Authors: Michael Ridpath
‘And my part in this will be kept quiet, I trust?’ the professor said.
‘Naturally. Although I will make sure that when our two countries become closer, your loyalty to the Party will be remembered.’
Professor Hogendoorn giggled unnecessarily. ‘They won’t be here for another two hours. With all the comings and goings, no one will be surprised if the porter doesn’t remember seeing you leave, and a new man will come on duty at lunchtime. Probably best if you don’t go until after that. I’ll come up and fetch you about two o’clock.’
Neuser shifted some tea chests around near the entrance to the attic, and created a little nest for himself, from where he should be able to hear any conversation. He had been selected for the task because he spoke English, although his command of that language was not very strong and he was hoping that Hertenberg and de Lancey would speak in German.
He pulled out his weapon and fixed a silencer. He distrusted silencers, they were never really silent and they hampered accuracy. But it was unlikely that even if the students and professors below heard two muffled shots they would identify them as such. And accuracy shouldn’t be a problem at a range of two metres.
Neuser turned off the light, made himself comfortable and waited in the gloom.
Conrad strode rapidly from the station at Leiden to the Rapenburg Canal. He hoped the cynical Dutch detective was right about the evidence against Theo being fabricated. But who would do that and why? Conrad knew, because he had seen it, that although Holland was neutral, Dutch military intelligence had contact with their British counterparts. Maybe they were just trying to smooth over a tricky diplomatic incident. Or maybe they knew who really had killed Millie and were trying to cover it up. Why would they do that? Did Van know what had really happened? Did his father?
But Conrad knew he should guard against being complacent. There was still a chance that Van was correct, and that Theo had stabbed Millie, in which case there was also a chance, a good chance, that he might try to kill Conrad too. Conrad would just have to take that risk and keep his wits about him. Second-guessing the spies would never give Conrad the answers he needed; he had to speak to Theo face to face to do that. Only by knowing for sure whether Theo had killed his sister could he begin to make any sense of this damned war and his place in it.
Conrad slowed as he approached the Academy building and strolled past the gates, before turning abruptly and looking behind him. He didn’t think he was being followed, but he couldn’t really be certain. He hadn’t spotted any middle-aged men in raincoats and hats on his tail, but the place was buzzing with students on bicycles and he couldn’t keep track of all of them.
Theo would probably have some scheme planned to shake a tail. Perhaps another walk in the Botanical Gardens.
But this time Professor Hogendoorn led Conrad up a spiral staircase within the Academy building itself. ‘I thought this would be a good safe place for your conversation,’ said the professor as he opened a heavy door at the top of the stairs. ‘I’ll leave you to it.’
Conrad pushed open the door to reveal Theo waiting for him, standing alone in the middle of a large attic. A thin shaft of sunlight from one of the windows brushed his pale face.
He was unarmed, as far as Conrad could see.
‘Hello, Conrad,’ Theo said in English.
Conrad ignored the greeting. ‘Millie’s dead,’ he said in German.
‘I know,’ said Theo. ‘And I’m sorry for you.’
Conrad let the words hang there for a moment.
‘Did you kill her? Dutch intelligence thinks you killed her.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ Theo said. ‘Why do they think that?’
‘Constance Scott-Dunton says she saw someone who looked like you walking away from where she found Millie’s body. And then a walker saw you coming out of the dunes wiping blood off your hands.’ Even as he said it, Conrad was reminded of van Gils’s line about Shakespeare. But he couldn’t just choose to agree with van Gils’s claim that Theo was innocent. He needed to know.
‘That’s crazy. You can’t believe that, surely? That I would kill Millie?’
‘Prove to me you didn’t.’
‘I didn’t leave my hotel until about nine when I went straight to Schiphol to fly back to Germany.’
‘So you never asked Millie to meet you in the dunes that morning?’
‘Who said I did?’
‘Constance.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Can you prove it?’
‘Of course I can’t prove it, Conrad! You have to take my word for it. There is too much going on now for you not to trust me. We’ve been through so much together, we can’t afford not to trust each other. Besides...’
‘Besides what?’
‘I could never kill Millie. I... I liked her. I liked her a lot.’
Conrad studied Theo. His friend. ‘All right. But tell me why.’
‘Why is she dead? I don’t know.’
‘Why were you seeing her? Why didn’t you tell me you were going to see her? Why did you allow her to be caught up in my father’s stupid schemes? Why did you use her? Why didn’t you look after her, for God’s sake?’
Theo put his finger to his lips, and it was only then that Conrad realized he had raised his voice.
‘I owe you an explanation,’ said Theo.
‘You certainly do.’
Theo pulled out a cigarette from his case and lit it. The tip glowed in the gloom. Then he told Conrad about how he and Millie had met in Switzerland in the spring, and how they had arranged to meet again in Scheveningen, using the same Danish intermediary as Theo had used with Conrad.
‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this?’ Conrad protested. ‘You saw me at the same time. Was it the same day?’
‘The day after. And I didn’t tell you because Millie asked me not to. She said you wouldn’t approve of what she and your father were doing. Knowing you, that didn’t surprise me.’
‘But didn’t you consider you were betraying me?’
‘I didn’t like doing what I was doing, but it wasn’t up to me. If the coup had gone ahead, then the new German government would have needed a channel to speak to the British government right away.’
‘Was there ever really going to be a coup? And what happened to that offensive you told me about? Germany and Holland should have been at war for a week by now.’
‘The offensive was called off. Bad weather. And so was the coup. Cowardice on the part of the generals.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Conrad said.
‘I’m telling you the truth, Conrad,’ Theo said, weariness touching his voice. ‘You deserve that. Whether you believe me or not is entirely up to you.’
‘So what happened to Millie? Who killed her?’
‘I don’t know.’ Theo paused. ‘I had seen her that afternoon, in Scheveningen. It had come to my attention that it wasn’t only me that she was seeing in Holland. She also met a man called Otto Langebrück.’
‘Who is he?’
‘He’s a crony of Ribbentrop. Used to live in Paris. He’s clever and he’s a Nazi.’
‘Why was she seeing him?’
‘She, and her little friend Constance, were negotiating with Ribbentrop as well. Or in other words with Hitler.’
Conrad glared at Theo. He could feel the fury building up within him, and it was all he could do to prevent it from erupting. It wasn’t just Theo who was betraying him, it was his father, and for that matter Millie. They were all talking to Hitler’s regime. And it was his father’s fault. His father, the supposedly sophisticated ex-government minister, had been a fool – an utter, total, complete fool! ‘No wonder they didn’t want to tell me where they were going!’
‘If it makes any difference, I think it was Constance who was responsible for talking to Langebrück. Constance and Sir Henry Alston.’
‘But my father knew all about it, didn’t he?’ Conrad said.
Theo shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I assume so.’
Conrad’s mind was whirling. He wanted to slug Theo. And then he wanted to fly back to England and slug his father too. But this might be his only opportunity to speak to Theo about his sister’s death and he wanted to make the most of it.
‘Do you think Langebrück might have killed Millie? Or was it the Gestapo?’
‘Possibly,’ said Theo. ‘But I don’t know why they would. It could be the British secret service.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ Conrad protested. ‘Why would they do that?’
‘I don’t know. To stop Lord Oakford’s discussions with the enemy?’
Theo was suggesting that his father was a traitor and that his own country would murder his sister. It was outrageous. But possibly true. It would explain why the secret service would manufacture a witness to place Theo in the sand dunes. Conrad was convinced now that van Gils was right to doubt their evidence. But that was about all Conrad was convinced of.
Theo could sense Conrad’s distress. ‘I repeat, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I was fond of Millie, very fond of her.’ Theo swallowed. ‘I’m sorry I let her die; I don’t know how it happened. I’d like to know.’
‘The Dutch police think Constance killed her,’ said Conrad. ‘Or at least the man in charge of their investigation thinks so. Millie was stabbed with a knife taken from the kitchens of their hotel. He thinks Constance was the most likely person to have taken it.’
‘Have they arrested her?’
‘Oh, no. Dutch military intelligence sent her back to Britain. Remember they claimed
you
killed her, whatever the policeman in charge of the investigation thinks.’
‘But why would Constance want to kill Millie?’
‘The police inspector has no idea. He suggested that Constance might have been jealous of the relationship between you and Millie.’
‘It’s not that,’ said Theo.
Conrad was about to question Theo’s denial, but he kept quiet. Theo seemed distracted, as though he was thinking, weighing something up.
There was silence in the attic. The two men were still standing several feet apart, but for the first time Conrad felt closer to Theo, to his friend. He waited.
Eventually Theo spoke. ‘In that letter you wrote to me at the beginning of the war, you reminded me how at Oxford we swore we wouldn’t let anyone make us fight each other as they had made our parents fight last time. How we owed our allegiance to the human race, not to our country. How it seemed so simple then.’
Conrad nodded. He remembered. ‘Algy.’
Algernon Pemberton was the man who had inhabited Conrad’s rooms in 1914 and died at Ypres in 1915. His name was on a wooden plaque on the wall; Conrad and Theo had talked about the doomed undergraduate many times.
‘Then it turned out not to be so simple for either of us,’ Theo went on. ‘You decided to fight for socialism, or at least against Fascism, in Spain. I became involved in trying to rid my country of a madman. You helped me. And now I am fighting for my country and you for yours.’
Conrad wanted to interrupt, to point out that he was fighting as much against Hitler as for Britain, but he kept quiet. He knew what Theo was saying was important to him, and he didn’t want to interrupt his flow.
‘Well, you would think that as a German officer fighting for my country, I would want my country to win this war. But I’m not sure I do. If Germany smashes France, Hitler’s control of power will be total. The only people left who can stand up to Hitler are the generals, and if they achieve a great victory in France, they won’t do it. You can see how success in Poland has gone to their heads. If Hitler maintains his control of Germany, that will be disastrous. A thousand years of darkness.
‘So, as a good German, as a good German officer, as one of those von Hertenbergs who has served his country for generations, I do not want a successful blitzkrieg in the west. Can you understand that?’
‘I can understand that,’ said Conrad.
‘Good,’ said Theo. ‘That’s why I told Millie something when I saw her in Scheveningen. That’s why I told you about Bedaux. Did you look in to him?’
‘I went to Paris. I discovered he has been talking to the Duke of Windsor. I discovered the duke has been inspecting the French lines. I guessed that Bedaux has been telling you about it.’
Theo smiled. ‘Well done. Did you tell your government?’
‘I did,’ said Conrad.
‘Did they listen?’
‘I think so. I’m not sure. The Duke of Windsor is a tricky subject.’
‘All right, then. Let me tell you some more. The duke is no fool, it turns out, at least when it comes to military matters. He has identified a significant weakness in the French line, in the Ardennes around Sedan. He has also made clear that the most powerful French forces have been earmarked to push northwards into north-west Belgium when we invade, which we will do, by the way. Now the German general staff knows these weaknesses, they will be able to alter their plans to take advantage of them.’
‘Bedaux told you all this?’
‘He did. Also...’ Theo hesitated. Conrad waited. ‘Also there are people in the Nazi Party who believe that the Duke of Windsor would make an excellent leader of a British government that was sympathetic to Germany. That he is a man that Germany could do business with.’
‘People? What kind of people?’
‘Ribbentrop. Hitler.’
‘I see. And do you know what the duke thinks about this?’
‘That’s a good question,’ Theo said. ‘The truth is we don’t. According to Ribbentrop, the duchess would like it and the duke does whatever his wife wants. But Ribbentrop is not nearly as astute a judge of the British as he thinks he is. Do
you
know?’
‘No idea,’ said Conrad. ‘Frankly, it’s hard to believe that a man who was king only a couple of years ago would behave in the way you have described.’
‘Believe it,’ said Theo. ‘And tell your government.’
‘I will,’ said Conrad. He swallowed. The information Theo had just given him would shatter the people who ruled Britain. Van would have to take notice. The government would. So would the present king, George. It seemed so fantastic, could it possibly be true?
Conrad now realized why Theo had taken the time to explain why he was telling him about the duke. To convince him that he was speaking the truth. And Conrad was convinced.
‘Good,’ said Theo. ‘Now you had better be going. You leave first. Don’t look for the professor, just go straight down the stairs and out of the building. I will wait and follow you.’