Thank my brother. He told me what you were doing, he had to, to get me to agree to help you.’

‘Of course.’

‘Good luck, de Lancey.’

It was just before ten. Conrad didn’t have much time to get to Hendon. No time to tell McCaigue, who would probably only try to stop him anyway, and certainly no time to go to the War Office. He would tell Williamson he was going back to his battalion. But he dialled Mrs Cherry’s telephone in Hampstead Garden Suburb.

The English voice at the other end was colder than usual. The German voice that replaced it a minute later was distraught. Anneliese’s mother.

‘Ach, Conrad,’ she said. ‘The police came and arrested Anneliese this morning. We don’t know why.’

Conrad felt cold. This was all too familiar. London was becoming Berlin.

There was nothing he could do for Anneliese, certainly not in the few minutes he had before he went to Hendon Aerodrome. This news just made it more important that he go to Paris. He gave Frau Rosen Major McCaigue’s telephone number, and told her to make sure Anneliese asked to speak to him. McCaigue should be able to get her out; Conrad was glad that he had introduced her to the intelligence officer the day before. With any luck she might not even spend one night behind bars.

At first Conrad assumed he knew why Anneliese had been arrested — because of her association with the Russian Tea Rooms. But then he wondered whether it had anything to do with the attempt on his own life the night before. Perhaps Alston and Constance had discovered that she was on to them.

Either way, the best thing Conrad could do was foil Alston. He ran upstairs, changed into a suit, packed a couple of shirts into a small bag and set out for the High Street in the hope of finding a taxi.

47

Hendon Aerodrome, Middlesex

Squadron Leader Ebsworth watched the de Havilland Flamingo transport plane bearing its collection of VIPs and hangers-on heave itself off the runway at RAF Hendon into the skies, bound for Le Bourget. This was the second flight to Paris so far that morning. There was a lot of toing and froing between Hendon and France these days. The Prime Minister himself was due to return from Paris that afternoon after a two-day trip to see his French opposite number.

The panic was palpable. It was in the faces of the politicians and the staff officers. It was in the papers carried in the briefcases that they clutched so tightly. At times they seemed to Ebsworth like hens in a chicken run running back and forth with nowhere to hide from the fox outside, who was rapidly digging his hole underneath the wire.

‘Message from the ministry, sir.’

‘Thank you, corporal.’ Ebsworth took the piece of paper and examined it. It was from Rydal at the Air Ministry: Please tell Lieutenant de Lancey to cancel his mission and travel to Southampton docks immediately to join up with his unit.

Too late. Ebsworth scribbled out a quick reply informing Rydal de Lancey was already in the air. He wondered briefly what the lieutenant’s mission was, and why he was in mufti, not uniform. It was a secret of course, but then wasn’t everyone’s business these days?

Just another chicken.

Regent’s Park, London

Alston strolled through the park, trying to maintain his nonchalance. He had telephoned Constance earlier that morning; she hadn’t heard back from Joe Sullivan, but she was sure that Sullivan would have successfully dealt with de Lancey.

Arthur Oakford was on his way to France. He had dined with his old friend Edward Halifax the evening before, and Halifax had intimated that he was ready to press Churchill on making overtures to Hitler for peace, probably via the Italians. Oakford was confident the issue would split the Cabinet, leaving it vulnerable to the shove which the Duke of Windsor’s arrival in the country would provide.

Not long now.

But long enough for the British Expeditionary Force in France to be destroyed.

Alston was approaching the rose garden and once again saw the Swedish banker. He realized that that was probably a mistake. For them to bump into each other several times in the same park was possible, for it to be in the same place in the same park was too much of a coincidence.

They spent the obligatory minute smiling, shaking hands and moving off together.

‘I have an important message for Joachim,’ Alston began.

It only took three minutes for Alston to convey what he wanted to convey, and then, after agreeing a different spot to meet in the park next time, the two men split up.

Alston walked briskly south to Pall Mall and his club, where Major McCaigue was waiting for him. Armed with a sherry each, they found a corner of the library.

‘Your man was Joe Sullivan, wasn’t he?’ said McCaigue.

Alston nodded imperceptibly.

‘Sullivan was found stabbed in Mayfair last night. He died before they could get him to hospital.’

‘That’s unfortunate,’ said Alston. Damned unfortunate! ‘Any news of de Lancey?’

‘Yes. We have been following him. He is currently on his way to Paris on a flight from Hendon.’

‘How the devil did he manage that?’

‘Special orders from the Air Ministry. There can only be one reason why he has gone to Paris.’

‘To catch up with his father and try to stop him,’ said Alston. ‘Is there anything you can do about it?’

‘I can’t do anything obvious,’ said McCaigue. ‘But I can get someone on to him.’

‘Good. Do that. I wish Sullivan had done what he was paid to do. De Lancey should be dead.’

‘Quite so,’ said McCaigue.

Three hours later, Alston poured Constance a cup of tea at his flat. She was uncharacteristically quiet; Sullivan’s death had shaken her.

‘De Lancey has to be stopped,’ said Constance. ‘Before he gets to his father.’

‘I know,’ said Alston.

‘Can’t your friend in the secret service do something?’

‘He says he can keep an eye on him, but if he were to use his contacts to get de Lancey killed it would raise questions. At the moment his colleagues think de Lancey is a Russian spy and they aren’t listening to him. If they become suspicious of McCaigue it might blow the whole plan.’

On balance, Alston believed McCaigue’s caution was justified. It had been useful to have a man on the inside in the SIS and his support had been valuable. Pinning Millie de Lancey’s death on the German spy Hertenberg. Calling the police off their investigation into Freddie’s street accident. Keeping de Lancey out of the way. And numerous useful titbits of information that had come the SIS’s way and that McCaigue had passed on to Alston.

Alston owed McCaigue. When he became a leading member of a sensible pro-German government he would be happy to make good that debt.

But he couldn’t make McCaigue kill de Lancey.

‘Do you know anyone else who would do it?’ he asked Constance. ‘Any other ex-Nordic League thugs?’

‘Not really,’ said Constance. ‘Joe was always the best bet. I don’t know how we can get hold of someone, tell them to drop everything and get over to Paris immediately. You must have contacts in Paris?’

‘Yes. Bankers. Businessmen. The odd politician. No one who could organize what we want done.’ Except Charles Bedaux; that was just the kind of thing he might well be able to deal with. But Alston knew Bedaux had left Paris on a mission for the French government in Spain and North Africa, and was now in Madrid. ‘It would take a while to set up. A few days at least. And we don’t have a few days.’

Alston was finding the tension difficult to control. On the one hand success seemed so close. On the other, Conrad de Lancey seemed about to ruin everything. At least he was able to share his frustration with Constance, to let his habitual mask of impassive confidence slip for a few moments.

They sat in silence, Constance sipping her tea with a look of intense determination. ‘I’ll do it,’ she said. ‘Get me to France and I’ll stop de Lancey.’

Madrid

Theo and Otto Langebrück waited in the opulent lobby of the Ritz Madrid. Langebrück had turned out to be a much more congenial travel companion than Theo had imagined. He was a Rhinelander, about Theo’s age, widely read, and a Francophile — much more intelligent than his boss, Ribbentrop. This last was a good and a bad thing. Mostly a bad thing.

Theo had never been to Spain before. Like Holland until very recently, Spain was a neutral country, but there the similarities ended. Holland had enjoyed over a century of peace and prosperity. Spain, and Madrid in particular, had been torn apart by years of civil war. Half-destroyed buildings were everywhere, and the people still had a haunted look about them, even in the spring sunshine. Theo wondered whether Berlin would ever look like that; he couldn’t imagine it would.

Conrad had been involved in fighting around Madrid, Theo knew, although he had never got to grips with the intricacies of the civil war and who had fought whom where. The whole city was humbling; a reminder of what war, real war not the Sitzkrieg, could do.

‘Theo! How good to see you!’ Theo stood up to greet the familiar, ebullient person of Charles Bedaux. He introduced Langebrück. ‘Can we find somewhere more discreet to talk?’ Bedaux asked.

‘I know a place,’ said Theo, who led Bedaux to a quiet café he had reconnoitred earlier, over the Paseo del Prado in a side street a hundred metres from the hotel. It was a while since he had seen the Franco-American, who had been spending time in Spain securing steel supplies for French armaments factories, and in Morocco finding coal for the Spanish steel mills.

The three men sat in a rear corner of the café and ordered wine. ‘I was pleased to see that your general staff took notice of my friend’s observations on the state of the French lines,’ said Bedaux.

Theo smiled. ‘They did. With extraordinary results.’

‘It looks as if my time here will prove to be a waste,’ said Bedaux.

‘I hope so,’ said Theo. ‘But I am sure that if France is defeated your talents will still be of use to my country.’

‘As you know, I am always willing to make things work better,’ said Bedaux. ‘It’s what I do.’

‘After France comes England,’ said Langebrück. ‘And that is what Hertenberg and I have come to speak to you about.’ Since Langebrück had never met Bedaux, Theo’s role was to introduce him. And to listen to what was said and report back to Canaris.

‘Very good,’ said Bedaux, lighting a cigar.

‘You know my boss, Herr von Ribbentrop, I believe?’

‘Very well.’

‘I understand that you have discussed the Duke of Windsor with him before?’

‘I have indeed. In fact I met with him and Herr Hitler to discuss the duke in November in Berlin.’

‘Well, following our successes in France, both the Führer and Herr Ribbentrop think the time is right for a change in the government in Britain. They know that there is a significant element of the British people, especially those in the higher reaches of society, who believe that the time has come for peace. Further, they believe that the Duke of Windsor would provide these people with the leadership they need to give their cause legitimacy. If he were king again, Germany could work with Britain as an ally rather than an enemy.’

‘That was the point I made to Herr Hitler in November,’ said Bedaux.

‘What we are not sure of, is how the duke himself would react to such a suggestion. You know him well. What’s your opinion?’

Bedaux puffed at his cigar. ‘That’s a good question. I have discussed it with him in the past, indirectly. The duke is well disposed towards Germany and Herr Hitler, but he loves his country and would not dream of doing anything that seemed to be betraying it. Which means that the impetus to do what you are suggesting must come from the British and not from Germany.’

‘Could you persuade him?’ asked Langebrück.

‘I could suggest it, but no more than that,’ said Bedaux. ‘Do you know Sir Henry Alston? He’s a British politician.’

‘Herr Ribbentrop knows him well,’ said Langebrück. ‘We have been communicating with him through intermediaries.’

‘I believe that Sir Henry’s intentions are that the duke should be invited to return to England.’

‘Like William of Orange in the seventeenth century?’ said Theo. ‘Invited by Parliament to become king?’

‘Something like that,’ said Bedaux. ‘I heard from Alston yesterday that they are sending an important figure in the House of Lords to Paris to talk to him.’

‘Do you know who that is?’ said Theo.

‘Lord Oakford. A former Cabinet minister.’

Theo couldn’t believe what he was hearing. Conrad’s father? He knew the old soldier was a pacifist, but surely he couldn’t have thrown his lot in with Alston.

‘You look surprised, Theo,’ said Bedaux. ‘Do you know Lord Oakford?’

‘Yes. I think I met him several years ago,’ said Theo, doing his best to recover his composure. Bedaux was sharp; he noticed everything.

‘I’m glad to hear that,’ said Langebrück to Bedaux. ‘I understand what you say about the invitation coming from the English. But is there anything we can do to make his decision easier? Money perhaps? Anything else he wants that we can promise him?’

Bedaux considered a moment, savouring his cigar. ‘The duke is always concerned about money,’ he said. ‘His wife has expensive tastes, and the duke no longer has a kingdom to rely on.’

Langebrück nodded. ‘Anything else?’

‘He is always worried about Wallis. Her safety. Her material comfort. And particularly her status. For example, I believe that what most upsets him about his treatment by his brother is King George’s refusal to allow Wallis to be called Her Royal Highness.’ Bedaux grinned. ‘As a good American citizen, I cannot understand it, but I never underestimate it.’ He nodded. ‘Yes. Money and Wallis. Those are the keys to the duke.’

48

Paris

Paris was oddly quiet, as though it were an early Sunday morning rather than a Wednesday afternoon. There were few cars in the streets, and of those many were stuffed full of people and their worldly goods, refugees from the north. Several bore the red-and-white number plates of Belgium. People walked fast, faces taut, hurrying from place to place, making arrangements, gathering possessions, preparing to flee. The sun was shining, but in the cafés few if any of the patrons were sitting back watching the world go by, as was their habit. They leaned forward over their cups of coffee, puffed at cigarettes, frowned, conversed earnestly. A good number of the city’s population had left already, and the rest were thinking about it.

But when Conrad walked through the doors of the Hôtel Meurice on the rue de Rivoli, it was like entering another world of hushed, unhurried calm. Conrad had stayed there a couple of times with his parents when he was growing up. It was grand, in a restrained way, without the opulence or the joie de vivre of the Ritz.

Conrad strode up to the reception desk. ‘Good afternoon,’ he said in English. ‘I’d like to see Lord Oakford, please.’ They liked to speak to their English guests in their own language at the Meurice.

‘I am afraid that Lord Oakford left the hotel an hour or so ago, sir. Is he expecting you?’

‘No, he isn’t. But I heard he was in Paris and I thought I would drop by. Will he be here for dinner, do you know?’

‘And who are you, may I ask?’

‘I’m his nephew,’ said Conrad. This seemed less likely to scare his father than admitting that he was his son. Puzzle him, perhaps. Lord Oakford had two nephews: Stefan in Hamburg currently serving in the Wehrmacht, and Tom who was seventeen and living in Shropshire.

‘Ah, I see.’ The clerk checked a book. ‘No, he doesn’t have a reservation for dinner here this evening, but he is staying with us tonight. Shall I tell him you were looking for him?’

‘No, don’t do that,’ said Conrad with a smile. ‘I’d like to surprise him. I’ll try him later.’

It sounded as if Lord Oakford had gone straight to the Meurice, taken a room and headed out again. Presumably to see the duke. But where?

If the duke worked normal hours, then he would be at the British Mission at French general headquarters at Vincennes, a few miles to the east of Paris. Or he could be at home. It seemed unlikely that Oakford would try to approach the duke at the British Mission — much too public. Better to see him at home. Conrad had taken a note of the address when he was in Paris the previous November: 24 boulevard Suchet, out by the bois de Boulogne.

He decided to head out there. If he was lucky, he would find his father waiting for the duke. If he was unlucky he would be too late and Lord Oakford would already have spoken to him. No time to lose then.

The Métro was working well, and boulevard Suchet turned out to be a long road stretching along the edge of the bois de Boulogne from the Porte d’Auteuil Métro station. It was nearly a mile to number 24. Conrad strolled past, checking for signs of his father lurking in a vehicle or on the street, but he couldn’t see any. The house itself looked quiet.

Conrad hesitated. Should he wait for his father to show up? He might get a chance to intercept him before he reached the front door. But what if the duke wasn’t at home? Or was out for the whole day and evening? What if his father met him somewhere in the middle of town? Conrad would have wasted valuable time.

Somehow he needed to find out the duke’s movements.

So he climbed the steps to the imposing front door and rang the bell.

A very tall, very English-looking butler answered the door.

‘I wish to speak to my uncle, Lord Oakford,’ said Conrad in English.

‘Lord Oakford is not here, sir,’ said butler. ‘He called this morning to see His Royal Highness, but I informed him that His Royal Highness is not in residence at the moment, and so he left.’

‘Pity,’ said Conrad. ‘Where is the duke, might I enquire?’

The butler raised his eyebrows. ‘I am not at liberty to say, sir.’

The man did not look bribable, but Conrad was desperate. He reached into his pocket for his wallet.

The butler glared down his nose at Conrad, turned and shut the door in his face, leaving Conrad on the street feeling like a heel.

Where to now?

It was possible that the butler would have been more forthcoming to Lord Oakford, a peer of the realm and a former Cabinet minister. In which case, his father would know where the duke was, and would be heading there now. So Conrad had to find out the whereabouts of the duke, and quickly.

Fruity Metcalfe! Of course there was a good chance he might be with his master, but there was also a chance he might not, and it was the only chance Conrad had. So he retraced his steps to the Métro and headed for the Ritz.

It was the cocktail hour by the time Conrad got there, and the bar was crowded. Conrad was relieved to see Fruity propping up the bar, a drink in front of him. Conrad squeezed next to him, and then pretended to recognize the Irishman. ‘Major Metcalfe? De Lancey. We met here in November.’

Fruity frowned, and then smiled broadly. ‘Oh, I remember you! What are you doing back in Paris? Or can’t you say?’

Conrad remembered how his evasion last time had been misread as involvement in sensitive work of some kind, and was pleased that Fruity had remembered that too. He didn’t answer, but smiled vaguely. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

‘By all means,’ said Fruity.

Conrad ordered them both whiskies. ‘How are you?’

‘Bloody furious,’ said Fruity.

‘Oh really? Why?’

Fruity stared into his glass and shook his head in an attempt at discretion.

‘Are you still working for the Duke of Windsor?’ Conrad prompted.

‘I was yesterday. I really couldn’t tell you whether I am today.’

Conrad winced sympathetically. ‘Did you get the heave-ho?’

Fruity hesitated, but he was desperate to talk. ‘Worse than that. The man has cut and run.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I dropped him off at his house last night. Rang him this morning for instructions and the butler said he had left first thing! Taken both cars and headed down to Biarritz to be with Wallis! He never told me. He must have had it all planned last night, but not a dickie bird.’

‘Why wouldn’t he tell you?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Fruity. ‘Perhaps he felt guilty about not taking me. Or perhaps he was worried about what I might say. He might be a royal bloody highness, but he’s also a serving officer, and he has just left his post. It’s cowardice, that’s what it is! Bloody cowardice.’

Fruity took a gulp of his whisky. ‘Sorry, I shouldn’t be saying this, but he really has dropped me in it. How am I supposed to get out of here? The Germans will be looking in any moment now.’

‘That is a bit awkward,’ Conrad said.

‘Awkward! It’s bloody disastrous.’

‘Do you really think the Germans will take Paris?’

‘Bound too. At least the French have replaced that fool Gamelin with Weygand, but it’s far too late now. I could have told them what would happen. In fact we did tell them, HRH and me.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘We’ve spent the last few months liaising with the French. We saw their pitiful attempts to defend the Meuse. Reserve divisions with no training and badly sited defences. We pointed out the weaknesses; I helped HRH write the report.’

‘Will you take the train down to Biarritz to join him?’ Conrad asked.

‘You haven’t been here very long, have you? Not a hope in hell of getting a seat on any train heading south. You need a car. And no chance of getting one of those, either. None for hire. You might be able to buy one, but it would cost a fortune.’ He shook his head. ‘No. I’m on my own. I will have to work out my own way back to Blighty.’

‘Best of luck,’ said Conrad. ‘I say, you haven’t seen my father around have you. Lord Oakford?’

Fruity shook his head. ‘Sorry, old chap. Another one?’ Fruity pointed to Conrad’s drink, now almost empty.

‘No thanks,’ said Conrad. ‘I must be off.’ He hesitated. ‘The duke didn’t happen to mention any of what you saw at the Meuse to Charles Bedaux, did he? I remember he was having dinner with Bedaux here in November.’

‘Probably, in passing,’ Fruity said. He frowned. ‘I say, you don’t think Bedaux has been talking to the Germans, do you? He is a mysterious cove. And he has been to Germany a couple of times.’

‘And to Holland,’ said Conrad.

‘Good Lord,’ said Fruity. He was looking troubled. ‘How do you know about Bedaux?’

‘Must dash,’ said Conrad, keen to avoid that particular question.

He extricated himself from Fruity and emerged into the place Vendôme, from where he walked swiftly back to the rue de Rivoli and the Hôtel Meurice. There he discovered that his father, or ‘uncle’ as Conrad referred to him, had just checked out of his room, without staying the night. He was with Hyram Leavold, an American banker whom Conrad knew was a friend of his father, and a young woman whom the hotel clerk did not recognize. They had loaded Lord Oakford’s luggage into an American car, a Packard. Lord Oakford and the young woman had driven off, leaving the American banker to hail a taxi.

Conrad left the hotel and stopped at a nearby café for a beer and to gather his thoughts. Which was difficult, since at the next table an exquisitely dressed young woman of about twenty was arguing with an older man. It was unclear whether the man was her lover or her father, but whoever he was, he was intending to leave Paris without her, and she was not happy. Probably a lover, Conrad decided, who was saving the passenger seat in his car for his wife. The woman stormed off; the man caught Conrad’s eye and shrugged.

Lord Oakford had stayed one step ahead of Conrad. He had discovered that the duke had left for Biarritz and then found himself an American with a car who was willing to lend it to him.

Biarritz was a long way away, close to the Spanish border in the south-west corner of France. It would take the duke, and Oakford, a couple of days to get there. More if the roads were jammed. It was unlikely that Oakford would have discovered where the duke was spending the night en route, in which case he would probably drive straight to Biarritz and approach the duke there.

So Conrad had to get to Biarritz. Fruity had been adamant that trains were not an option, and neither was hiring a car. Conrad didn’t have enough money to buy one. He needed to borrow one. And who the hell would lend him one in current circumstances, with the Germans poised to enter Paris any day?

Conrad needed his own generous American. Or a woman married to a generous American. His sister-in-law, for example.

49

Holloway Prison, London

Anneliese sat in her cell deep in the heart of Holloway Prison and waited. Waited for British justice to take its course.

It had taken an immense effort of will, but she was calm, and she was determined to stay calm.

She had been all right at first, in the police car with the British bobbies whom she admired so much. They weren’t friendly, far from it, but they were polite and they hadn’t hit her.

It wasn’t far to Holloway Prison, but once the police car had turned off the sunny, civilized English street and stopped in front of the prison’s forbidding battlements, something snapped. She started to scream and to yell in German, and she couldn’t stop. All rational thought was overwhelmed in a flood of terror and hopelessness. Holloway wasn’t exactly like those other places she had been, Moringen or Sachsenhausen or Lichtenburg, but it was an old evil prison, built like a medieval castle, with warders who looked at her with contempt. A German spy.

At the entrance, two large stone dragons perched on top of stone plinths, fangs bared. One of them clutched a great key in its long talons. It terrified her.

They threw her into a holding cell and she lay there sobbing for perhaps half an hour. But somehow, with a great effort of will, she pulled herself together. She had done nothing wrong. They had no doubt arrested her because of her presence at the Russian Tea Rooms. She could explain all that. She would ask to see Major McCaigue; he would release her and she would be home for supper.

Then she was processed: fingerprinted, strip-searched, weighed, given a medical examination and a delousing bath and placed in a proper cell. It was a small room with a table, chair, narrow bed and one fragmented window a foot above her head. The walls were whitewashed and the floors stone. The cell was filthy, the sheets stained and grey with grime, but they gave her cocoa in a mug without a handle embossed with the letters ‘GR’ and a crown. They hadn’t given her cocoa at Sachsenhausen.

She could survive this.

She was calm at her initial interview with two detectives. She had indeed been arrested for her attendance at the Tea Rooms and her friendship with members of the Right Club. It turned out Joan Miller, the model, was working for the authorities. Anneliese was impressed: Joan had been convincing. Anneliese calmly stated that she too had been trying to uncover subversive activities and that Major McCaigue of the secret service would back her up. The detectives didn’t seem to believe her, but they did write it all down. And took her back to her cell.

There was a jangling of keys outside, the metal door opened and a warder appeared. ‘Rosen? Follow me.’

Anneliese followed the warder along corridors lined with cell doors, down two flights of stairs and into the interview room. Waiting for her were the two detectives and a large man with a bald head and florid complexion. Major McCaigue.

Anneliese felt giddy with relief and smiled at the major. He nodded and indicated the chair. The warder stood behind Anneliese.

‘Thank you for coming,’ Anneliese said.

Major McCaigue ignored her. ‘Miss Rosen, I’ve come to urge you to cooperate with the police in this investigation.’ His voice, which had seemed rich and friendly when he had spoken to Conrad and her in the Foreign Office, was now grave, with a hint of menace.

‘Of course,’ said Anneliese, struggling to control a surge of panic. This wasn’t going as she had expected.

‘What we want to know is whether you are working for the Russians or the Germans.’

Anneliese frowned. ‘Neither. I’m working for you.’ She glanced at the older detective, but there was no reassurance there. ‘I told you everything I had discovered at the Tea Rooms. About Henry Alston and Lord Oakford and the Duke of Windsor. You were going to investigate it.’

‘And I have,’ said McCaigue. ‘And there is not a shred of truth to any of it, as you well know.’

‘Of course it’s true!’ said Anneliese. ‘And you must stop it.’

‘We have suspected for a long time that your boyfriend Lieutenant de Lancey is a Soviet spy. He has been trying to undermine the morale of the British people by denigrating the royal family. And you have been helping him.’

Anneliese listened, shocked.

‘My colleagues here will ask you about de Lancey. Whom he works for, what his plans are, what else he intends to do, whether you had help from the Right Club. And you will answer.’

‘I will answer any questions you ask me truthfully,’ Anneliese said, glancing at the detectives. Keep calm. Don’t shout at him. ‘And you are mistaken about Conrad. I am sure that the plot he has uncovered — we have uncovered — is a real one. Sir Henry Alston and his friends want to replace the current government with one that will make peace with Germany. More than that, become Germany’s ally.’

‘You have been arrested under Defence Regulation 18B,’ McCaigue said. ‘This allows for the internment without trial of persons who are members of organizations under foreign control or who sympathize with the system of government of enemy powers. That means you will be incarcerated for the duration of the war. That’s the best you can hope for. But if we find evidence that you have been spying, then you will be tried for espionage, found guilty and hanged.’

McCaigue leaned forward. ‘Luckily for you, the choice as to which will apply is yours. Cooperate and you go to jail. Refuse to tell us everything you know and you go to the gallows.’

Anneliese held McCaigue’s stare. That ‘Regulation 18B’ sounded a lot like the ‘Protective Custody’ dodge that the Gestapo had employed to lock her and her father up in a concentration camp and throw away the key. Cold fingers of panic reached out towards her, clutching at her and threatening to pull her into a deep dark abyss of hopelessness and despair. For a moment she felt she couldn’t go through all this again.

She could. She would. She would do everything she could to persuade the detectives that McCaigue was wrong about Conrad, that there was indeed a plot to end the war involving Alston and others. If she failed, then she would hang, and so be it.

‘I will tell you everything I know,’ she said. ‘You need not worry about that.’

‘Good,’ said McCaigue. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’

The detectives followed him out of the door, promising to return soon to continue the interview.

Anneliese watched them go. She wondered what had happened to Conrad. Could he somehow throw off McCaigue’s suspicion and get her freed? Or had they arrested him too? Not for the first time, she felt alone and afraid. But she had survived before; she would survive again.

Paris

It only took Conrad twenty minutes to walk to the Haldemans’ apartment in the eighth arrondissement. Isobel was having supper with her husband.

‘Conrad? It’s lovely to see you but we weren’t expecting you.’

‘No, I’m sure you weren’t. I’m dreadfully sorry for barging in like this.’

Isobel rose to the occasion immediately. ‘Have you eaten? Do join us. Marie was just leaving, but I’m sure she can rustle up something before she goes. An omelette perhaps?’

‘That would be wonderful,’ said Conrad. ‘Thank you.’

‘You remember Conrad de Lancey, Marsh? Veronica’s husband.’ She smiled at Conrad. ‘Former husband. The one that got away. Veronica is furious.’

Conrad was impressed by Isobel’s ability to make him feel at home so quickly. Marshall Haldeman less so. The American was in his late thirties, with an oversized square jaw. A catch himself, as Veronica had admitted to Conrad in better times.

‘Take a seat, de Lancey,’ he said as Isobel darted into the kitchen. ‘What brings you to Paris? I thought Isobel said you were in the army.’

‘I’m on leave,’ said Conrad.

‘Huh,’ said Marshall with the clear implication that he didn’t believe a word of it.

‘That’s rot, Conrad, and you know it,’ said Isobel, returning from the kitchen.

‘I admit it’s a special kind of leave,’ said Conrad. He knew he would have to tell Isobel everything, and hope firstly that she would believe him, secondly that she would want to help him and thirdly that she would be able to persuade her husband. He didn’t look a pushover, but Conrad well knew it was foolish to underestimate a Blakeborough girl’s ability to push men.

‘I’m after my father. I have to get hold of him before he catches up with the Duke of Windsor.’

‘But the duke is in Paris,’ said Isobel. ‘We saw him only last week. He had dropped Wallis off in Biarritz and returned to duty.’

‘Not anymore, he isn’t,’ said Conrad. ‘He left for Biarritz again first thing this morning. My father arrived from London today to look for him, and I am looking for my father.’

‘What’s all the urgency about?’ asked Haldeman, who did at least look interested, if sceptical.

Conrad told them. About Henry Alston and Lord Oakford’s plans to topple Churchill and replace him with a government that would make peace with Germany. His hosts listened closely. As he spoke, Conrad was aware that Haldeman was a neutral, and an influential neutral at that, and that Conrad had no idea of his views on the war.

‘I see,’ said Isobel when Conrad had finished. ‘So what do you want from us?’

‘He wants our car,’ said Haldeman. He put down his fork and looked straight at Conrad. ‘Don’t you?’

The maid brought in Conrad’s omelette. ‘That’s right,’ said Conrad. ‘I’ll bring it back when I have found my father.’

‘Unless this is a German city by then,’ said Haldeman.

‘Then I’ll find you wherever you are,’ said Conrad. As he did so, he realized that without their car, they wouldn’t be going anywhere.

‘We are planning to stay on in Paris,’ said Isobel. ‘America is neutral, and Marshall’s business is here.’

Conrad was tempted to point out that they wouldn’t need their car in that case, but decided not to. His plan was not going to work.

‘I see,’ he said. ‘Can you spare it?’ He had to try.

‘I’m sorry, de Lancey. The answer has to be no,’ said Haldeman.

Isobel didn’t look as if she was going to argue with her husband. ‘But you are welcome to stay here tonight if you wish.’

‘I understand,’ said Conrad. ‘And thank you for your offer. But I think I should continue my search elsewhere. You don’t happen to know anyone else who might be willing to part with a car? Or who is leaving anyway and has room for an extra body?’

‘No,’ said Haldeman simply.

The American wasn’t being unfriendly, just straight. The chances of Conrad getting hold of transportation were nil.

The bell rang. The maid had just left and so Isobel answered it. From the hallway, Conrad heard the familiar shriek of his ex-wife. ‘Darling!’

‘You’ll never guess who’s here,’ said Isobel, leading Veronica into the dining room. ‘It’s your husband. What a surprise.’ The irony was heavy.

‘Oh, how lovely!’ said Veronica. ‘I knew Conrad was in Paris, but it’s dreadfully lucky to find him here.’

‘Hello, Veronica,’ said Conrad coldly.

‘Here comes trouble,’ said Marshall in a gruff voice, but he couldn’t repress a smile. Veronica had got to him.

‘Veronica, what are you doing here?’ asked Conrad.

‘Don’t sound so cross, darling. I’ve come here to help.’

‘How did you know I was in Paris?’

‘Williamson told me.’

‘But I didn’t tell Williamson.’

‘You don’t have to tell servants things for them to know them, Conrad. Williamson sees things. He hears things.’

‘And then he tells you?’

Veronica’s smile had a hint of triumph.

‘I was just leaving,’ said Conrad.

‘Oh, don’t go,’ said Veronica.

‘He came to borrow our car,’ said Haldeman.

‘Aren’t you going to lend it to him?’ said Veronica.

‘No,’ said Isobel. ‘We need it. There’s a good chance that this city will be German soon.’

‘Why does he want it?’

‘He says he’s got to catch up with his father before he sees the Duke of Windsor in Biarritz,’ said Haldeman. Conrad was glad that he had at least been paying attention.

‘Well, then you definitely must let him have it,’ said Veronica.

‘It all sounds a bit fishy to me,’ said Haldeman.

‘Of course it’s fishy,’ said Veronica. ‘The whole thing stinks. Poor Freddie Copthorne was run down by some horrible MP. You’ve met Freddie, haven’t you, Isobel? Then someone tried to murder Conrad last night. There is definitely something fishy going on and Conrad is the man to sort it out!’

‘I think they thought I was the fishy one,’ said Conrad, impressed with Veronica’s loyalty.

‘He did come asking some rum questions about the Duke of Windsor last time he was here in November,’ said Isobel. ‘You remember I told you.’

‘He claims that his father is planning to get the duke to return to England and persuade the British to sue for peace,’ said Haldeman.

‘Well, then you must definitely help Conrad stop him!’ said Veronica. ‘Look. Conrad might be a stubborn brute, but he’s definitely not fishy. This is your chance to help the war effort, Bel. Do something that really will make a difference.’

Isobel frowned at her sister. But she was listening.

‘Look. I’ll go with him. And I’ll make sure I bring the car back to Paris afterwards. I’m a professional driver now. And Alec taught me some racing-driver tips if we need to go fast.’

‘What if the city is German by the time you get back?’

‘We will only be gone for a few days. And I’ll sneak back in somehow. I promise. On Magic’s grave.’

Isobel smiled. ‘Magic doesn’t have a grave. In fact I dread to think where Magic ended up.’

‘Who is Magic?’ asked Marshall.

‘Magic was Veronica’s first pony,’ said Isobel. ‘He lived to be twenty-six.’

‘There you are then!’ said Veronica, although it wasn’t clear to any of them what her pony’s longevity had to do with Conrad’s need for a car.

‘What do you think, Marsh?’ said Isobel.

Conrad was stunned. It looked as if he might, he just might, get his hands on their car.

Marshall was smiling. ‘I’m impressed by your powers of persuasion, Veronica, but the answer is still no.’

‘You love peace, liberty and democracy, don’t you, Marshall?’ said Veronica. ‘You have to, a nice American like you.’

‘I guess I do,’ said Marshall, still smiling.

‘Well, when the beastly Germans have been goose-stepping around the Paris streets for a year or so, and you are doing your neutral business here, you will like looking back to today and thinking: I did my bit for peace, liberty and democracy. I know you, Marshall. You will like that, I promise.’

Conrad could see that Veronica had got to him. So could Isobel. And so could Marshall himself.

‘OK,’ he said, shaking his head but smiling at the same time. ‘But you make sure you bring it back here by the end of next week.’

‘Hurrah!’ said Veronica and turned to Conrad triumphantly.

‘Thank you, Haldeman,’ said Conrad.

‘When do we leave? Right away?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Conrad. ‘I do want to catch my father up, but the roads will be tricky in the dark. Even with a professional driver in the car.’ He realized that he was now committed to a long drive across France with his ex-wife, but there was nothing he could do about that, and she had done a good job.

‘If I were you I would get some sleep now and leave early tomorrow morning,’ said Marshall. ‘You’ll make better progress that way.’

‘But first can someone get me a drink?’ said Veronica. ‘I do find aeroplanes too thirst-making.’

50

Extract from Lieutenant Dieter von Hertenberg’s Diary

23 May

Still fighting in Boulogne. Ironically, we were held up by the medieval walls of the city. We needed an 88-mm anti-aircraft gun to breach them near the cathedral, but we broke through eventually. The British are putting up stiff resistance. Calais surrounded.

Paris, 23 May

Veronica and Conrad left at five the next morning in the Haldemans’ smart red Cadillac, loaded with food, wine and spare cans of petrol. The Paris streets were quiet, as were the suburbs, but once they got outside the city and on to the main Paris — Chartres road, they ran into a column of slow-moving traffic, comprising every kind of motor vehicle: tiny Simcas piled high with possessions, roadsters, family saloons, bakers’ vans, ice-cream trucks, lorries of all shapes and sizes. These were the Parisians, but interspersed with them were the farmers and peasants fleeing from the north, with their horse-drawn wagons bearing mattresses, birdcages, grandmothers and small children, and their cows ambling along beside them.

Many of the Parisians hooted and waved at the fleeing peasants to let them by. Veronica, who had insisted on driving, copied their technique, and added her own invective in appalling schoolgirl French — although she had never actually been to school, being taught at home by a German governess.

Every now and then a French aeroplane would fly overhead causing many of the refugees to dive for the ditches at the side of the road. This gave Veronica a chance to force her way ahead in the temporarily empty road.

Conrad didn’t like the attitude of the fleeing Parisians in their cars towards their less fortunate compatriots, and was tempted to insist that Veronica show a bit more consideration. But they had to catch his father up. He was comforted by the thought that Lord Oakford would have been similarly delayed.

Veronica had been talking almost non-stop since they had left the Haldemans. She was clearly excited with their ‘mission’, as she called it, and pleased with herself for wangling the car from her sister. She occasionally asked Conrad for his opinion, and he answered with a monosyllable.

Eventually, she had had enough. They had come to a complete halt. A quarter of a mile further up a hill they could see a baker’s van was blocking the road, either broken down or run out of petrol. No matter how hard the line of cars hooted, and they hooted hard and long, the van would not move. ‘Why so glum, Conrad?

‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘About your father?’

‘No. About you.’

‘About how clever I was to get the car?’

‘Not exactly. About how you got to Paris at such short notice.’

‘Imperial Airways from Heston. Fearfully expensive.’

Conrad raised his eyebrows. ‘You see, I know that’s not true, Veronica. I tried to get a flight here yesterday and there wasn’t a seat. Thomas Cook laughed at me.’

‘Ah, but you’re not me. You know I have ways of getting what I want.’

‘Why did you suddenly decide to come and help me?’

‘I thought you might need me. I was right, wasn’t I?’

‘And the other night. Why didn’t Parsons turn up? And how did the big man who tried to kill me know I was going to be there? Does Parsons even exist?’

Veronica turned to him. ‘Conrad, do you think I am lying to you?’

‘Veronica, I know you are. We were married for three years. I know you are lying to me. I just don’t know why.’

Veronica opened her mouth and shut it. The gaiety left her. She stared ahead and hit her horn hard. The driver in front hit his in response. Nothing moved.

‘Who sent you, Veronica?’

‘Major McCaigue.’

‘McCaigue!’

‘You remember you told me to see him when I came back from Holland after meeting Theo?’

‘Yes.’

‘I told him about the attack the Germans were planning. And then he said he wanted me to keep an eye on you. He seemed to know a lot about you already and quite a bit about me. I think he had been talking to Alec.’

‘Linaro?’

‘Yes. Linaro. McCaigue said that he thought you were spying for the Soviet Union. He said you had a misguided idea about the Duke of Windsor returning to England to reclaim the throne. He asked me to watch you for him.’

‘And you did it?’

Veronica swallowed. She was speaking quietly. ‘Yes. I thought it was my duty. And to tell you the truth, I was quite excited by the idea. Frankly, I could believe that you might be a Russian spy. You’ve always been a bit of a leftie, and you did leave me to go to Spain.’

‘You encouraged me to go!’ protested Conrad. ‘You were going to come too. It was going to be a wonderful lark; you were going to drive an ambulance or something. And then you never came. You stayed in England with Linaro and I got shot at in Spain for a year.’

‘Yes, all right, darling,’ said Veronica. ‘But it wasn’t as though McCaigue asked me to do you any harm.’

‘What about that fellow who tried to knife me?’

‘Yes,’ said Veronica. ‘I wondered about him. But McCaigue told me there really was a man called Parsons. He was delayed, but when he arrived in Shepherd Market, he found someone had been stabbed. So he scarpered.’

‘So it wasn’t Polly Copthorne who put you on to Parsons?’

‘No,’ said Veronica. ‘McCaigue said Parsons would have something very interesting to say to you that night. And I didn’t believe that big chap who tried to stab you was him; McCaigue assured me he wasn’t. I have no idea who he was.’

‘McCaigue sent you over here?’

‘Yes. At short notice. I flew in an RAF plane from Hendon. I saw Churchill land in it.’

Conrad’s brain was racing. He could believe that Veronica might be persuaded to keep tabs on him by someone purporting to be from the secret service. But what worried him most was McCaigue.

‘Are you a Russian spy, Conrad?’

‘Of course I’m not a bloody Russian spy!’ Conrad answered.

It sounded as if not only was McCaigue trying to keep tabs on him, which would have been disappointing but understandable, but he was trying to get Conrad killed. Which meant he was on Alston’s side. He was the ‘power that be’ who had placed doubts in Van’s mind about him, who had spread the idea he was a Soviet spy, who had tried to keep him confined to his unit. And who had tried to get him killed.

And Conrad had trusted him! Told him everything he had learned about Alston and the Duke of Windsor and Freddie Copthorne’s death. He had brought Anneliese along to speak to him. Christ! Was that why Anneliese had been arrested?

Conrad hated the thought of Anneliese in a cell, a British cell, after all she had suffered in Berlin. And McCaigue had put her there!

‘Then all this stuff about the Duke of Windsor is true?’ Veronica asked.

‘Henry Alston is planning to use the duke to precipitate a change of government,’ Conrad said. ‘Churchill will go, Lloyd George will become Prime Minister, Alston and my father will be in the government, Edward will become king again and we will make peace with Germany. Britain will become a Nazi satellite.’

‘No! So isn’t McCaigue really in the secret service? You told me to go and see him.’

‘He is,’ said Conrad. ‘But I shouldn’t have trusted him.’

‘Oh,’ said Veronica. She glanced at Conrad. ‘I’m sorry, Conrad.’

Up ahead, a group of men had manhandled the van off the road and into a ditch, ignoring the remonstrances of its driver. A few minutes later the traffic began to move.

‘I can understand why you came over to Paris to find me,’ said Conrad. ‘But why did you persuade Isobel to give us her car?’

‘Major McCaigue told me to prevent you from getting to your father. He didn’t tell me why, he just said it was a question of utmost importance to the war effort. But actually I was worried about that man attacking us too. I wondered whether there was something in what you said. I mean, I know you, Conrad. You are about the most honest person I’ve met. So I thought I would help you get the car and keep a close eye on you to see what happened.’

Conrad stared out of the window over the flat green farmland, empty and peaceful compared to the clogged road on which they were stuck.

‘Conrad? What now?’

Strangely, Conrad didn’t feel anger towards Veronica. She had done what she thought was her duty. She had been pro-German, even pro-Nazi in her time, but now her country was at war, she was doing what she thought was the right thing. Wasn’t she?

‘I’ll give you the choice, Veronica,’ Conrad said. ‘If you believe that Hitler is evil, that Nazism is wrong and that Britain should fight it to the bitter end, then stay in the car and help me. If you think it would be wiser for our country to make peace with the Germans, if you think Hitler isn’t so bad really, then get out and go back to Paris. It’s your choice.’

He watched Veronica as she drove. To his amazement, a tear ran down her cheek. Veronica never cried.

She sniffed. ‘You were right all along, Conrad,’ she said. ‘You and people like Anneliese. And Winston Churchill. We were all so blind, people like me and Diana Mosley, and Unity Mitford and Freddie Copthorne and my father. We thought that Hitler was a little over-excitable and didn’t do things the British way, but he gave Germany just the kind of leadership it needed, and he was stopping Europe from becoming communist. And the uniforms were just divine.

‘The Nazis are horrid, beastly people, and I feel horrid and beastly for not realizing that before. So yes, I want to help you. I want to stop Sir Henry Alston. And I want to stop your father.’

Conrad looked at his former wife. She meant what she said.

‘Good,’ he said. ‘Now, let’s find him.’

They drove on, slowly, oh so slowly, rarely getting above walking pace. The verges were littered with broken-down cars, or vehicles that had simply run out of petrol. They passed one elderly and impeccably dressed couple eating a picnic lunch out of the boot of their Rolls-Royce. What was much more distressing were the old people, sitting or lying on the grass, exhausted. Conrad hoped their families hadn’t just left them there, but it appeared that they had.

There was a ripple of excitement in the column of traffic as a detachment of French tanks came barrelling along, heading for Paris. One way or another, everyone managed to get off the road to let them by, including the cows.

They had planned to stop in Chartres for a late lunch, but the city was crowded to overflowing. After an hour of battling through medieval streets, they emerged on the far side. Conrad examined the Michelin map that Marshall had provided them with. ‘Let’s get off the main road,’ he said. ‘I know these lanes are narrow and don’t go in a straight line, but they must be quicker than this.’

And they were. Not much quicker, but Conrad and Veronica were zigzagging their way south towards Tours, like a dinghy tacking against a stiff breeze. They stopped for half an hour for a pleasant picnic next to a small stream.

Conrad took over the wheel of the Cadillac. Afternoon turned to evening. ‘Shall we stop in Tours, or carry on?’ said Veronica.

‘I’m not sure,’ said Conrad. ‘I wonder where Father is staying.’

‘He can’t have gone much faster than us. But of course we don’t know what route he has taken.’

‘I bet there aren’t any hotel rooms free in Tours,’ said Conrad.

‘Do we sleep in the car, then?’ said Veronica.

Conrad looked again at the map. A hamlet caught his eye: Blancou. He had stayed at the Abbaye de Blancou once with his parents when he was a boy. It was the family home of a French banker whom his father knew well. It was a fair bit south of Tours, but not too distant from the main road.

If his father couldn’t find anywhere to stay en route, then he may well have decided to try his luck there. Worth a shot. Even if Lord Oakford wasn’t there, Conrad and Veronica might be able to beg a room. Conrad resigned himself to sleeping with his wife that night.

Conrad explained his idea to Veronica, who agreed they should give it a try. The problem was that the broad River Loire, with its limited number of bridges, created bottlenecks.

It was nearly midnight when they crossed. They decided to sleep in the car in a wood for a few hours and get up at dawn to continue their journey.

Veronica curled up on the back seat under a travel blanket. Should Conrad trust his ex-wife? Frankly, he didn’t have much choice. Slumping in the front of the car, Conrad listened to her gentle breathing, a familiar sound from a much simpler time.

Northern Spain

Theo examined the woman sitting opposite him in the second-class carriage through one slightly open eye. She was very attractive, dark — Theo usually preferred blondes — slim, but with a full bust under her black dress. Mid twenties, he would guess. A small girl was asleep on her lap. A widow, no doubt; there were plenty of young widows in Spain.

It was dark in the carriage, but he was pretty sure he saw her open one eye and study him.

Theo shut his own eye and told himself not to be so stupid. What would she want with a Yugoslav businessman named Petar Šalić who was travelling to France in search of his own wife?

The train journey from Madrid had been interminable. He was involved in a slow-motion pursuit of Otto Langebrück, who was travelling in a similar train under the name of Georges Braun, a Frenchman from Mulhouse in Alsace. Both Otto and Theo had brought false identities with them to Spain in case they were needed to travel to France. Otto spoke fluent French and could mimic a convincing Alsatian accent. Theo’s cover was much less secure. Theo’s French was not nearly good enough to pass as a native of any description, so he had used a Yugoslav passport. But he spoke no Serbo-Croat; he was sunk if by chance he came across a French official who did.

He was nervous about entering France in wartime. It was rare for German officers in the Abwehr, or any other agency for that matter, to operate on enemy territory. That’s what neutral countries and neutral agents were for. But France was in chaos, and Ribbentrop had decided that it was imperative that someone approach the Duke of Windsor immediately. Otto Langebrück was the man he had in mind. Theo had tried to insist that he travel with Otto, since at least he had training in espionage, but their covers were not compatible, and it was felt, rightly, that Otto would arouse less suspicion if he travelled alone. What clinched it was the news that the Duke of Windsor had left Paris for Biarritz, only a few kilometres over the Spanish border with France.

Theo’s bosses in the Abwehr were unhappy at the idea of the Duke of Windsor being persuaded to return to England, so Theo had been dispatched two hours after Otto, with instructions to dissuade him from talking to the duke. The hope was that if Otto and Theo could get to Biarritz before the duke, then Theo might be able to tell Otto he had been sent to warn him that the duke was travelling to his house at Antibes instead. If the Spanish trains had followed their timetables, that might have been possible, but it was becoming clear that Spanish trains never followed their timetables.

In which case Theo would have to think of another way of stopping Otto Langebrück.

Which would be a pity. Theo was growing to like the Rhinelander.

51

Extract from Lieutenant Dieter von Hertenberg’s Diary

24 May

Direct order from the Supreme Command. Halt. ‘Dunkirk to be left to the Luftwaffe. Should the capture of Calais prove difficult, this too should be left to the Luftwaffe.’ The order comes from Hitler himself and there is no explanation. When I handed the order to Guderian he couldn’t believe it. He wants to argue, but since there is no explanation, there is no logic to argue against. It makes no sense! The British Army are trapped and demoralized; we could capture the whole lot of them if only the Führer would let us.

I have seen Guderian’s Achtung Panzer! doctrine in action over the last couple of weeks. Keep moving, keep the enemy off balance. Well, the British are well and truly off balance, and now we are staying put and giving them time to regroup and reorganize!

At least it means some rest for some of us, although there is still fighting in Boulogne.

The Loire Valley, 24 May

The first bird woke Conrad. It was still dark, with just a glimmer of grey peeking through the trees to the east. He stretched and nudged Veronica, curled up on the back seat of the Cadillac. It was cold.

They shared some bread, cheese and Evian water for breakfast and were soon on their way. They made reasonable speed along the main road south of Tours. There were plenty of cars pulled over on to the verges for the night, and as dawn came, more and more of them started back on the road. But Conrad and Veronica were definitely making better progress than they had the day before.

‘Maybe we should keep going,’ said Veronica, who was driving. ‘Perhaps we could make Biarritz by tonight after all.’

‘Let’s check Blancou first,’ said Conrad. ‘It’s not too far out of our way.’

So they turned off the main road, but it took them half an hour of tiny country lanes before they came to a sign to the hamlet.

They turned left and descended into a wooded valley. Ahead of them, they could see the house, which was actually a small stone medieval abbey, clad in thick green ivy. A number of semi-ruined buildings lined one side of a dark fast-flowing stream. An ancient footbridge crossed the water to a lush green meadow dotted with a dozen or so cows. It was difficult to believe that this particular corner of France was at war.

‘It’s beautiful,’ said Veronica. ‘You came here as a boy?’

‘Just once when I was about twelve,’ said Conrad. ‘There are supposed to be wild boar in those woods. Father’s banker friend used to hunt them. Very exciting.’

‘Someone’s there,’ said Veronica. ‘And they are awake. There’s smoke coming out of that chimney.’

It was just after six. Early. Conrad’s hopes rose. If Lord Oakford was staying there, he would no doubt want an early start.

The road plunged down the side of the valley and they lost sight of the house. Five minutes later they came to a pair of ancient stone gateposts with no gate, and drove along a track past a lodge, which seemed to be inhabited. They turned a corner and there was the abbey. A large American car was parked in front of it, and in an open courtyard off to one side, by an open door, stood a table covered with a white tablecloth, around which three people were having breakfast.

They turned to stare at the approaching car. There was an old lady in a high-necked black dress and a shawl, whom Conrad didn’t recognize. There was his father. And there was Constance.

Conrad remembered that the concierge at the Meurice had mentioned a woman was present with the American picking up his father. That must be her.

‘What do we do?’ asked Veronica.

‘Just park the car and follow me,’ said Conrad.

Veronica pulled up next to the Packard, and they both got out. Conrad approached the table with a smile. In the quiet courtyard so early in the morning, the birdsong was extraordinary, like a welcoming overture. ‘Good morning, Father. Constance.’

‘What the devil are you doing here?’ Lord Oakford barked.

Conrad approached the old lady. ‘Madame de Salignac, I presume,’ he said in French. ‘We met many years ago, when I came to stay with you as a boy. I’m Conrad de Lancey, Lord Oakford’s son. And this is my wife, Veronica.’ For once, Conrad was not eager to disown Veronica as his ex-wife.

‘Delighted to see you again,’ said the lady, who was very old, very wrinkled, but had clear blue eyes. ‘Forgive me if I don’t get up.’ She indicated a walking stick. ‘But please join us. Cécile!’

A woman, just as old as her mistress but quite a bit fatter, shuffled out of the house, breathing heavily. ‘Please fetch these people some coffee.’

Lord Oakford glared at his son, his manners just getting the better of his desire to shout at him. ‘I thought you were in England,’ he said, in French.

Conrad continued the introductions, this time in English. ‘Veronica, this is Constance Scott-Dunton. Mrs Scott-Dunton murdered my sister last November.’

Constance, who had been playing along with the polite charade and had held her hand out towards Veronica, froze at this.

‘Don’t be absurd!’ snapped Oakford.

‘Excuse me for speaking English, Madame,’ said Conrad in French to his hostess. ‘But my wife doesn’t speak French.’

The old lady looked at Conrad sharply; her bright eyes seemed to be staring right into his soul. Conrad held her gaze. She nodded slightly.

‘That is absolute rot!’ said Oakford. ‘Your German friend Theo von Hertenberg killed Millie. You know that, you are just unwilling to accept it!’

Conrad sat down at the table, as did Veronica. ‘That’s not what Constance says,’ said Conrad.

Constance glared at Conrad. ‘I don’t what you mean.’

‘You told Anneliese Rosen that you had been to Holland on an errand for your lover, Sir Henry Alston. And you told her that you had killed someone there. That someone was my sister, Millie.’

‘Your Anneliese?’ said Oakford.

‘She’s certainly not my Anneliese,’ said Veronica.

‘You also told Anneliese about Alston’s plan to form a new government to discuss peace with the Germans. And that my father was on his way to France to fetch the Duke of Windsor.’

The maid arrived with some coffee. She could sense the tension around the table. Everyone was silent as she poured two cups for Conrad and Veronica.

‘Apparently, Constance was a little drunk at the time. She and Anneliese had been sticking up anti-Jewish posters in Mayfair.’

Oakford glanced at his young companion, who sat silent and grim-faced, two pink circles of colour emerging on her pale cheeks. Anger rather than shame, Conrad thought.

‘Anneliese was exaggerating,’ said Oakford. ‘It’s true that Henry and I are trying to bring about a sensible settlement with Germany and I am on my way to discuss how the duke can help. But the rest is the result of Anneliese’s overwrought imagination. Or yours.’

Everyone around the table was looking at Conrad.

‘Don’t go, Father,’ Conrad said quietly. ‘I know you hate war. I know you have always wanted peace with honour, and I know that’s what you think you are seeking now. But that’s not what this is. This is peace with dishonour. Alston effectively wants Britain to surrender to Germany. He wants Britain to become a vassal state, a neo-Nazi protectorate. I know that’s not what you want. But that’s what you are helping him to do.’

‘How do you know what Henry wants?’ said Lord Oakford. ‘Don’t you see that the sooner we negotiate peace with Hitler, the less we will have to give up? We are losing this war. Let’s call it off before we have lost it.’

‘Is there nothing you wouldn’t do for peace, Father? Is no price too high?’

‘One life is priceless,’ said Oakford. ‘Fifteen million people died in the last war. That’s fifteen million times priceless. So no, Conrad, no price is too high.’

Conrad understood his father. The war hero with the Victoria Cross and the missing arm had devoted his life to preventing another war. He believed in peace at any cost. In Henry Alston he saw the means that justified that end. He was blind, wilfully blind, to Alston’s motives for bringing peace. He didn’t care as long as an armistice was declared.

‘You know Constance did kill Millie, Father?’ said Conrad, trying another tack.

‘I’m not listening to you any more,’ said Oakford. ‘In fact, Constance and I are leaving now.’ He got to his feet. ‘Thank you for your hospitality, Madame de Salignac,’ he said in French. ‘I am afraid we must leave. I apologize for the suddenness of our departure.’

‘I won’t let you go,’ said Conrad, also standing.

‘One moment,’ said the old lady, in French. ‘I have something inside for you.’

She climbed to her feet, took her stick and hobbled inside. Her four guests waited.

Conrad knew he could never persuade his father to abandon his mission. He hated seeing Constance, Millie’s murderer, at his father’s side. He would have to stop him somehow.

The old lady reappeared. ‘Here, you might need this,’ she said in English. She had put her stick to one side and was limping out into the courtyard. In her hands was a shotgun. She handed it to Conrad. ‘I was ten in 1870 when the Prussians arrived in Paris. I saw how they behaved then. Two of my three sons died in the war of 1914. I hate the Boche, Lord Oakford. The French people will never surrender to them again, and neither should the British.’

Her blue eyes were blazing with anger. ‘You should listen to your son, Lord Oakford.’

Conrad took the shotgun, and slowly pointed it at his father.

‘What are you going to do with that, Conrad?’ said Oakford. ‘Shoot me?’

‘I will if I have to,’ said Conrad. Would he? He didn’t know.

‘I think you might,’ said Lord Oakford. ‘But I don’t care. I told you once about that afternoon at Passchendaele when I took that machine-gun post, didn’t I? How, after I turned the German machine gun on those young German boys and mowed them down, I walked unarmed towards their line. How I expected them to shoot me — I wanted them to shoot me. I was sick with myself for killing so many. I vowed then that I would never kill another man, that peace was more important than my life.’

Conrad remembered that story well.

‘Come on, Constance,’ said Oakford. He began to move towards the Packard.

‘You can’t let him go, Conrad,’ said Veronica. ‘You must pull the trigger!’

Conrad knew she was right. If Conrad was prepared to sacrifice his own life for what he believed was right, and he knew he was, then he should be willing to sacrifice his father.

Whatever he decided, he knew he would have to live with it for the rest of his life.

He couldn’t do it. Logic might tell him to pull the trigger, but he couldn’t do it.

His father had his back to him and had almost reached the car. Conrad took several rapid paces towards him. Lord Oakford’s shoulders stiffened as he sensed Conrad’s approach, but he didn’t turn round. Conrad raised the shotgun and brought the stock down hard on his father’s skull.

There was sickening crack, and Lord Oakford crumpled to the ground.

‘Take this,’ said Conrad, handing the shotgun to Veronica.

He bent down over his father. He had had no idea how hard to hit him. Lord Oakford was fit, wiry and not yet sixty. Conrad’s intention had been to knock him out, without doing him permanent damage, but he feared he had hit him too hard. It was impossible to judge the weight of a blow like that.

Oakford was lying face down on flagstones, blood seeping from a cut on the back of his head. His eyes were shut and he was motionless. Conrad couldn’t tell whether he was breathing. He put his fingers on his father’s neck hoping to find a pulse.

He heard movement behind him, and turned to see Constance lunge at Veronica, who was staring at Conrad and Oakford, holding the shotgun loosely in front of her. Veronica was a bigger woman than Constance, but was taken by surprise. Constance grabbed the barrel of the shotgun with both hands and yanked. Veronica let go.

Constance skipped backwards a few paces and turned the gun on Veronica. ‘Keep still, or I’ll blow your head off!’

52

The Loire Valley, 24 May

Veronica kept still.

‘Get back!’ Constance ordered.

Veronica hesitated and then retreated. It was clear that Constance had never fired a shotgun before. She was holding the gun awkwardly in front of her. But it was pointed directly at Veronica, Constance’s finger was on the trigger and Conrad could see that the safety was off. All she had to do was squeeze and Veronica would be dead.

‘Further back,’ said Constance. Veronica took two steps back. She was now standing next to Conrad and a few paces away from Constance.

‘Is he all right?’ Constance asked Conrad.

‘I don’t know,’ said Conrad.

‘Well, check!’

Conrad bent over his father again and searched for the artery in his neck. At first he felt nothing. He forced himself to take it slow. He moved his fingers and felt something. A pulse! ‘He’s alive,’ he said. ‘But he’s out cold.’

‘All right,’ said Constance. She was clearly thinking through what she would do next. Conrad tried to guess her next move. Shoot him; that was the obvious answer. It was a double-barrelled shotgun, presumably with a cartridge in each barrel. So she could afford to loose off one at him and keep the other to cover Veronica and Madame de Salignac.

In which case, maybe Conrad should rush her first, in the hope that somehow she missed him. The odds didn’t look good, but the odds of doing nothing looked worse.

Then his father groaned. His eyes flicked open.

‘Leave him!’ said Constance.

Get her talking, thought Conrad. Distract her. Play for time.

‘You did kill Millie, didn’t you, Constance?’ Conrad was hoping for an admission that his father might hear.

‘Yes,’ said Constance. ‘I had to. I liked your sister, she had good intentions, but in the end she was going to blow the whistle on the whole plan. Your friend Theo told her that the Duke of Windsor had been passing secrets to the Germans. That he was a traitor. At that stage I didn’t know the details of what Henry was planning, but I knew I had to shut her up. There was only one way of doing that.’

‘And Freddie Copthorne? Was he the same?’

‘Yes. He lost his nerve. Henry had to do something. At least your father knows his duty.’

‘What do you mean?’

Oakford groaned again, and moved on the ground.

‘You heard him,’ said Constance. ‘He was willing to die for the cause of peace with Germany. Lloyd George is a very old man. It won’t be long before he steps aside for Henry, and then Britain will have a truly great Prime Minister. Don’t you see that with Germany as our ally and not our enemy, there will be nothing to stop Britain becoming great again? The French are pathetic; all the Americans are concerned about is money. Only we know how to rule. And the Germans.’

Oakford pulled himself to a sitting position and rubbed his skull. Then he looked at his one hand. There was blood on it. The hair on the back of his head was matted red.

‘Help your father into the back of the car,’ said Constance.

Conrad lifted his father to his feet, but Oakford’s knees buckled. So Conrad lifted him bodily and carried him to the Packard. He opened the rear door and eased his father into the back seat.

‘Did you hear that?’ Conrad whispered. ‘She did murder Millie in Holland. And once I have got you into this car, she will shoot me. Don’t you care?’

‘Don’t talk to him!’ Constance said.

Oakford groaned again. He was sitting on the car seat with his legs dangling down to the ground. He was trying to say something.

‘Yes, Father?’ If Conrad was going to die he may as well die hearing what his father wanted to say.

‘I do care,’ he whispered. ‘If she killed Millie, I… I cannot forgive her. There’s a pistol in my coat pocket. Use it.’

Conrad glanced at his father’s suit jacket. There was indeed a heavy weight on one side; Conrad wondered how he had missed it.

‘I said, don’t talk to him!’ Constance shouted.

‘All right,’ said Conrad. And he put his hand around his father, slipping it into the side pocket of his jacket, out of sight of Constance. His fingers closed around a small gun.

It was a revolver. No safety to worry about then. He extricated the gun from the pocket and cocked the hammer, all out sight of Constance. He kept his back to Constance and straightened up. His father, still groggy, looked at him with unfocused eyes and nodded.

Conrad spun around, crouched and fired. He hit Constance in the shoulder just as she pressed the trigger. There was a double bang, the shotgun’s drowning out the crack of the revolver. He heard his father yell from the car behind him, and Constance screamed, dropping the shotgun and grabbing her shoulder.

‘Leave it!’ Conrad shouted.

Constance whimpered in pain. Already blood was spreading over her white dress.

Behind him, Lord Oakford groaned.

‘Are you hit, Father?’

‘Just my leg.’

Veronica darted forward and grabbed the shotgun. She took a few paces back from Constance.

Constance’s eyes blazed. ‘You’re too late!’ she said. ‘You won’t be able to stop Henry.’

‘Donnez-le-moi,’ said Madame de Salignac to Veronica, hobbling towards her.

Veronica looked at the shotgun in her hands and passed it to the old woman.

Madame de Salignac took the gun, pointed it at Constance’s chest and pulled the trigger. They were only five yards apart. Constance’s whimpers stopped as she fell backwards, her chest a bloody mess. She was dead before she hit the ground.

‘Someone should have done that a long time ago,’ said Madame de Salignac.

Conrad stared at the body of the woman who had killed his sister. He didn’t feel any thrill of revenge, or even any pity, just wonder that a nice English girl could have such a poisoned soul.

Another scream. This time it was Veronica. She was looking at Lord Oakford, who was slumped on to the back seat of the Packard, blood pumping out of his leg.

‘Father!’

Conrad leaned into the car, and lifted his father out, laying him on to the ground. It wasn’t ‘just his leg’. His left thigh was peppered with shot, and his trousers were already soaked in red. Blood was streaming out on to the ground beneath him.

Conrad remembered when his comrade Lofty Bennett had been shot in the leg at Brunete. The medics had tied a tourniquet above the wound to try to stanch the flow of blood. It had worked, sort of. Lofty survived the loss of blood, but died of gangrene a week later.

Conrad needed a strip of cloth, fast. He flung off his jacket and unbuttoned his shirt, tearing it off as his fingers fumbled on the buttons.

‘Pass me that knife!’ he shouted to Veronica, pointing to the breakfast table. She grabbed it and gave it to him. He cut his father’s trouser leg above the wound and pulled it down, revealing a pulsing mass of blood-soaked flesh. He wrapped his shirt around the leg above the wound and pulled tight. Within seconds the flow seemed to slow, but not stop completely. He tried to adjust the shirt, but then the blood started streaming again.

Oakford had already lost a lot.

His father’s eyes were open as he watched his son. He seemed to be conscious, but not in pain.

Veronica offered Conrad a towel from the kitchen.

‘Well done,’ said Conrad. ‘Push that down on the wound.’

‘Conrad?’ his father whispered.

‘Yes?’

‘You know we never agreed on much, did we?’

Conrad couldn’t help grinning as he kept the pressure on the tourniquet. ‘No, Father, we didn’t.’

‘Your mother always says you are just like me.’ He was struggling to get the words out. ‘I’ve always done what I believed to be right. You have always done the same. My time is over now. So you do what you think you have to do.’

Conrad looked at his father sharply. What was his father saying? He wasn’t admitting that Conrad was right and he was wrong, that wasn’t Lord Oakford’s way. But he was giving him permission to stop Alston. His blessing.

‘All right, Father. But let’s talk about it later.’ Conrad didn’t want his father’s blessing at that precise moment. He just wanted him to live.

But Lord Oakford’s eyelids were closing. He made an effort to speak. ‘Conrad,’ he whispered.

Conrad bent down.

‘Sag deiner Mutter, dass ich sie liebe.’ Tell your mother I love her.

‘Don’t give up now, Father!’

But Arthur Oakford closed his eyes.

Guillaume, Cécile’s aged husband, had emerged from the keeper’s lodge by the gate to see what the fuss was about. Madame de Salignac sent him off at once to the village to fetch the doctor. But by the time he returned with the man, Lord Oakford was dead.

‘I think we need to call the police, Madame,’ said the doctor, surveying Constance and Lord Oakford, whom he had confirmed were both dead.

‘Let’s wait until my guests have left,’ said Madame de Salignac.

The doctor, a squat man of about sixty, raised his eyebrows.

‘That woman shot the gentleman,’ said the old lady.

‘And who shot her?’

‘I did,’ said Madame de Salignac. ‘In self-defence.’

‘And your guests? Are they not witnesses?’

‘I am sure they did not see anything, doctor.’

‘But, Madame…’

‘We have known each other a long time, doctor. You must trust me on this. For France, and for her ally.’

Conrad and Veronica were back on the road within half an hour, Conrad wearing one of his own clean shirts, and a suit belonging to the late Monsieur de Salignac, which was too short and too wide for him. His own was ruined with his father’s blood. They were heading back towards the main road.

‘I’m sorry, Conrad,’ said Veronica, who was driving.

Conrad closed his eyes, trying to sort out in his head what had just happened. ‘Do you think it was the head injury? Or the shotgun wound?’

‘The shotgun wound,’ said Veronica. ‘Without a doubt.’

‘How can you know?’ said Conrad. ‘How will I ever know that it wasn’t me who killed him?’

‘He was talking coherently, and he lost a massive amount of blood.’

‘I can’t be sure.’

‘Conrad, listen to me,’ Veronica said. ‘You have two choices. You can fall apart. Blame yourself. Blame your father. Or you can assume that Constance killed him. You can remember your father’s last words and do what you have to do.’

Conrad was listening.

‘Your father was right, this is a beastly war, and he was one of its casualties. But it’s a beastly war we have to win. So let’s win it.’

Conrad closed his eyes. Took a deep breath. Veronica had a point. He needed to focus.

‘All right.’

‘So, Lord Oakford, pull yourself together.’

‘Lord Oakford?’ Conrad was confused.

‘Like it or not, you are the third Viscount Oakford now.’

‘I don’t like it,’ Conrad muttered.

‘No,’ said Veronica. ‘It’s absolutely beastly. Look! We are coming up to the junction. Do we turn right for Paris, or do we turn left for Biarritz?’

‘I need to get back to London to do what I can to stop Alston,’ Conrad said. ‘But we also need to prevent the duke from returning to Britain. Now my father is…’ He hesitated. ‘…is gone, Alston might send someone else. Or he might persuade the duke over the telephone.’

‘I’ll go to Biarritz,’ said Veronica.

‘But how can you stop him?’

‘I’ll think of a way.’ Veronica smiled. ‘I can always think of a way.’

Conrad examined the map and, after judging that the chance of him getting a seat on an aeroplane in the current chaos were nil, decided that a boat from Bordeaux was his best bet. So when they hit the main road, they turned left.

Pall Mall, London

It was a pleasant stroll across St James’s Park to Alston’s club. Britain, or at least the British ruling classes, were panicking, and Alston was relishing it. The news from France was bad; no one believed anything would come of the British and French counter-attacks which were supposed to nip off the neck of the advancing German panzer divisions. According to the Newspaper Proprietor, it would be only a matter of days before the panic seeped down to the general populace. There were rumours that the General was about to get the sack: dismaying for him, no doubt, but it would leave him angry and free to help the cause. Alston had heard from Constance two days before in Paris that she had caught up with Arthur Oakford, but that the duke had left for Biarritz. They would follow him there in a borrowed car. No sign of de Lancey yet. Alston needed to arrange for an aeroplane to fetch the duke from Biarritz back to England.

The timing should be just about perfect. In a few days the pressure on Churchill would become intolerable, and the duke’s sudden appearance in Britain demanding peace would break him. Alston and his colleagues would be ready.

But Oswald Mosley would not. He and Maule Ramsay had been arrested the day before under the new Regulation 18B, leaving Alston and his friends a clear shot at power.

Alston greeted the porter at the lodge. His guest was waiting for him in the library, and there was also a message for him. The message was from Lindfors. Both your requests have been accepted. Good luck.

Alston smiled. That meant Hitler had agreed to give the BEF some breathing space to allow peace negotiations, and that he would refuse to do business with a government including Churchill.

He climbed the stairs to the club library, where the Civil Servant was waiting for him with the latest information on the War Cabinet meetings.

Not long now.

53

Extract from Lieutenant Dieter von Hertenberg’s Diary

25 May

Boulogne captured. 10^th Panzer fighting in Calais. Asked British to surrender, but they refused: ‘The answer is no, as it is the British Army’s duty to fight, just as it is the German’s.’ Fair enough. Perhaps I am getting overconfident, but I don’t give them more than a couple of days.

Still forbidden to advance on Dunkirk.

Biarritz, 25 May

Theo identified a choice of two cafés opposite the Hôtel du Palais, Biarritz’s grandest hotel, where the British royal family always stayed on their visits to the resort. He had had little difficulty with the French officials at Hendaye on the Spanish frontier — there were very few travellers entering the country, and a mass of unruly people of all nationalities trying to leave it. They hadn’t searched his luggage, so the pistol he had stowed in the false bottom of his suitcase had remained undetected. Biarritz was only twenty kilometres north of the frontier. It was much easier to get a seat on a train heading north than south.

Once in Biarritz, Theo had solved the problem of whether the duke had arrived by asking English tourists leaving the hotel. He had, in fact, joined his wife the night before. What English tourists were doing in Biarritz in the middle of a war, Theo had no idea, but they were there in some numbers, and willing to chat to a friendly young Yugoslav.

So Theo was too late to divert Otto Langebrück with his story that the duke and duchess were actually on their way to Antibes. But it was possible that Otto had not yet had a chance to speak to the duke himself. Theo’s plan was to find a seat at a café and watch out for him.

And there he was! Sitting at a table outside one of the two cafés himself, checking the entrance to the hotel. Theo strolled past. Otto spotted him, smiled and stood up. The amateur! Theo caught his eye for a second and then looked away. It was unlikely that he or Otto were under surveillance, but not impossible, and Theo wasn’t about to abandon his most basic tradecraft, even though it was clear Otto had never been taught it.

But Otto was quick enough to realize what Theo was doing — out of his peripheral vision Theo could see him looking down at his coffee. Theo walked slowly past and strolled along the beachfront road. The hotel was a grand building of red and white plonked on a little headland between the town’s two beaches. Theo walked the length of the southernmost beach towards the cliffs at the end. He found a path down to the sand, checking behind him to make sure that Otto was following. He was, at a discreet distance, but not really discreet enough if he were under professional surveillance. Oh, well. There was nothing Theo could do about that.

It was still too early in the year to swim, but there were a number of holidaymakers strolling along the beach, although none at the far end by the cliffs. The tide was almost in, and Theo felt out of place dodging the waves in his businessman’s suit and shoes. He reached the point where the cliffs jutted out towards the sea, and clambered on to the rocks. He was looking for a cave or a small crevice in the cliff face that would put him out of sight of the people on the beach, and he found one. It stretched only a few metres in, but that was enough. He climbed in, sat on a rock and waited. The Atlantic waves lapped the shore just a few metres in front of him. In an hour or so, the sea would be in the cave.

A minute later, Otto joined him. He grinned and shook Theo’s hand. ‘I’m sorry I showed I recognized you back there,’ he said. ‘That was foolish.’

‘Never mind,’ said Theo.

‘What are you doing here? Is something wrong?’

‘Have you had a chance to speak to the duke yet?’

‘Not yet. I was just writing a note for him asking him to meet me.’ Otto pulled a sheet of paper out of his jacket pocket.

Theo examined the young diplomat. He had found out quite a bit about him in the few days they had spent together. Like Theo, he had trained as a lawyer. He had spent some time in France and a little in England. Although he wasn’t from one of the close-knit Junkers landed families like Theo’s, Theo could imagine being a friend of his at university. Otto wasn’t Gestapo, and although he may well be a member of the Nazi Party, he didn’t strike Theo as a fanatical supporter at all. During the plans for the coup in 1938, Theo had had to approach a number of men in important positions to sound out support. He had been surprised how even long-term Party members had listened to him favourably.

Otto was worth a try.

‘I don’t think you should approach the duke,’ Theo said.

‘Why not?’ said Otto. ‘Surely if he became king again and presided over peace talks with Germany, it would be good for us.’

‘It would be good for Hitler,’ Theo said.

‘Of course it would,’ Otto agreed. Then he frowned. ‘Are you suggesting what I think you are suggesting?’

‘What’s good for Hitler is not necessarily good for Germany,’ Theo said. ‘Or Europe.’

‘But we would win the war, Theo! That’s certainly good for Germany.’

‘Is it?’ said Theo.

Otto stared at Theo. He nodded slowly to himself. ‘Yes, Theo, it is. And to suggest otherwise is treachery against the Fatherland.’

‘I don’t believe it is,’ said Theo.

‘Well, I do,’ said Otto. ‘I don’t agree with everything Hitler does or says, but he has made Germany a great country again, and as a German I am proud of that.’

With a heavy heart, Theo realized he had misjudged Otto Langebrück.

‘Look, Theo, I like you,’ Otto went on. ‘I’m not a member of the Gestapo, and I won’t tell them what you have just said to me. But I will go and speak to the Duke of Windsor and persuade him to return to England. There will be thirty million francs held for him in Switzerland and we will promise that him becoming king and Wallis queen will be a precondition of peace talks no matter what the British government says. With those assurances and Lord Oakford’s invitation, he will return to England. And you won’t stop him.’

Otto turned to leave the cave.

Theo had retrieved his pistol from the false bottom of his suitcase, which he had left at the station. Now he pulled it out of his jacket. ‘Otto?’

Otto turned. His expression changed when he saw the gun. His eyes opened wide in fear. ‘Theo? No, Theo.’

Up until that point in his life, Theo had never killed anyone, although he had seen Conrad do it a couple of times. He believed killing people was wrong and should be avoided at all costs. And if he was going to kill someone, he would much rather it was a Gestapo officer than someone like Otto.

But the time had come. He pulled the trigger. Twice.

The bullets hit Otto Langebrück in the chest and he crumpled to the ground. The noise was deafening in the cave, but Theo hoped it would be muffled by the surf outside before it reached the ears of the walkers on the beach. He searched Otto’s neck for a pulse to confirm he was dead, and then dragged him into a dark corner of the small cave and shoved him into a crevice. The body didn’t fit completely, and he might well be spotted by a tourist closely examining the inside of the cave. But Theo hoped that wouldn’t happen for a few hours, or at least until after high tide.

Shaking, and feeling slightly sick, he left the cave, clambered along the rock to the sand, and headed back up to the beach road and the café.

There he ordered a cup of coffee and waited for Lord Oakford. He hoped to God he wouldn’t have to do again what he had just done. But he feared he would.

Veronica made good time on the drive from Bordeaux to Biarritz. She and Conrad had arrived in Bordeaux late the night before, but had somehow found a room in a pension. They had slept in the same bed; there was no choice. Early that morning they had driven up to Le Verdon, a port at the mouth of the Gironde. It was clogged with ships, one of which Conrad hoped would take him back to England.

Veronica had dropped Conrad and headed south. This far from Paris, the roads were navigable, and she reached the Atlantic resort by teatime. Biarritz was the kind of place that served tea for its many English visitors.

It took Veronica no time to confirm that the duke and duchess were staying at the Hôtel du Palais. At the reception desk Veronica demanded to see the duke, introducing herself as the daughter-in-law of Lord Oakford. The message came back that she should wait, which was what she had expected. She lit a cigarette, and observed the clientele. It was surprising how many English people had chosen to take a holiday in France in the middle of a war which was going so badly. Good room rates, Veronica supposed.

A man sat down opposite her. ‘Theo!’

‘Actually, my name is Petar Šalić,’ said Theo. ‘I’m a Yugoslav businessman looking for my wife who is trying to flee France.’

‘Are you now? Well, I’m very pleased to meet you. You’re the spitting image of a friend of my ex-husband.’

‘Do you know where Lord Oakford is?’ Theo asked.

Veronica glanced at Theo. ‘Perhaps we should go for a little walk?’

They wandered through the hotel to a door leading out into gardens overlooking the Atlantic and the beaches. It was a lovely afternoon; the sun had lost some of its midday strength and the breeze from the sea brought the smell of salt and the sound of surf into the garden.

‘Well?’ said Theo.

‘You know who is staying here?’ said Veronica.

‘I do,’ said Theo. ‘The Duke of Windsor. Lord Oakford is on his way to Biarritz to persuade him to go back to England to take the throne. And I am here to stop him.’

Veronica pulled out a fresh cigarette. Theo lit it, shielding the flame from the sea breeze. Should Veronica trust Theo? Conrad did. He had been dead right about the invasion date when they had met in that café in Holland. This was no time to be cautious; Veronica decided to trust her instinct. And her instinct was to trust Theo.

‘Lord Oakford is dead. He died on the road somewhere south of Tours. You are right: he was on his way here to get the duke to Britain.’

‘How did he die?’

‘Shot by mistake by a lunatic Englishwoman.’

‘Constance Scott-Dunton?’

‘That’s her. She’s dead too. Shot by a perfectly sane French lady.’

Theo paused to think through what he had just heard. ‘Where’s Conrad?’

‘I hope he is on a boat from Bordeaux to England to warn the government that Henry Alston plans to overthrow them.’

‘And you? What are you doing here.’

‘My plan is to try to persuade the duke not to go to England.’

‘How are you going to do that?’

Veronica told him her idea.

Theo listened, nodding. ‘Not bad. But I think we need something more. Something to do with Wallis.’

Ten minutes later, Veronica returned to the hotel lobby. A hotel flunkey of medium rank, under-manager or something, was searching for her in a state of mild agitation. He showed her up to a suite on the third floor, opened the door and announced her.

Although Veronica had met the duke two or three times in the past, he was more recognizable from the newsreels. Short, with a slender figure, thick golden hair and a small upturned nose, he was in Veronica’s estimation pretty rather than handsome. His wife looked thin, tired and grumpy.

But the duke stood up and gave Veronica one of his charming smiles. Veronica curtsied.

‘We’ve met, haven’t we?’ the duke said. ‘You’re Isobel Haldeman’s sister?’

‘That’s right, sir,’ said Veronica. ‘I stayed with my sister only three nights ago.’

‘What a shambles,’ said the duke. ‘I’m glad I’m out of Paris. I felt in the circumstances I should be with Wallis. Would you like some tea?’

He poured Veronica a cup from the tray on a coffee table. The sitting room of the suite was large with a view over the Atlantic waves. Wallis was embroidering something and ignored Veronica entirely. She did not seem happy.

‘I believe you were expecting a visit from Lord Oakford, my father-in-law?’ Veronica said.

At this, Wallis looked up.

‘Yes, I was,’ said the duke, carefully.

‘I’m afraid he can’t make the journey himself, so he sent me instead.’

‘Oh, yes? And does he have a message for me?’

‘He does,’ said Veronica. ‘He says there is no need for you to return to England, sir.’

The duke glanced at his wife. They were both frowning. ‘That’s odd,’ said the duke. ‘I would have thought that given the current circumstances in London, Oakford would be recommending I fly over there at once.’

Veronica shook her head. ‘No need, he says. He was quite firm about that.’

‘Did he say why not?’

‘Not to me, he didn’t. Sorry. Can’t help.’

‘Strange,’ said the duke.

‘Surely you must have some idea?’ said the duchess witheringly.

‘None at all,’ said Veronica, summoning all her confident ignorance. Then she stood up and looked out at the ocean. ‘Sir? Would you mind showing me your balcony?’

Another glance between the duke and his wife. It was a pretty unsubtle way of demanding to speak to the duke out of Wallis’s presence, but it worked.

The duke opened the windows and he and Veronica stepped out on to the balcony. She was horrified to see that it overlooked the garden where she and Theo had just been talking.

Veronica leaned on the railing, with the duke next to her. They stared out over the beach and the Bay of Biscay. The surf created enough noise to drown out their conversation from the woman waiting inside.

‘Your Royal Highness,’ Veronica said, ‘I have a personal message to add to that of my father-in-law. You may not be aware of this, but there are some misguided men in London who want you to return to England and become king again. They hope to lead a government which will make peace with Germany and become a strong ally of Hitler.’

‘Really?’ said the duke.

‘There is another group of men, senior figures of the aristocracy and their sons, twelve good Englishmen in all, who have sworn to shoot your wife, should you do that.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘You won’t know who they are. They are the kind of men who find themselves close to the king and queen, if the duchess were to become queen. There is nowhere in England she would be safe. Probably not in France. Perhaps if she were to shut herself up in a Schloss in Germany she would be protected. But that wouldn’t be much fun, would it? Your wife locked up in a castle, while you sat on a throne alone?’

The duke looked shocked. And angry. ‘Who do you think you are, threatening me like that? Get out! Get out now!’

‘Of course, Your Royal Highness,’ said Veronica, dipping a quick curtsy as she returned inside. She curtsied again to the duchess and scampered out of the room.

She hurried out of the hotel to her car, or rather her sister’s car. She had lied comprehensively to the Duke of Windsor from beginning to end, and she thought she had done it rather well, with some help from Theo. Now for some honesty: she had promised to return the Cadillac to her sister. No point in hanging around; it would be nice if she could get to Paris before the Germans.

As she turned the car around in the street, she saw the good-looking Yugoslav businessman sitting outside a café opposite. He raised his hat to her, and she gave him a little wave.

Then she drove north out of town.

54

Extract from Lieutenant Dieter von Hertenberg’s Diary

26 May

We have penetrated the old ring of fortifications around Calais and are in the town. The British won’t last much longer.

General Kleist arrived, but this time he congratulated our efforts. First time I have seen him since he bawled out Guderian. He acknowledged me and we had a friendly conversation, but I can’t forgive him for the way he treated my commander.

At last the halt order is rescinded and we are allowed to attack Dunkirk.

Calais, 26 May

Colonel Rydal ducked as the first Stuka peeled away from its formation and dived. The scream was chilling, but the British soldiers had learned that the Stuka’s bark was worse than its bite. Hell came and went amid a deafening cacophony of sirens and explosions, but providing you were in cover, you were nearly always all right. It was the sniper watching your position who was more likely to pick you off the instant the Junkers 87s had flown off.

They were in Bastion No. 1, just to the north of the elegant Gare Maritime, which was now crawling with German infantry. The bastion was part of the sixteenth-century fortifications of Calais, which could hold out against the English siege cannon of the time, but not modern German artillery. Or tanks, for that matter.

After nearly nine months of patient preparation, action had come thick and fast. The battalion had been sent from Suffolk to Southampton and then across the Channel to Calais, where they were ordered to cover the possible withdrawal of the British Expeditionary Force. It was pretty clear to Rydal when his orders were explained to him that it was unlikely he or any of his men would be returning to England. They seemed to be going in rather the opposite direction to everybody else, but he knew his men would do their duty.

And they had. They had fought bravely and well for three days, but they couldn’t last much longer. Across the harbour, Rydal could barely see through the dust and smoke to the medieval citadel where Brigadier Nicholson was holed up. Between the two positions were German infantry and tanks. Nicholson had refused to surrender, on the basis that every hour they could hold out was an hour longer other soldiers could be evacuated from Dunkirk, just to the north. Soldiers who could defend Britain from invasion.

A shell thudded into the breastwork just below them.

‘There’s another tank in range, sir.’ It was Lieutenant Dodds, who had acquitted himself well in battle so far. ‘Have a look, sir.’

Rydal peered over the parapet. There was indeed a German panzer squatting in the street belching fire at their position. And another. And another. Rydal had abandoned the last of his anti-tank guns in the Gare Maritime. There was nothing he or his men could do apart from wait to be pummelled into submission.

A bullet whistled past his ear and struck stone behind him. The German infantry were getting closer all the time.

‘I could take some men and try to disable it, sir,’ said Dodds. ‘Those houses to the left are still unoccupied.’

Rydal swept his binoculars towards the street Dodds pointed to. He could see grey figures crouching and running barely fifty yards away from them.

‘They would be occupied by the time you got there.’

Colonel Rydal scanned the devastated town. The Germans on three sides were closing in. There were Germans above him and the sea behind. There was nowhere to run. It was time.

‘Mills, get me Brigade,’ Rydal said to the wireless operator. He would inform the brigadier that he was about to surrender. He wondered who among his officers spoke German. De Lancey. He could have used de Lancey these last three days.

‘Mr Dodds, organize a white flag.’

The look of disappointment, almost shame, on Lieutenant Dodds’s face as he looked at his CO touched Rydal. ‘Yes, sir,’ he said.

Dodds pulled himself to his feet.

And a bullet ripped out the back of his head.

55

Extract from Lieutenant Dieter von Hertenberg’s Diary

27 May

Calais taken yesterday with thousands of prisoners of all nationalities.

Moved north to attack Dunkirk, but given another order to hold off. Why? It’s a mystery. We could see a mass of ships off the coast — not just Royal Navy warships, but also little civilian boats. They are taking the British Army off the beaches. It is so frustrating! Unless we do something now, they will get away!

Who knows how many British soldiers have escaped?

Pall Mall, London, 27 May

The Civil Servant was waiting in Alston’s favourite corner in the club library. He looked uncharacteristically flustered.

‘I don’t have long, I must be back in Downing Street in half an hour,’ he said.

‘What’s happening?’ Alston asked.

‘Halifax has taken the gloves off. He is arguing for sending peace feelers out through the Italians. He’s also asking the Italians what it will take to keep them out of the war. He’s pushing hard in the War Cabinet.’

‘And how is Winston taking it?’

‘He’s pushing back. Chamberlain is supporting Churchill for now.’ Chamberlain was important. Although Chamberlain’s reputation with the general public was low, the Conservative Party still respected him; most of them regretted ditching him for Churchill. ‘Halifax is threatening to threaten to resign.’

‘Threatening to threaten?’ said Alston.

‘You know what I mean,’ said the Civil Servant. ‘Halifax will never take the direct route when an indirect route is possible. But he means it.’

‘Excellent!’ said Alston. Churchill would not survive a minute without Halifax’s support.

‘The two of them are talking in the Downing Street garden as we speak. And there’s something else.’

‘Yes?’

‘Churchill is going to ask Chamberlain if he objects to Lloyd George joining the government.’

‘Lloyd George will refuse,’ said Alston. He had discussed timing with the old fox; Lloyd George had no intention of being co-opted into a failing government. Halifax had lost his nerve. Chamberlain had lost the country’s confidence. Hoare was ambassador in Spain. There were no other major politicians in British politics. Apart from Lloyd George. They would have to turn to him for Prime Minister, and Alston would be right there with the old man.

‘Now, I must be going,’ said the Civil Servant.

‘Thank you for keeping me so well informed,’ said Alston.

He sat alone in his leather armchair in the library, thinking. Tomorrow or perhaps the day after, Churchill would fall. The twenty-ninth would be the day to act. But where was the Duke of Windsor?

Alston hadn’t heard from Lord Oakford, or from his travelling companion Constance, since they had left Paris four days earlier. Alston’s sources at the Foreign Office had told him that the duke had arrived in Biarritz. Perhaps something had happened to Oakford and Constance on their journey across France? A delay? An accident?

He hated the idea of something happening to Constance. He depended on her so much for things his wife couldn’t give him, or his political friends for that matter. When his triumph came, he wanted to share it with her. He wasn’t quite sure how that would work, but there had been prime ministers with mistresses before.

The thought excited him.

There was the duke to think about. It would be much better for Oakford to persuade him face-to-face that he should return to England, but if Oakford hadn’t made it, then Alston would have to risk a telegram.

He shifted to a writing desk in the library and composed something brief and unambiguous.

Wiltshire

It had been a long, long voyage from Bordeaux, and it wasn’t over yet. Conrad had managed to get a place on a cargo ship from Durban which had diverted to Bordeaux to pick up passengers. The ship had room for sixty passengers, but there were at least three hundred on board. Conrad found himself a few square feet of deck on which to lie.

The journey had taken thirty-six hours. The ship had dumped its passengers in Falmouth, before continuing its scheduled voyage to Liverpool. From Falmouth, Conrad had had to fight for a place on a train to Exeter, and then on to London.

He had had plenty of time to think. About his father, most of all. How was he going to tell his mother what had happened? She was a brave woman, but Millie’s death had hit her hard. And of course he would have to tell her his own part in his father’s death. He hoped she wouldn’t blame him; she knew Lord Oakford and his pig-headed determination to achieve peace at any costs better than anyone else.

And his father had been foolish, typically foolish. He was living proof that a pacifist could be brave; he had been willing to sacrifice his life for what he believed in. Indeed willing to dare his son to shoot him. What kind of father was he?

A courageous, stupid, fanatical, bad-tempered, principled, treacherous father. That’s what kind.

How could Conrad live with a dead father like that?

How could he live without him?

Of course, as Veronica had pointed out, Conrad was now the new Viscount Oakford. Conrad didn’t want the bloody title. It was his father’s. Or Edward’s. As far as Conrad was concerned, even bloody Reggie could have it; he’d love to be lord-of-the-bloody-manor. Conrad just wanted his family back.

He had hastily discussed with Madame de Salignac what to do with his father’s body. She had suggested burying him in the local village churchyard. Conrad had agreed, but on condition that Constance Scott-Dunton was buried somewhere else, anywhere else, just not next to his father. He imagined taking his mother there after the war. What he couldn’t imagine was what kind of country France, or Britain for that matter, would be when the war eventually ended, and whether that would be in several years’ time or just a couple of weeks.

He remembered Veronica urging him to shoot his father. He could forgive her that: she understood why he was hesitating and was urging him to do what she believed was the right thing. He wasn’t sure about her working for McCaigue, although he believed that she had been duped by the major. He wondered whether she would be successful persuading the Duke of Windsor to stay in France. A tall order, but Conrad had learned never to underestimate his wife.

He had grabbed a copy of The Times at Exeter station. Rumours that the Allies had surrendered Calais were false. The French were counter-attacking near Amiens. Back in England, pig clubs would come to the aid of small rearers in time of war and housewives were advised to move kitchen cabinets nearer to the stove to save labour.

Conrad wondered whether his battalion was still twiddling its thumbs in Suffolk, or whether it had been ordered to France as Colonel Rydal had anticipated. Perhaps they were fighting the Germans at last. If so, it sounded as if they would be lucky to get back to England in one piece. He should be with them.

And what of Anneliese? How would she be taking captivity? Conrad had hoped that McCaigue would get her out of prison. Much more likely, he was keeping her inside.

He missed her. He felt a sudden, almost overwhelming desire to hold her. To talk to her. To stroke her hair.

But now he was on a train jolting and juddering its way towards London, he couldn’t think about his mother, or Anneliese, or even returning to his unit. Somehow he had to convince the British government that it was in imminent danger. But whom could he talk to?

Not McCaigue, obviously. Van almost certainly wouldn’t listen to him and would alert McCaigue. His mother, perhaps. She knew people, but she was back in Somerset. It would take too long. Also she was German and therefore bound to raise doubts.

What of his father’s friends? Many of them were powerful people. But Conrad had no idea which, if any of them, were involved in Lord Oakford’s plotting. Or which were also friends of Sir Henry Alston.

There was his father’s old school chum Lord Halifax. Conrad had met him on a number of occasions, and he was sure Halifax would remember him. He was also as convinced as he could be of his integrity and loyalty.

But not his initiative. Halifax was an expert at doing nothing.

There was one man who might listen to him, and if he believed Conrad, who would definitely act. He had listened to Conrad once two years earlier. The trouble was, he would be hard to reach, especially in these times.

But he was Conrad’s only hope.

56

Extract from Lieutenant Dieter von Hertenberg’s Diary

28 May

Fighting near Dunkirk. We can see hundreds of British ships evacuating troops, thousands of troops. If only we hadn’t been forced to halt, we would have bagged the lot of them!

Later given the order that we are to be relieved by XIV Corps. Guderian is to be given his own Panzer Group, which of course he deserves. It will be good to stop fighting for a few days, but we can’t sleep yet. Our new Panzer Group headquarters is 200 kilometres away. Maybe once we get there we can have a few days’ rest. We all need it.

Eighteen days since the offensive started. Who would have thought that eighteen days could be so vital? We have achieved more in those eighteen days than the German army achieved in four years in the last war.

Maybe peace will come now.

Downing Street, London, 28 May

Winston Churchill listened to Duff Cooper, the Minister of Information, argue the case for honesty about the latest news from the continent. It was dire. That morning the King of the Belgians had surrendered. Calais had fallen the day before, Boulogne the day before that; 11,400 men of the BEF had been evacuated from Dunkirk so far, leaving behind a quarter of a million more waiting. The French wanted to discuss peace with Germany. They were defeated and they knew it.

Over the weekend the Chiefs of Staff had circulated a dispiriting paper entitled ‘British Strategy in a Certain Eventuality’, that eventuality being the fall of France. The report concluded that if the Germans won complete air superiority, there would be little the Royal Navy could do to prevent invasion.

But Britain wasn’t defeated. Not yet. Not according to Churchill.

Churchill was presiding over the War Cabinet, the small group of five men who ran the war day-to-day: himself, Lord Halifax, Neville Chamberlain and the two Labour ministers Arthur Greenwood and Clement Attlee. While the discussions focused on the details of the war, the unspoken question hung in the air. At what point should Britain admit defeat?

The question had become very close to being spoken the day before, when Lord Halifax had argued that the British should open discussions with the Italians. Afterwards, in the Downing Street garden, Halifax had threatened to resign and Churchill had been forced to apologize and beg him not to. Churchill could not allow the government to be seen to be split on the issue of peace and war.

The Prime Minister studied the adversary sitting opposite him. Halifax had a long, lugubrious face of high-minded seriousness. He prided himself, with justification, on his pragmatism, on his rational mind, on his ability to weigh pros and cons dispassionately. Britain was losing the war and Halifax felt that the War Cabinet should discuss what to do about it.

The trouble was that Halifax had no imagination and no sense of history, both of which Churchill knew he had in spades. Instinct told him, history told him, that at this vital moment it would be fatal to show any sign of weakness. Britain was an island that had not been invaded for a thousand years; it had a glorious history of defending freedom; it had a parliamentary democracy that was the admiration of countries everywhere; it had the greatest empire the world had ever seen. All that was the work of centuries; Churchill would not give it up without a fight.

But he couldn’t defend it single-handedly either. He needed the support of the War Cabinet, of the Conservative Party and of the British people. And he was weak. He had only been Prime Minister for eighteen days, and in those eighteen days the Allied armies had been routed. No one blamed him directly. But Halifax’s quiet appeal to hard-headed pragmatism in a dire situation was difficult for Churchill to counter.

Conrad perused The Times as he waited in an ante-room in 10 Downing Street. He was interested to see no mention of Calais that day, apart from a tiny piece stating that French sources in Paris claimed the town was still probably in Allied hands. It was half past eleven; Conrad had been waiting since ten. His demand that he must meet the Prime Minister with urgent news from France had met with scepticism, but when he had identified himself as Lord Oakford’s son, he was at least admitted.

A Civil Servant approached him.

‘I understand you wish to see the Prime Minister, Mr de Lancey?’

‘Yes. I have some urgent news from France.’

‘As you can imagine, the Prime Minister is very busy today. Perhaps you could tell me and I can pass it on?’

‘No. I must see him myself.’

‘I’m afraid that won’t be possible.’

Conrad had been expecting this. ‘Just tell Mr Churchill I’m here to see him and he can decide if he wants to meet me. Remind him that I saw him at Chartwell two years ago with an important message from Germany.’ That had been that the German officers were planning to overthrow their Führer. ‘Tell him this message is even more vital.’

‘I will tell the Prime Minister and we will be in touch with you,’ said the Civil Servant. ‘Can you give me details of where we can reach you?’

‘I can wait here,’ said Conrad. ‘The Prime Minister really needs to hear this as soon as possible.’

‘I am sorry, Mr de Lancey, you will have to leave.’ The Civil Servant glanced at a moustachioed policeman at the door of the ante-room.

Conrad argued for a few minutes longer, but it was clear he was getting nowhere. In the end the policeman escorted him firmly but politely to the door and out into the street.

Conrad stared desperately at the door of Number 10. ‘I have to tell him. I have to tell him somehow,’ he said to the policeman, because he was the only person there. ‘The future of the war depends on it.’

The constable, who was a large, comfortable man in his fifties, examined Conrad. ‘I shouldn’t say this, sir, but the Prime Minister often lunches at the Admiralty. You might catch him there later on.’

Halifax bided his time. The War Cabinet broke up with Churchill promising to make a statement in the House of Commons preparing them for bad news from France. They agreed to meet again at four that afternoon, when Churchill was sure Halifax would make his move.

Churchill pulled Neville Chamberlain to one side and asked him if he would agree to inviting Lloyd George into the cabinet. The ostensible reason was to strengthen government unity. Lloyd George was known to be defeatist; he had spoken of Hitler in admiring terms in the past, had been opposed to the war and had argued for peace intermittently since its outbreak. But if the worst came to the worst, Churchill preferred the idea of his old political partner Lloyd George taking over from him than someone like Oswald Mosley.

The success of Vidkun Quisling in usurping the Norwegian government in April had shaken Churchill and was one of the reasons why he had sanctioned locking up Mosley and Maule Ramsay. But they could always be let out of prison again once Churchill had gone.

Neville agreed to Lloyd George. Churchill then went off to lunch at the Admiralty to work on his speech to the House. He was still lodging there, having allowed Neville and his family to stay on at 10 Downing Street.

The food, and especially the wine, fortified him and, clutching a newly lit cigar, he left the Admiralty for Parliament in slightly better spirits.

‘Prime Minister! Prime Minister! May I have a word?’

Churchill glanced at the young man trying to attract his attention. He recognized him. ‘Mr de Lancey?’

‘That’s right, sir,’ said Conrad. ‘I must speak to you.’

Churchill grinned. ‘If I stopped and talked to everyone who wanted to speak to me, I’d never get anywhere.’

‘What I have to say is more important than the message I gave you at Chartwell two years ago.’

Churchill frowned. He was intrigued. He had liked de Lancey. They had talked then not only about his German friends’ plans to remove Hitler, but about history and about bricklaying. Those days, which had seemed so dark at the time, now seemed a period of tranquil unemployment. How he would love to be working on his kitchen-garden wall at Chartwell and chatting to this young man!

‘What is it, de Lancey?’

‘We need to talk privately, sir.’

‘I’m afraid that’s impossible,’ said Churchill. ‘I’m on my way to speak in the House.’

‘I have become aware of a plan to replace you as prime minister,’ Conrad said. ‘My father was involved, I am ashamed to say.’

‘Your father!’ Churchill was surprised. Although Lord Oakford’s pacifism, even defeatism, was well known, Churchill had always held him in high regard. ‘Who else?’

He noticed de Lancey glance to see who was within earshot. Just Churchill’s detective and a uniformed policeman. ‘Henry Alston. And the Duke of Windsor.’

Churchill considered the young man in front of him. Could he be speaking the truth? He had done so at Chartwell in the summer of 1938. Churchill’s instinct was that he was doing so now. The duke was a worry, and Churchill had never trusted Alston.

‘See me in the House of Commons this afternoon.’

Churchill made his speech and then met the War Cabinet at four o’clock in a room in the Commons. Halifax went on the offensive immediately. He opened proceedings by stating that Vansittart had learned that the Italian government was prepared to act as mediator between Britain and Germany. The question was now firmly on the table. Should Britain discuss peace with Germany?

Halifax’s logic was persuasive. There could be no harm in seeing what terms would be acceptable to the Germans. And Britain would achieve much better terms before France was knocked out of the war and Britain’s aircraft factories had been bombed than after.

Persuasive, but wrong. Churchill made the point that once negotiations had been opened with Germany it would be impossible to back away from them and still maintain the defiance necessary to win the war. Nations that go down fighting rise again, but those that surrender are merely finished. Besides, Churchill believed the chances of Germany offering decent terms were a thousand to one against.

The War Cabinet wasn’t swayed one way or the other. Churchill adjourned the meeting to speak to the wider Cabinet, saying that the War Cabinet would reconvene at seven.

The Outer Cabinet met in Churchill’s rooms in the Commons, without the presence of the other War Cabinet members, including Halifax. It had become common practice for one or other of the members of the War Cabinet to brief the rest of the government on what was going on, but Churchill insisted on doing this particular briefing himself. The Outer Cabinet consisted of twenty-nine ministers, half Conservatives from Chamberlain’s government, half new men.

Churchill gave it his all. He said that it would be foolish not to consider discussing peace with Hitler, but that the peace terms would probably be harsh, involving giving up the fleet and naval bases. Britain would become a slave state and a puppet government would be set up by Hitler under Mosley or some such person. He concluded by saying that of course, whatever happened at Dunkirk, the British would fight on.

He had thrown in the last remark as a casual observation, but it was the key question. Would the British government fight on?

They would. Quite a few rushed up and patted him on the back. There wasn’t a voice of dissent.

Churchill was buoyed by their support, but he knew it would count for nothing if Halifax succeeded in pushing for peace in the War Cabinet. Everyone respected the towering figure of the Foreign Secretary, even Churchill himself. Unless he could win Halifax round, the war was lost.

So Churchill would find a way of winning him round.

Conrad watched Churchill’s speech to the Commons from the Strangers’ Gallery. It was grave. Belgium had surrendered. Things were clearly going badly in France, although the Prime Minister wasn’t specific about exactly what, promising instead to speak to the House at the beginning of the following week. He warned of ‘hard and heavy tidings’.

The House listened intently, and there were brief speeches of support from a Labour and a Liberal MP, but none from any Conservatives. Conrad wondered if that was a bad sign. The Conservatives were in a majority and it was they who would dump Churchill if he was going to be dumped.

Conrad picked out Sir Henry Alston’s disfigured face on the benches behind the Prime Minister. The scarring made it difficult to read the MP’s expression at distance, but Conrad was confident that it would show nothing more than outward loyalty and sincerity. Conrad was half hoping he would see either Lloyd George or Alston speak, but of course that was not part of the plan. They were waiting for their moment.

Churchill hurried from the chamber and Conrad left also. He made his way to the Prime Minister’s room in the Commons and told a clerk there that Mr Churchill had asked to see him. Then he waited in the corridor. At one point he saw the Civil Servant striding rapidly towards him. Conrad bent and tied his shoelace. Fortunately, the Civil Servant was too preoccupied to recognize him.

A string of Cabinet ministers filed past him in glum silence. A short time later they emerged from Churchill’s room chatting to each other. There was a buzz of barely suppressed excitement. Whatever the Prime Minister had said to them, he had said it well.

‘Mr de Lancey. The Prime Minister will see you now.’

Conrad entered the Prime Minister’s spacious room where he was shown to a sofa. Churchill occupied an armchair next to him and lit a cigar. He looked worried. He jabbed his cigar at Conrad.

‘You have ten minutes, Mr de Lancey. Tell me more about this threat.’

So Conrad told him. About Sir Henry Alston and his plan to subvert the British government to concede its country’s independence to Hitler, without the British people even realizing what was happening. About how Lloyd George would become Prime Minister and the Duke of Windsor would become king. About powerful figures in the press, the army, the civil service and Parliament who would support this new government. About a Major McCaigue in the secret service who was in Alston’s pocket. About how Conrad’s own father had been sent to France to fetch the Duke of Windsor and had died on the way in murky circumstances.

Churchill puffed at his cigar thoughtfully. ‘It’s exactly what I fear most,’ he said. ‘A coup by stealth rather than by fascist mobs on the street.’ The cigar glowed. ‘What proof do you have that Lloyd George and the Duke of Windsor are involved?’

‘No direct proof. Just what I have told you.’

‘Do you know whether they are knowing accomplices? Or are they compliant dupes?’

‘I have no idea, sir,’ said Conrad. ‘My impression is that Alston keeps his plans very close to his chest. He likes to manipulate people if he can, rather than tell them openly what he is about.’

Churchill grunted. He stared at Conrad for a full minute.

‘Wait here, de Lancey,’ said Churchill. ‘I would like you to repeat all this to the Foreign Secretary. You have no reason to think that he is involved?’

‘None,’ said de Lancey.

Churchill summoned Lord Halifax. Within a couple of minutes the lean frame of the Foreign Secretary appeared at the door. He was six feet eight inches tall, very thin, with a left hand that took the form of a black clenched fist with a thumb on a spring. A birth defect, not a war wound. Despite the hand, Lord Halifax was a good shot, as Conrad had witnessed once on a grouse moor in Yorkshire.

His eyebrows shot up when he saw Conrad.

‘Do you know Mr de Lancey, Edward?’ said Churchill.

‘Indeed I do,’ said Halifax.

‘He has something to tell you,’ said Churchill.

Halifax frowned. ‘We don’t have much time, Prime Minister.’

‘I know that, Edward. But listen to him. Just for ten minutes. Listen to him.’

Conrad repeated to the Foreign Secretary what he had told the Prime Minister. Halifax listened closely, his face registering ever-deepening shock. Afterwards he asked more or less the same questions as Churchill had.

‘I find this very hard to believe,’ he said, when Conrad had finished.

‘Do you?’ said Conrad.

The lines in Halifax’s long face deepened. ‘Maybe not,’ he said. He stood up and went to the window, which overlooked the Thames. He spoke with his back to Conrad. ‘I find your father’s actions particularly disappointing. I know him… I knew him well, most of his life. We were at Eton together.’

‘I know,’ said Conrad.

‘I’m sorry about what happened to him. I would have said he was a good man, a great man.’

‘Except for this,’ said Conrad.

‘Yes,’ said Halifax. ‘You know we might lose this war, de Lancey?’

‘Yes,’ said Conrad. ‘But isn’t it better to lose it on the battlefield or in the Channel or in the air than in the back corridors of Westminster?’

‘That’s what the Prime Minister thinks,’ said Halifax. He shook his head. ‘What they are up to is treason pure and simple. I cannot be part of it.’

‘No, sir,’ said Conrad.

The War Cabinet met again at seven o’clock. Churchill told them of the enthusiastic reaction of the Outer Cabinet to his proposal to fight on. He reiterated that he was not in favour of making an approach to Germany at the present time.

He turned to his Foreign Secretary. Lord Halifax looked thoughtful. But he said nothing.

The conversation turned to whether and how to make an appeal to the United States.

It was decided. Britain would fight on.

Conrad stood in the square and turned back to look up at the Houses of Parliament, the place where his father had spent so much of his time over the previous ten years, and, if France fell, the one place where democracy would live on in Europe. Conrad had done all he could — he had persuaded Churchill and he had persuaded Halifax. It was up to them to deal with Alston and his co-conspirators and to fight the war to its end.

Conrad knew there was a good chance that the end might mean defeat for Britain. But after all the turmoil and confusion of the previous year, the prevarications of the phoney war, the loss of his sister and his father, and the imprisonment of Anneliese, there was one thing of which he was certain: it was a war that had to be fought and he had to fight it.

Hôtel du Palais, Biarritz

‘Dave, what did that Veronica woman say to you, when you were outside on the balcony?’

The Duke of Windsor glanced at his wife, who was trying on earrings for dinner. They were in the bedroom of their suite. She had made a point of not asking him about Veronica de Lancey, but she couldn’t resist any longer.

‘Oh, it was nothing, darling,’ said the duke.

That didn’t satisfy her. He should have known it wouldn’t. ‘It can’t have been nothing! Did you see how fast she bolted?’

The duke sighed. Time for a little lie. ‘You know how these young women can be? You would think that now we are married and with you actually sitting inside, she would have known better. It’s extraordinary! So I sent her away with a flea in her ear.’

Wallis’s eyes flicked up from the mirror. The duke knew she was considering whether Veronica de Lancey might be a ‘good friend’ from the old days. But she wasn’t, and Wallis knew it. She let it drop.

The duke left the bedroom and moved through to the sitting room. He lit his pipe and went out on to the balcony to watch the sea. He fished out the cable he had received from Sir Henry Alston in London the night before and quickly reread it.

Then he struck a match and lit the corner of the telegram, letting the ashes scatter in the soft Atlantic breeze.