Shadows of War (21 page)

So who was this Conrad de Lancey? What was Hertenberg up to? And what did it have to do with Heydrich?

De Lancey could be a spy being run by the Abwehr. Or Hertenberg could be a spy being run by the British secret service. Admiral Canaris might know. Given the involvement of Schalke, Heydrich might know. Asking Heydrich would be stupid. Dropping a casual word to Canaris while riding with him in the Tiergarten might elicit an interesting answer. But then Heydrich would find out that Schellenberg had been asking questions and that might turn out to be stupid too.

Schellenberg needed more information. Following the seizure of the British agents, a number of his officers had been assigned to Holland. One of them should keep a quiet eye on Hertenberg.

Whitehall, London

Still furious with his father and Theo, Conrad left Kensington Square to report to Van at the Foreign Office. His brain was in turmoil as he waited in an ante-room for the Chief Diplomatic Adviser. The reality of Millie’s death was pressing in on him, grief piercing through the anger, slowly at first, but more insistently with every minute.

When Mrs Dougherty eventually told him Van was ready to see him, it took a supreme effort of will to focus on his report. He expanded on his cryptic phone call from Amsterdam describing what Theo had told him about Captain Schämmel and the Venlo affair. Then he explained why he had gone to Paris. About Theo and Bedaux. And about the Duke of Windsor.

Van’s concern was obvious. Concern tinged with anger, not at Conrad but at the former king. But not as much surprise as Conrad would have expected.

‘I need hardly tell you that what you have outlined to me now is highly sensitive,’ Van had said. ‘Please do not repeat it to anyone. Clearly an allegation that a member of the royal family is a traitor is extremely serious. I can assure you that we will investigate it thoroughly, but until then, it’s just a suspicion. Leave it with me. And thank you.’

Conrad stood up to leave. ‘By the way, de Lancey,’ Van said, his voice uncharacteristically soft. ‘I heard about your sister’s murder yesterday morning. I am sorry. I met her on a couple of occasions: a lovely girl. Please accept my condolences for you and for your family, especially Lady Oakford.’ His voice hardened. ‘But tell your father to restrain himself with these independent peace initiatives. They cause all kinds of diplomatic mayhem. And after what happened at Venlo, and what befell your poor sister, it appears they are extremely dangerous.’

‘I quite agree, Sir Robert,’ said Conrad. ‘But my father ceased to listen to me on those matters long ago.’

‘We think we know who killed her,’ Van said.

Conrad looked at him sharply. ‘Who?’

‘I received a report from our intelligence services an hour ago, which sheds some light on it, although it also casts doubt on your information about the duke. Apparently her companion Mrs Scott-Dunton followed your sister into the sand dunes and found Millie’s body. As she was running for help, she saw someone whom she recognized leaving the dunes.’

‘And who was that?’ asked Conrad. But as he asked the question, he knew the answer.

‘Your friend in the Abwehr,’ said Van, his face grave. ‘Theo von Hertenberg.’

South Kensington, London, 19 November

The couple of days following his return from Paris had been extremely painful for Conrad. While the war was still very much ‘phoney’ for everyone he saw in the street, and for his unit back in Tidworth, it seemed to have already blown his family apart. Millie’s death struck Conrad and each of his parents hard in a series of repeating blows interspersed with brief periods of unreal calm. Lord Oakford was suffering from guilt, and so he should be. But then so too was Conrad.

The rational part of his brain knew than he had been correct to ignore his father’s requests to contact Theo, that standing up to Hitler was important. But if he had just done what his father had asked, Millie would still be alive. It wasn’t as if Lord Oakford had asked him to negotiate with the Nazi government. Theo represented people who were as opposed to the Nazis as Conrad himself.

Conrad didn’t know what to make of Van’s assertion that Theo was the most likely person to have killed Millie. He couldn’t accept it; he didn’t want to accept it. The whole point about Theo, what bound him and Conrad so tightly in such difficult circumstances, was that each believed that people were more important than nations or ideologies. Killing his friend’s sister would be the repudiation of what they both believed; in a world increasingly full of betrayals, it would be the ultimate betrayal.

But Theo had always been hard to read. There were several different Theos at Oxford: the idealist certainly, the intellectual, but also the womanizer, the drinker, and the arrogant Prussian. More recently there had been Theo the spy.

Theo the spy was especially hard to read. Conrad had no idea why Theo could possibly want to kill Millie, but he knew from first-hand experience the subtle complexities of the German intelligence services where the Gestapo and the Abwehr performed a lethal dance of bluff and counter-bluff and where it was impossible to be sure – to be absolutely sure – on whose side anyone was on.

Including Theo.

All right, Conrad admitted to himself, he didn’t
want
to believe Theo had killed his sister: there must be some other explanation, and he must find it. He needed to speak to Constance Scott-Dunton and find out what she knew and how sure she was of her identification.

From his club, Conrad sent a message to her via Sir Henry Alston’s office at Gurney Kroheim asking her to meet him as soon as she returned to England. He heard from her the following morning, suggesting that they meet at the Russian Tea Rooms in South Kensington.

He arrived there first, at about half past three. It was a cosy place, with wood panels and a roaring fire. He found a table and ordered some tea. A copy of a magazine named
Truth
lay on the table next to his. He picked it up and leafed through it. There was a particularly unpleasant article about how influential Jews in Britain, including the publisher Victor Gollancz and a bevy of bankers, had pressed Britain to come to the aid of their brethren in Berlin and declare war on Germany. Another criticized Hore-Belisha, the War Minister, for his previous business failures and his support for ‘co-religionists’.

Conrad tossed the magazine to one side. Seeing views like this not only written but read by his own countrymen made him profoundly sick. He had seen first hand in Germany how anti-Semitic words could become anti-Semitic actions, and how even a cultured society could succumb to hatred and paranoia. Why couldn’t people in England realize that as well as the threat from the continent, there was also the threat from within their own society from poisoners who wrote articles like that?

He looked around the room. The café was half full with respectable people respectably dressed. There was a foreign-looking gentleman with a white beard reading a newspaper in the corner. Then there was a middle-aged man with a beaked nose above a trim moustache drinking tea with a couple of women. Conrad thought he recognized the man: Captain Maule Ramsay, a Scottish Conservative MP noted for his anti-Semitic speeches. What kind of place was this that Mrs Scott-Dunton had brought him to?

‘You must be Millie’s brother. You look just like her.’

Conrad pulled himself to his feet and took the hand of a dark woman with pale skin and shining eyes.

‘I’m Constance. Hello.’

‘Hello,’ said Conrad. ‘Can I get you some—’

But Constance had already indicated to the waitress, whom she seemed to know, that she wanted some tea.

‘I’m so sorry about your sister,’ Constance said, taking the chair opposite Conrad. ‘I didn’t know her before we went to Holland together, but we got along famously while we were there. She was a lovely girl. It was dreadful what happened to her.’

‘Yes, it was,’ said Conrad. But it seemed to him that Constance herself looked more excited than shocked.

‘She was very fond of you. She spoke of you a lot,’ said Constance.

Conrad was pleased to hear that. ‘I was fond of her,’ he said. ‘When did you get back?’

‘Yesterday evening. They flew me back – the Foreign Office, that is. I’ve had all sorts of interviews with mysterious Dutchmen, and Englishmen for that matter.’

‘Thank you for seeing me,’ said Conrad.

‘Not at all,’ said Constance. Her tea arrived in a Russian-style glass.

‘Do you mind if I ask you what happened?’ Conrad said.

‘No, carry on. Everyone else has,’ said Constance. ‘As your father probably told you, he and Sir Henry Alston sent us over there on a confidential mission.’

‘Father did say,’ Conrad said. ‘You met Lieutenant von Hertenberg?’

‘Yes, that’s right. Millie said he’s a friend of yours from Oxford. A charming man. Or at least he seemed so at the time.’

‘Theo is charming,’ said Conrad dryly. The man and the two women Conrad had spotted earlier left the tea rooms. One of the women nodded to Constance. ‘Do you know, is that Captain Maule Ramsay?’ Conrad asked.

‘Yes, it is. And that’s his wife; they often come here. The other woman is Anna Wolkoff, the daughter of the owner.’

‘I see,’ said Conrad. ‘Sorry, go on.’

‘Yes. Well, we spoke to Theo a couple of times, including the day before Millie was killed. We were staying in Scheveningen, by the sea.’

‘I know it,’ said Conrad. ‘We went there on holiday as children.’

‘Millie said. Anyway, that night Theo saw me and asked me to tell Millie to meet him early the following morning. He said she had to go alone and I shouldn’t come with her. He wanted her to meet someone – he didn’t say who.’

Constance sipped her tea.

‘So the next morning I got up at the crack of dawn, actually it was before the crack of dawn, to follow Millie. She came out of the hotel and headed off towards the sand dunes. I kept a discreet distance behind her. The sand dunes were quite bumpy, being sand dunes, so I couldn’t see her very clearly. Then I heard a short sharp cry. Well, I was worried. I wasn’t sure whether to run towards her or away from her – it was still pretty dark. But I thought I had better take a look. And I found her on the ground with... with a knife sticking out of her chest.’

Constance looked down at her tea as she said this. Her face was grim. Then she glanced up to check Conrad’s reaction. For a moment his mind conjured up an image of Millie lying in the sand, but it was too horrible to think about.

‘Did you see anyone?’

‘Not straight away. Nor did I hear anything. I ran over to see if she was all right, but...’ Constance lowered her eyes again. ‘She wasn’t. She was... dead.’

Conrad sighed. Silence lay heavily around them, shrouding thoughts of Millie.

‘I’m sorry,’ Constance said.

‘But then you saw Theo?’

‘Yes. When I went looking for help. He was heading towards the tram stop.’

‘Did you call out to him?’

‘No, of course not! He was quite far away. But more importantly, I thought he had stabbed Millie. I didn’t want him to kill me too! So I ran along to one of the hotels on the sea front and got them to ring the police.’

This didn’t look good. ‘Are you sure it was Theo? You say he was quite far away.’

‘Pretty sure. He was tall, wearing the same kind of hat as Theo, and he walked upright like Theo does.’

‘But you didn’t see his face?’

‘Not clearly,’ Constance admitted. ‘I told the police that. And the men from the Foreign Office.’

‘So you are not absolutely sure? It could have been someone else?’

‘I suppose it could have been. But it looked like Theo to me.’ Constance smiled sympathetically. ‘I’m sorry, I know he is a friend of yours. Or was.’

Is, thought Conrad. Is. There
was
some doubt about Theo’s identification after all. ‘You have no idea whom Theo was bringing with him?’

‘No. None.’

‘Why didn’t Theo want you to come too?’

Constance hesitated. ‘I don’t know. I thought maybe...’

‘Maybe what?’

‘Your sister was sweet on Theo. Didn’t you know that?’

Bloody hell, thought Conrad. ‘No. I didn’t know that. Are you saying it was some kind of... assignation?’

‘I don’t know,’ said Constance. ‘It was just a feeling, that’s all. A guess. Perhaps Theo really did bring someone else along for Millie to meet.’

‘The secret service seem to think that Theo killed her.’

‘I know,’ said Constance.

‘But you can’t be certain that you actually saw him, let alone saw him stab her?’

‘I’m pretty sure it was him,’ Constance said. ‘And he is a German spy, isn’t he?’

Conrad nodded. ‘Well, thanks for telling me,’ he said. Then a thought struck him. ‘Why did you follow her?’

‘Why?’ Constance repeated.

‘Why?’

‘I’m curious. I’ve always been known for my nosiness. I wanted to know whether Theo really had brought someone to meet Millie, or if they were just, you know, meeting. An assignation. Also I suppose I didn’t like being left out.’

‘I see,’ said Conrad. But he wasn’t quite sure that he
did
see.

Mayfair, London

Conrad grabbed the pint of beer and the glass of gin and It and fought his way through the small pub in Mayfair to where Anneliese was sitting in a corner. He had known the place in the past as a quiet pub where they might talk, but there were no quiet pubs in London in wartime, even on a Sunday evening. At least they had been able to find a seat.

Anneliese raised her glass. ‘To Millie,’ she said.

Conrad smiled. ‘Yes. To Millie.’ They both drank.

‘I needed that.’ Anneliese put down her drink. Conrad had introduced her to gin and Italian vermouth soon after she had arrived in London and asked for something English from the bar. Afterwards he had realized it was a favourite of Veronica’s, but he hadn’t told Anneliese that. She was wearing her nurse’s uniform: the pub was full of uniforms of various types, although Conrad was still in his civilian suit.

‘I’m glad you rang me,’ he said.

‘Your mother wrote to me about Millie and I was shocked. I wrote her a note back and then I thought I must see you. I know how fond you were of your sister. I liked her; she always treated me well.’