Traitor's Gate (17 page)

The
Times
editorial urged that the Sudeten Germans be allowed a plebiscite to decide their own future, even though it might mean their secession from Czechoslovakia to the Reich. The Sudetenland was a mountainous strip of Czechoslovakia predominantly inhabited by German speakers. The Sudeten German Party, a pseudo-Nazi organization led by an odious man of cunning charm called Henlein, was vigorously protesting at the way the cruel Czechs were tormenting innocent Germans, and demanding that Hitler do something about it. There had been a scare a few weeks before, in May, that the Wehrmacht had been on the brink of invading, but swift mobilization of the Czech forces and strong words from Chamberlain, the British Prime Minister, and Lord Halifax, his foreign secretary, had seemed to deter Hitler. Now
The
Times
was suggesting that Halifax permit the Sudetenland go to Germany without a fight.

Edward Wood, the third Viscount Halifax, was an old friend of Conrad’s father from Eton. Conrad had first met him several years before when he had joined his father for a shoot on a Yorkshire grouse moor where Halifax was a fellow guest. Halifax was an imposing figure, six feet eight inches tall with a long, somewhat forbidding face. Despite the handicap of only having one functioning arm, for he had been born without a left hand, he was an excellent shot. But so too was Conrad, and Halifax had taken quite a shine to the Oxford undergraduate.

Lord Oakford admired Halifax, and was convinced that, des­pite his occasional tough words, his friend would never make the same mistake as his predecessor of 1914, Lord Grey, and allow Britain to be sucked into a continental war.

But Conrad was no longer convinced by his father’s deter­mination to secure peace at all costs. It was true that Czecho­slovakia was a long way from England; that it would be difficult to persuade Englishmen to die for a distant country that was not even twenty years old. Yet Conrad had seen at first hand what Nazism could do. David Griffiths and Harry Reilly had died opposing fascism, and in Conrad’s view their actions were noble, not pointless.

Conrad walked back to his flat deep in thought. As he rounded a corner he became aware of a commotion along the nar­row street in front of him. A group of boys in light brown Hitler Youth uniforms were bunched around the front of a shop. It was a small hardware store. Conrad had been in there only the previous afternoon to buy a screwdriver and a hammer to make some basic repairs to the flat. He had been served by an old man with fluffy grey hair and a twinkling eye. A Jew: Conrad knew this because the word
Jude
had been scrawled across his shop window.

Conrad hurried to see what was happening. The windows of the shop were shattered and the boys, aged about ten to fourteen, were hurling spanners, wrenches, light bulbs and pots and pans grabbed from the shelves at two figures curled up on the pavement. One boy, the smallest, was attempting to whip the figures with a piece of electric flex. He was yelling regurgitated party slogans in a high-pitched voice as he lashed out: ‘To hell with the Jews!’ and somewhat oddly: ‘Room for the Sudeten Germans!’ A small crowd of half a dozen adults looked on.

‘
Halt!
’ Conrad shouted. The boys took no notice. Conrad forced his way through the small crowd, threw one of the boys to the ground and stood in front of the shopkeeper and his wife. They were both groaning. A good sign. At least they were alive and conscious.

‘I said, stop!’

The boys paused. The biggest, a strapping lad nearly six feet tall, was wielding a monkey wrench. ‘Are you a Jew?’ he snarled. ‘Show us your nose!’

Conrad cuffed him hard across the face with the back of his hand. The boy dropped his wrench and held his cheek. The others lowered their hardware uncertainly. ‘Piss off!’ Conrad shouted. ‘And don’t come back!’ He took a step towards a freckled boy wielding a frying pan. The boy broke and ran. The others hesitated and then followed him.

Conrad knelt beside the two old people, sprawled in a bed of broken glass. ‘Are you all right?’

The woman sat up against the wall of the shop and nodded. The old man groaned faintly. There was blood running down his temple and his eye was swollen.

‘Go!’ a voice whispered in his ear. Conrad turned to see a fat middle-aged lady with the no-nonsense attitude of a school­mistress. ‘Go, now, before the SA come. I’ll look after these two.’

Conrad hesitated.

‘Go!’

Conrad went, trotting down the street towards his flat.

Conrad stayed at home that night, cooking himself an omelette for supper. He didn’t want to venture outside again that day. It was going to be difficult staying in Berlin, learning to walk on the other side of the street as schoolchildren beat up pensioners.

The phone rang as he was polishing off the last of the ome­lette. It was Captain Foley.

‘I’ve got some good news for you, de Lancey,’ he said.

‘The exit permit?’

‘I received a phone call this afternoon. We’ll have it early next week.’

‘Hurrah!’ said Conrad. ‘That was quick.’ It was only three days since he and Anneliese had watched the green Gestapo van taking Dr Rosen into protective custody.

‘Ours is not to reason why,’ said Foley. ‘Why don’t you and Fräulein Rosen come to my office on Tuesday? We should have everything in order by then, and we can all go to fetch her father. He’s in Sachsenhausen; it’s a concentration camp just north of Berlin. Tell Fräulein Rosen to buy a train ticket for London for that night; we will have to get him out of the country right away.’

‘Thank you, Captain Foley. Thank you very much.’

As soon as he had hung up with Foley, Conrad telephoned Anneliese. Her landlady, a busybody named Frau Goldstein, who had questioned him at length during his previous visit to Anneliese’s room, answered the communal telephone and went to look for her. She returned a moment later to say that Anneliese was working at the hospital and therefore probably wouldn’t be home until ten o’clock.

Conrad wanted to see her in person with the good news. He had tried to telephone twice in the last couple of days, failing to get her each time. He was finding it ever more difficult to keep her out of his mind. He enjoyed her company and her conversation; she made him laugh and there was no doubt she was physically attractive, and that attraction was working on him. But she was also a mystery: Conrad wanted to know more about what was behind those ironic green eyes. She had had a very tough few years and he admired her ability to cope with it on her own, but the vulnerability he could sense made him want to hold her, protect her, as he had on that night after they had returned from the prison in Dessau. He could imagine himself falling for her, falling heavily for her. Another reason to stay in Berlin.

But of course he was still married to Veronica, and that still meant something to him, if not to his wife.

At five to ten he took the U-Bahn to the Scheunenviertel and hurried to her tenement building. The streets were quiet that night – no sign of Nazi marauders, and precious little sign of the inhabitants themselves. He checked his watch: twenty past ten. Anneliese would be home but not in bed yet.

Frau Goldstein answered the door. She didn’t want to let him in, but Conrad insisted, saying that he had some important news for Fräulein Rosen. The landlady argued for a moment and then shrugged her shoulders and let him pass, muttering to herself.

Conrad rushed up the stairs. There was a light under the door. She was in. He knocked.

No answer.

He waited and knocked again.

‘Who is it?’ It was her voice.

‘It’s Conrad. I’ve got some news.’

‘Oh, Conrad, I’m very tired. Can you come back tomorrow?’

‘I’ll be quick. And you’ll want to hear it, I promise.’

‘Please come back tomorrow.’ Then he heard a heavy tread on the floorboard inside the room. ‘No!’ Her voice rose in panic. ‘Stop! Don’t!’

The door was flung open, and there, smiling, with his collar unhooked and his shirt undone, loomed the large frame of Kriminalrat Klaus Schalke.

Conrad’s first instinct was to slam his fist into the big grinning face. Then he heard a sob from inside the room and he felt a surge of revulsion. He knew why Anneliese was upset: she had been caught, caught in the most outrageous betrayal. At that instant he wasn’t sure exactly how far that betrayal went, all he knew was that he wanted to get away from there as quickly as possible.

Schalke’s grin broadened as he took in Conrad’s confusion. ‘Don’t worry,
mein Liebling
,’ he called over his shoulder. ‘I think he’s just leaving.’

Burning with anger, Conrad turned and blundered down the stairs and past Frau Goldstein, who had been listening in the hallway, into the street. He stood on the pavement, taking in great gulps of the cool night air. It was obvious what Schalke was doing there. It was also obvious why Anneliese had invited him: to get an exit permit for her father.

For a moment he thought he didn’t know who Anneliese was, but then he realized that he did, that he had known all along. She was a single-minded, selfish woman who would do anything,
anything
, to set her father free. That was why she was with Schalke now. That was probably why she had been so friendly to him over the last couple of weeks. God, he had assumed that she had betrayed him by taking Schalke into her room, and probably into her bed. But she hadn’t done that at all. To her, he and Schalke were equivalent: men who were weak enough to be manipulated to bring her what she wanted.

He thought of the message he had come to give her, about the exit permit for her father. Well, she knew all about that already, no doubt. But he didn’t want to jeopardize the delicate bureaucratic dance that was needed to spirit her father out of the country. He pulled out an old envelope and scribbled a hasty note on the back that Anneliese should call Captain Foley.

He rang the doorbell, and Frau Goldstein answered immedi­ately. She looked visibly distressed. ‘Oh, Herr de Lancey, that girl is so stupid. Do you know who the man is?’

‘I know, Frau Goldstein. And so does Fräulein Rosen. Now please give her this note.’ He just wanted to get the message through to Anneliese; once he had done that he had no need to communicate with her ever again.

‘I am so sorry, I wouldn’t allow him in my house, Herr de Lancey, but you must understand that it is a mistake to make an enemy of men such as him. And when you telephoned I thought if I said she was working at the hospital you wouldn’t come—’

‘I understand, Frau Goldstein. The note.’ He thrust the envel­ope into her hand and turned into the dark street.

The Friedrichstrasse Station was smaller than the Anhalter, and it was difficult for Conrad to find a spot from where he could watch Platform One unobserved. In the end he settled on a corner of the station café, through the window of which he could get a pretty good view. The train for Hanover and the Hook of Holland left the platform at 4.10 p.m., but Conrad gave himself plenty of time to settle in before any other observers arrived.

He had spoken briefly to Foley on the telephone the day before to confirm which train Dr Rosen was going to catch. Conrad was pleased about the doctor. The man had been treated barbarically and deserved a chance of a new life. He hoped that England would be kind to him. But his daughter. His daughter.

For the last few days Conrad had played in his head over and over again the time he had spent with Anneliese. He saw everything in a new perspective, with her as the cunning man­ipu­­lator and himself as the dupe. Had she thought the hours spent with him tedious, but necessary if her father was to be freed? He had done so much for her. Risked his life to pass on secrets to Foley. Destroyed his relationship with Theo.

She had written him a note, which was now crumpled in his jacket pocket. He had read it so many times he had memorized its contents.

Dear Conrad,

I am terribly terribly sorry. You should never have had to see Klaus like that. I am sure you know why he was in my room: he has promised to arrange the exit permit for Papa. You might not know that Klaus and I have been acquainted a long time.

You have been unfailingly kind and considerate; such a help to me both spiritually and in arranging for my father’s visa. You do not deserve what I have done to you.

I won’t ask you to forgive me; I can’t forgive myself. I am so pleased that my father will soon be free, but that freedom has come at a great cost. I hate myself, for what I have become, for what I have done to you, for what I have done with Klaus. When I was a student Paul and I started a long war against the Nazis. Now they have won. He is dead, and I – well, I may as well be. But at least my father is free.

Don’t let them destroy you too, my dear Conrad.

Fondly,

Anneliese

It was hard to dismiss a letter like that. Conrad was tempted to feel sorry for her, but it was a temptation he resisted. Anneliese was trouble. Just as Veronica had been trouble. Both of them had exerted their magic on him; he had fallen for both: both had used him. True, Anneliese’s goal had been nobler than Veronica’s – Veronica basically wanted a good time and had become bored by Conrad. He had no idea what Anneliese really thought about him. Her letter said no more than that she felt guilty, which wasn’t at all surprising.

He glanced at a menu. He wasn’t hungry, but his mouth was dry so he ordered a beer. In the midst of the swirling mass of humanity, he spotted a Gestapo watcher, also positioned with a view of Platform One. He wasn’t making much attempt to be unobtrusive, and he hadn’t seen Conrad.

The line in the letter about being acquainted with Klaus for a long time puzzled Conrad. They seemed unlikely friends: Anneliese was a half-Jewish nurse; Klaus was in the Gestapo. He wondered what past they had shared together. Then his blood went cold. He remembered how he had accused Theo of informing on Joachim. What if it had been not Theo, but Anneliese?

Theo had ruled her out because he said she didn’t speak much English and wouldn’t have understood Joachim, yet Conrad had seen her speaking the language with Captain Foley. Come to think of it, the first words she had spoken to him had been after overhearing the blonde woman at Theo’s dinner party talk about Linaro in English.