Authors: Michael Ridpath
She had been in England for over a year, but things weren’t the same between them. Things were, well, difficult. But Conrad wasn’t one to give up.
‘Oh, Conrad. This is a surprise. I didn’t know you were in London,’ she said in German.
He bent down to kiss her, and she turned her cheek, in a gesture that could have meant she was offering it to him, or withdrawing it from him.
‘I’ve been abroad,’ he said. ‘And I’m... um... going again. I thought I would drop in and see you before I went.’
‘Ah.’
‘Can I take you out for a drink?’
Anneliese glanced at her parents, Conrad’s allies. She smiled quickly. ‘Yes. That would be nice. Shall we go now?’
It was about half a mile to the Royal Oak. As they walked through the pitch-dark streets to Finchley Road – or ‘Finchley Strasse’, as the bus conductors had taken to calling it following the recent influx of German-speaking inhabitants – Anneliese seemed to warm. She talked about her job at St George’s; she had only been there three weeks. Despite all the preparations for a flood of air-raid casualties, the hospital was filled with the victims of traffic accidents as a result of the blackout.
A warm fug of chatter and beer enveloped them as they went through to the saloon bar, and Conrad ordered drinks.
‘So where are you going?’ Anneliese said, in English this time. Her English had improved dramatically over the last year; although she had a distinct German accent, it was nowhere near as strong as it had been when she had arrived in London the previous October. It wasn’t a good idea to speak German in public places. ‘Or I suppose it is a secret?’
Conrad glanced at the stern poster from the Ministry of Information urging patrons ‘not to discuss anything that might be of national importance, the consequence of which might be loss of many lives’. True enough, of course. But he had trusted Anneliese before in a much more dangerous place than North London, with more dangerous secrets. He did, however, glance around to make sure there was no one in earshot. The saloon bar was half full, and it wasn’t possible for the two middle-aged men closest to them to hear their murmured words above the hubbub of the pub.
‘It sounds as if Theo’s friends are about to make a move again.’
Anneliese’s eyebrows shot up. ‘Really! Are you going to see him?’
‘I hope so. I don’t know. There’s been some... trouble. I need to find out what he knows about it.’
A look of concern crossed her face. ‘You’re not going to Germany, are you?’
‘No.’ Conrad shook his head. ‘Don’t worry.’
‘I am worried,’ said Anneliese. ‘Be careful, Conrad. Please be careful.’ She bit her bottom lip, in a gesture Conrad knew so well.
‘I will.’ Conrad smiled. Although he couldn’t admit it, he was pleased to see her sudden concern for him. And she was perfectly right to be concerned. It was only just over twenty-four hours since he had had a German pistol pressed against his temple.
‘Good.’ Anneliese smiled quickly. Closed her eyes. Opened them again. ‘Conrad?’
‘Yes?’
‘There is something I must tell you.’
‘What is it?’ Conrad had a feeling this wasn’t going to be good.
‘I am planning to go to New York. We are planning to go to New York. The three of us.’
‘New York?’ Conrad said. ‘You can’t do that! Can you get the papers?’
‘I’m working on it. It’s difficult, but I think I can. Father has a cousin over there, and he is prepared to help.’
Conrad could feel disappointment welling up inside him – worse than disappointment: desperation. ‘Please stay,’ he said.
‘We need to make a new life. I mean really new. Somewhere far away. It’s ridiculous that my father cannot work here.’
‘But once the war really gets going, they will need him, whatever the damned BMA says.’
‘Perhaps.’ Anneliese looked down at her drink. And then straight at him. Her eyes were dull. ‘But I need to go. I need to go somewhere new.’
Conrad reached across the table and took her hand. ‘I know I’ve asked you before. But please marry me.’
Anneliese shook her head. ‘I can’t. I told you I can’t.’
‘But why not? I love you. You love me.’ Conrad hesitated. ‘I think. I know you used to love me.’
Anneliese nodded. She squeezed Conrad’s hand. ‘I know I did. But I am a different person now. I have been trying to tell you that for the last year, but you won’t hear it. Sachsenhausen changed me. I’m sorry, I wish I was the same woman I used to be, but I am not. I’m different.’ She let go of his hand. Took a deep breath. ‘I need to start again. Somewhere else. Somewhere away from you.’
‘I can’t accept that,’ Conrad said. In Berlin they had made love several times a day. But then Anneliese had spent six weeks in solitary confinement in first Sachsenhausen and then Lichtenburg Castle. It was true: after that she
had
been different. She hadn’t let Conrad touch her beyond the occasional gentle kiss. She had joined her parents in London and, with a dull determination, had set herself to survive. She had refused all Conrad’s offers of financial help.
Conrad had returned to England from Germany soon after her. He had been patient. He had been understanding. Or at least he had tried to understand, but he hadn’t quite managed it. He knew she was hurt, deeply damaged, but he didn’t know exactly how, and she seemed unable to tell him.
The night before he had been due to leave for Sandhurst, he had asked her to marry him. She had said no. She hadn’t really explained why. He had been disappointed, but he hadn’t given up. He had seen her during weekend leave, either in North London or occasionally taking her out to a restaurant or club in the West End. He had even brought her down to Somerset twice to see his own family. They had had some good times; she had smiled, told him she was enjoying herself. They had even kissed. But there was always a barrier. He had been willing to wait, confident that the barrier would eventually melt away and reveal the old Anneliese.
Even now, a year later, he still didn’t understand her. All he knew was that she wanted to leave him.
‘You have to accept it, Conrad,’ Anneliese said. She had switched to German, which soon attracted the attention of the two men at the next table. ‘We shouldn’t see each other anymore.’
‘No, I don’t accept it.’
A tear leaked out of the corner of her eye.
She pushed back her chair and rose to her feet. ‘Goodbye, Conrad,’ she said, bending to kiss his cheek, and then she was gone.
Conrad stared after her. ‘
Leb wohl,
’ Conrad repeated.
She hadn’t said ‘
Auf Wiedersehen
’, or ‘when we meet again’.
He had lost her.
The Ritz, Paris
Fruity Metcalfe sloped into the lobby of the Ritz and headed straight for the bar. He had had a perfectly bloody day and he needed a drink. Several drinks.
He liked the bar at the Ritz. It was always lively. Although a lot of English soldiers thought that the French officers’ uniforms looked a bit effete, they certainly added colour. As did their women. Throw in a few Americans and one or two Englishmen, plus Fruity the Irishman, and you had quite an atmosphere.
‘
Un Johnny Walker avec soda, Marcel,
’ Fruity said to the barman while taking possession of a free stool. ‘
Un grand, s’il vous plaît.
’
Fruity sipped his drink with pleasure. A bloody day.
There had been trouble at the mission at Vincennes. Fruity had expected to help the duke draw up his report for the Wombat on their visit to the French lines, but the duke had rebuffed him. Which offended Fruity. Fruity had been a first-rate officer in his time, and it was important to convey accurately what they had seen, especially along the Meuse on the border with Luxembourg and Belgium. Frankly, there was a bloody great hole there that the Germans could stroll through any time they liked, once they had penetrated the forests of the Ardennes. The French troops were mostly reservists: fat, untrained and unfit. The anti-tank defences were pathetic: positioned in the wrong place, in plain view; and in many cases the anti-tank traps and the barbed wire were on top of each other, which meant they could be knocked out simultaneously by well-placed artillery fire. General Huntziger, Commander of the 2
nd
Army, oozed complacency. The French 9
th
Army, just to the west of the 2
nd
, commanded by the obese Corap, was only a little better.
All this, Fruity and the duke had discussed. And frankly, Fruity wanted to have a part in writing it down. He wanted to be doing a soldier’s work in this phoney war.
Instead of being a bloody tourist. A tourist who had to pay for himself. Because the other thing Fruity had learned that day was that no one was going to pay him for what he was doing. The War Office had refused his demand for payment, telling him he was not in France in an official capacity, and the duke had changed the subject when Fruity had raised it. He was so damned mean! Mean about bills, mean about paying his staff. Mean about everything apart from Wallis. One of her Fulco di Verdura brooches would keep Fruity going for the duration.
Not for the first time, the Little Man was taking advantage of Fruity.
He ordered another whisky.
It was not as if Fruity had a private income. His wife did, but a chap needed to pay his own way. He loathed being beholden to Baba. She was loaded. She was the daughter of Lord Curzon, the grandest Indian viceroy, but her real wealth came from a settlement from her mother, an American department-store heiress.
He hated leaving her alone in London. Not just because he missed her – which he did, very much – but also because he had no idea whom she was seeing. He just hoped it wasn’t Tom Mosley again. He was sure he didn’t know who all his wife’s lovers were, but he knew enough of them, and Tom Mosley was the most serious. She had started writing about weekends with Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary and another former viceroy. He was about as high-minded as they came, so she ought to be safe with him, although you never knew with Baba.
Fruity needed another whisky. And he needed to take his mind off his woes. He spotted a sociable American he had had a drink with the week before, and called out to him. ‘Let me get you one, old man. What will you have?’
At least the duke was paying his bloody hotel bill.
Kensington Square, London
‘A glass of sherry, Conrad?’
After all he had been through in the last twenty-four hours, Venlo and then his conversation with Anneliese, Conrad felt like something stronger, but he accepted his father’s offer.
Lord Oakford was pleased to see his son. Conrad was relieved that he wasn’t in one of his frequent black moods. He poured Conrad a glass from a decanter with his one remaining arm, and then a glass for himself.
‘I’m sorry I’m so late for dinner,’ Conrad said. ‘Thanks for waiting for me. I wanted to see Anneliese.’
‘Oh, how is she?’ said Oakford.
I don’t know how she is, thought Conrad. I don’t understand her! Why can’t she just agree to marry me? Why does she have to run away to New York? Why won’t she see me again? What’s wrong with her? Doesn’t she know I love her? Doesn’t she know I’ll do anything for her?
‘Oh, you know,’ he said.
Oakford looked at him sharply. Conrad stared into his sherry glass.
‘I heard about Venlo,’ Oakford said.
‘I wondered,’ said Conrad. He had scanned
The Times
that afternoon in the club. As well as a description of the Munich beer hall bomb, it had reported a confused incident at ‘Venloo’ involving kidnapped Dutchmen. Clearly his father knew the real story.
‘I knew you were going.’
‘I thought you might.’ Conrad sipped his sherry.
‘Why didn’t you drop in and see me before you went?’
‘It was all fixed up rather quickly,’ Conrad said. ‘One moment I was at Tidworth, the next I was in Whitehall, and before I knew it I was in an aeroplane bound for Holland.’
‘What happened?’
Conrad hesitated and then decided to tell his father everything. For three years in the early 1930s Lord Oakford had been a minister in the National Government. He was a close friend of Van and Lord Halifax, and he had helped Conrad arrange the visit of emissaries from the German conspirators to Britain the year before. He knew secrets.
Oakford listened with interest. ‘A shambles,’ he said when Conrad had finished.
‘My thought exactly,’ said Conrad.
‘So the Germans have nabbed our agents. Presumably the Gestapo will interrogate them? Will they talk, I wonder?’
‘One has to assume they will,’ said Conrad. ‘Do you know a Major McCaigue? He debriefed me with Van.’
‘I’ve met him once or twice. A good man. Works for the SIS, the Secret Intelligence Service. They’re under a lot of pressure at the moment. They have a reputation for being all-seeing, but they didn’t spot the Nazi–Soviet pact coming, and this is a very public balls-up. On top of all that, their chief died last week, and they haven’t picked a successor yet. Did you contact Theo? Van said you were going to try.’
‘Yes,’ said Conrad. ‘He said he didn’t know whether Schämmel was genuine and he was going to check. I never found out his answer.’
‘Did you discuss peace terms with him?’ Oakford asked. He was trying to make the question sound casual, but Conrad could feel the quickening of his attention.
Conrad pretended not to notice. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Does he think there is still a chance of a coup?’
‘They are planning one,’ Conrad said. ‘To coincide with an offensive in the Low Countries.’
‘Interesting. Soon?’
‘In the next few days. The fifteenth to be precise. But Theo didn’t seem certain either would happen.’
‘I’ve always thought it was a mistake to rely on the generals,’ said Oakford.
‘I’m going back to Holland to see him tomorrow,’ Conrad said. ‘Van sent me. He wants me to confirm Schämmel was bait and find out if Payne Best and Stevens have talked.’
‘Oh, really?’ said Oakford, raising his eyebrows.
Conrad sensed there was something a little odd about his father’s reaction, but before he could pursue it, the door opened and a tall girl with dark hair bounded in.