Authors: Michael Ridpath
‘Did she believe you?’
‘She did. But then a Russian woman sat with us. Her name was Anna Wolkoff; she is the daughter of the owner. She asked me right away if I was Jewish; she claimed I looked Jewish. She said that she had become an expert in Russia at identifying Jews.’
Anneliese didn’t look particularly Jewish to Conrad, but then he had never set himself up as an expert on racial matters. ‘What did you say?’
‘I said my father was an atheist who was racially Jewish, but my mother was Christian and so was I. I told them I hated my father for running away from our country, and I wanted to return to Germany, but my parents insisted I work in London to pay for their keep. I was planning to return anyway, if the German authorities would let me back in, when the war broke out.’
Conrad raised his eyebrows. Like all good lies, the story had an element of truth to it, but knowing Anneliese, she must have found it painful to publicly denounce her father, for whom she had done so much.
‘I know,’ said Anneliese, noticing Conrad’s reaction. ‘I didn’t like it. But I almost convinced Anna and I definitely convinced Marjorie. So I decided to have another go. I returned to the Tea Rooms last night, and this time I met Constance Scott-Dunton.’
‘What did you think of her?’
‘You are right, she is queer. I mean, she is lively and friendly, but she has such intense dark eyes, they unsettle me. She seemed to like my stories of modern Berlin. Then Anna Wolkoff arrived again, with a good-looking American man named Kent, I think. She was clearly still suspicious of me.’
‘I assume Constance didn’t tell you about her trip to Holland?’ Conrad asked. Even Anneliese couldn’t get that out of a stranger on first meeting.
‘No. But I did talk to her about Henry Alston and Captain Maule Ramsay. I had read back copies of the newspapers in the Golders Green Library with my father to learn something about their backgrounds. It turns out that Marjorie is the niece of a good friend of Alston, and that she introduced Constance to him. Constance seems to think that Alston is a great man. It was almost as if she was in love with him, although he has a terribly damaged face, doesn’t he?’
‘He does,’ said Conrad. ‘Attacked by a lion in Africa, I believe. He’s clever; my father has always had a great deal of respect for him. They are both directors of Gurney Kroheim.’
‘From what Constance says, Alston is a strong supporter of Germany. As is the other one, Captain Maule Ramsay, although he is much more blatant about it. I said how pleased I was to hear that some British politicians had sensible views.’ Anneliese shuddered. ‘I think she likes me.’
‘The policeman I met in The Hague thinks she might have murdered Millie.’
‘Really?’ Anneliese eyes opened wide. ‘Does he have proof?’
‘Some. Not enough. The knife that was used to stab Millie was taken from the kitchen of the hotel she and Constance were staying in. Also, it appears Constance lied to Millie about Theo wanting to meet her in the sand dunes. And the policeman thinks she lied to him about seeing Theo leaving the scene of the murder.’
‘Sounds pretty clear evidence to me,’ said Anneliese. ‘Why didn’t he arrest her?’
‘He was told to send her back to England. Dutch intelligence are convinced Theo killed her. Or at least that’s what they say.’
‘Did the policeman have any idea why she would want to kill Millie?’
‘No. And that’s the key question. Perhaps you can find out?’
‘Perhaps I can.’ Anneliese frowned. ‘It’s strange to see Nazis again. Oh, I know they might not strictly speaking be Nazis, but it reminded me of the attitude of so many Germans. It’s odd how a hatred of the Jews seems to nourish people like that. It’s almost as if they thrive on it; they feed off hatred to sustain their political views, give them some shape.’
‘I’m sorry you had to pretend to think like them,’ said Conrad.
‘That’s all right,’ said Anneliese. ‘I mean, it is a vile way to think, or even to pretend to think, but it feels good to be able to do something to stop those people. It’s better standing up to them, even claiming to be one of them, than denying that they exist or that they matter.’
‘You don’t have to see them again if you can’t face it,’ said Conrad.
‘You want to find out what happened to Millie and you think Constance knows?’
‘That’s right,’ said Conrad.
‘Well, in that case I will get her to tell me. It might take a while, but she will trust me eventually.’
‘Thank you,’ said Conrad, smiling. ‘Here – take some money. You might need it if you are hanging around there trying to make friends.’ He pulled a couple of notes out of his wallet.
Anneliese hesitated but she took the money. She didn’t have any, Conrad was right that she would need some, and there was no point in pretending otherwise.
‘And thank you for whatever you said to my mother,’ Conrad said. ‘She was in a bad way. You have cheered her up.’
‘I like her,’ said Anneliese. ‘And I do feel so sorry for her.’ She got to her feet. ‘Now, I must be going back to Hampstead.’ She said it firmly, as if she didn’t want to be contradicted.
Conrad was tempted to contradict her. He would much rather take Anneliese to the cinema and have supper with her somewhere than face his own family. She seemed different this evening, different than she had seemed for months, really since she had arrived in England. But perhaps his father was right. Conrad didn’t want to risk breaking her new-found confidence. He should back off, and wait for her to come to him when she was ready.
So he let her go.
The Tiergarten, Berlin, 24 November
Admiral Canaris rode in the Tiergarten almost every morning, sometimes alone, sometimes with his fellow Abwehr officers, and sometimes, like that morning, with SS Sturmbannführer Walter Schellenberg.
The two men knew each other well. Like Heydrich, they lived in the wooded Schlachtensee suburb of Berlin, and they had met socially through the Gestapo chief. As effective head of the new foreign-intelligence branch of the Gestapo, Schellenberg was a rival. Although at that point much smaller than the Abwehr, Canaris knew Schellenberg’s nascent organization was bound to grow rapidly given the ambitions of his bosses Heydrich and Himmler. But rather than make an enemy of his rival, Canaris treated the younger, junior officer as a friend, something Schellenberg appreciated.
The Tiergarten had originally been preserved as a hunting forest, and in parts of its wooded heart, in the cold foggy murk of a November dawn, it still felt like one. Except one stumbled across occasional statues of dead composers rather than the odd hind or stag. Here one could think, away from the hubbub of Berlin traffic or War Ministry gossip. Here one could talk.
‘Walter, one of my top agents had an unpleasant experience in Holland yesterday morning.’
‘Really?’
‘Yes. He’s an Englishman. Actually he is half-German. Conrad de Lancey. Do you know of him?’
‘I’ve seen his file,’ said Schellenberg. ‘There wasn’t much in it.’
Canaris laughed. ‘No, I suspect there wasn’t. There was some unpleasant business with de Lancey last year involving documents relating to your chief’s ancestry. I didn’t believe any of it, of course, and I am not going to discuss specifics.’
‘Please don’t.’ The last thing Schellenberg wanted to be told was that Reinhard Heydrich was part Jewish.
‘We had some difficulties with de Lancey last year, of which Reinhard is well aware, and we dropped him. But when war broke out one of our officers reactivated him. If we manage him correctly, he could become a valuable source of information for us.’
‘I see.’
‘And now we come to the unpleasant experience. Our officer, Lieutenant Hertenberg, met de Lancey in Leiden yesterday. Afterwards, de Lancey was attacked by a man with a gun. De Lancey is a resourceful fellow and managed to overcome his attacker and kill him. Chased him off the roof of a university building, I believe. Our embassy in The Hague has been informed by the Dutch police that the man’s identification suggests he was a Dr Heinrich Fuhrmann from the University of Hamburg. They are saying it was suicide: he jumped. Needless to say there is no such man on the university faculty.’
‘I see,’ said Schellenberg quietly. ‘Could this Dr Fuhrmann be a British agent?’
‘Possibly,’ said Canaris. ‘Although it had occurred to us that he might have been working for you. No need to answer that, Walter. It would be perfectly understandable if given de Lancey’s activities last year you had assumed he was an enemy agent.’
‘And you are telling me de Lancey is one of yours?’
‘Yes. He is a bit of a loose cannon, but he is our loose cannon. And please reassure Reinhard that he hasn’t divulged any of the information he uncovered, or claims to have uncovered, about Reinhard’s family history last year. Which is a good thing, because I am sure he made it all up anyway.’
‘I understand,’ said Schellenberg. ‘I’ll pass that on.’ And he would, faithfully. He suspected that the sly admiral had outfoxed Heydrich on this one. Leave de Lancey alone and no nasty rumours about Jewish ancestors would emerge. That should work. And, frankly, that was fine with Schellenberg. He still had his hands full with Payne Best, Stevens, and the man who had planted the Munich beer hall bomb, Georg Elser, who was giving every indication of being the demented loner he claimed.
They emerged from the dark woods into an open green space, shrouded in grey curtains of fog.
‘Come on, Walter!’ called Canaris as he urged his horse into a canter. Schellenberg followed him into the bank of mist.
Mayfair, London
‘Why are we here, Freddie?’
Here was Erskine’s, a club on a side street in Mayfair. Freddie Copthorne was a member, but Alston had hardly ever been there. It was a bit young, a bit chaotic for him. And now Freddie had asked to meet him there for a drink.
Alston’s doubts about Freddie were increasing. He liked the man, everybody liked Freddie, and as a result his contacts among those British nobility who were suspicious of war were excellent, especially the younger ones such as Lord Brocket and Lord Tavistock. But Alston’s reputation was quietly rising in both Houses of Parliament. He didn’t really need Freddie anymore.
They were in the club’s tiny library – it wasn’t the sort of club where one went to read – and they were alone with a pink gin and a glass of beer.
‘I want to talk to you, Henry, and I wanted neutral territory on which to do it.’
‘This is hardly neutral territory. I’d say you were playing at home.’
Freddie ignored him. ‘Ever since we met that man Bedaux, I’ve been thinking.’
‘Yes?’ Alston refrained from warning Freddie against doing anything so dangerous.
‘I have concerns about what he was suggesting. About what we are doing.’
‘Concerns about stopping a world war?’
‘No. But concerns about how we do it.’
‘We’ve been through this before, Freddie. It’s perfectly clear. If the present government won’t make peace then we need a new government. The logic is inescapable.’
‘Yes. But do we need a new king?’
‘We need a government that Hitler will talk to. That may mean a new king.’
‘But should we really be talking to Hitler’s people now? Should we be talking to someone as shady as Charles Bedaux?’
‘Yes, Freddie, we should.’ Alston fought to control his impatience. ‘Because that’s the only way we will get peace.’
‘I’ve thought about it long and hard, Henry, and I think it’s treason.’
‘Don’t be ridiculous.’
‘My loyalty is to my king, who is George VI, and to my country, which is at war with Germany.’
‘But you have to look more deeply than that, Freddie,’ Henry said. ‘Nothing is straightforward—’
Copthorne held up his hand. ‘Yes, it is. That’s my point. It is straightforward. I’ve been bamboozled by your ingenious arguments, Henry, and I’ve lost track of what is really important, which is beating the Hun. And serving my king.’
Alston didn’t like the look in Freddie’s eye; he had never seen such determination in his friend before. Alston’s instinct was it was dangerous. Time to drop him.
He leaned back in his armchair. ‘All right, Freddie. I understand. Perhaps we should leave you out of these discussions. You and I can meet socially, of course – I’d like to continue to do that – but I will ensure that you remain in the dark about what I am doing.’
‘No, Henry, it’s not that simple,’ Freddie said.
Alston smiled. ‘I thought you just said you liked things simple.’
Freddie took no notice of the dig. ‘You see, if I am right and what we have been discussing is treason, it should stop.’
‘Stop?’
‘Yes. I’m not suggesting that we should stop agitating for peace. But we shouldn’t negotiate with the German government behind our own government’s back. And we shouldn’t even mention the Duke of Windsor becoming king.’
Alston held Freddie’s gaze. He was deadly serious. But Alston was not going to be threatened by Freddie Copthorne. ‘No. I’m sorry, Freddie, but no. I will not abandon this country’s best hopes for peace because of your illogical scruples.’
‘If you don’t, Henry, then I shall be duty-bound to inform the authorities what we have been doing. What
you
have been doing.’
‘Is that a threat?’
‘I don’t know. I’m trying to tell you I’m not playing games. I will
not
be party to treason. And if I see treason I will stop it. I know right from wrong, and I know my duty.’
Lord Copthorne was sitting ramrod straight in his chair, his gaze unflinching. Alston could see he had chosen the role of stubborn Englishman and he was going to stick with it.
Alston knew that in his own way, Freddie was incorruptible. He had his principles and he kept to them. Until that moment his principle had been to support an alliance between Britain and Germany. But now he had dredged up what was for him a more important principle.
‘Whom will you inform?’
‘Winston.’
‘Winston! But he’s the worst of the warmongers. He’ll make a meal of this and scupper any chance of us bringing in a more sensible government.’
‘Exactly. That’s why I would talk to him.’