‘And now? Since you’ve talked to him?’
‘Nothing’s changed. We are what we are.’ She permitted herself the ghost of a smile. ‘But a girl likes a challenge, as you might sense.’
*
Moncrieff arrived twenty minutes early at the Tower of London. Liddell had told him to report to a Crown official called Laidlaw at a side entrance beside the Thames Embankment and Moncrieff was happy to kill time in the warm May sunshine. For nearly a week, the city had been Luftwaffe-free at night and Londoners, like the cherry trees in the moat, were beginning to blossom. Lingering beside the water, Moncrieff watched a middle-aged couple on a bench, with an ancient spaniel curled at their feet. Two faces tipped towards the sun. Both smiling.
Laidlaw was a Scot, from Aberdeen. He checked Moncrieff’s MI5 pass, matched the fading photo to his face, and took him into the castle. One staircase led to another and the air was chill inside the thick stone walls. The Governor’s House had its own entrance, guarded by two plainclothes figures with military haircuts. MI6, Moncrieff thought. Just as Liddell had anticipated.
‘Mr Moncrieff?’
‘That’s me.’
‘And you’re here for Herr Hess?’
‘I am.’
The taller of the two agents asked him to turn his pockets out while the other one patted him down. Moncrieff’s joke about Hess outshining the Crown Jewels failed to raise a smile. Finally, they both escorted him through a suite of rooms and up yet another flight of steps. The Deputy Führer, it seemed, was still in bed.
‘A word in your ear, Mr Moncrieff.’ They’d paused outside the bedroom door. ‘Don’t believe everything the bloody man tells you.’
Hess, at first sight, was fast asleep. His long body was a hump beneath the grey blanket, his face was pale against the pillow, and he badly needed a shave. Moncrieff closed the door behind him and tiptoed into the room. It was thoughtfully furnished, personal touches in the choice of watercolours on the walls, and when he checked the view from the window he found himself looking down into the keep.
‘Wer sind Sie?’
Who are you? Hess was awake now, rubbing his eyes. Perfect, Moncrieff thought. We speak German from the start.
He drew up a chair and sat beside the bed.
‘You’re German? You sound like a Rhinelander.’
‘I’m English. Or Scottish, to be more precise.’
‘Scottish? You know Hamilton? Young Duglo?’
‘I’m afraid not.’
‘But we carry on in German? Ja? You do me that favour?’
‘Of course.’
Hess eyed him. He wanted to know why he was here like this, unannounced, and who he spoke for. He said he was starting to tire of telling his story over and over again, as if people didn’t believe him, as if they were trying to catch him out. He’d come to meet the King. The King, at least, might have the courtesy, die Zucht, to believe him.
Die Zucht. Breeding. Moncrieff wondered how much a concept like this mattered in a regime run by gangsters. Was this what marked Hess out from the other criminals who strutted around Berlin? A belief that anyone half civilised should conduct himself with some consideration for others? Was this why he’d turned his back on Berlin and sought loftier company in Scotland?
Hess wanted news from the front. Had Greece fallen yet? Was Italy still busy in the Adriatic? And what was happening with Rommel in North Africa?
Moncrieff said he had no news about North Africa. Nor was he certain about Greece. The island of Crete, he said, had been heavily bombed only yesterday, but London, mercifully, was prospering in the absence of German raids.
‘You had a big one on Saturday,’ Hess said, ‘the biggest of the war.’
‘I know. I was here.’
‘But you think that was an accident? A coincidence? You think there was no connection between my flight and what happened down here? In Germany, with the young ones, we have the stick and we have the carrot. Saturday night was the stick.’
‘And you, Herr Hess?’
‘I bring the carrot. It’s a big carrot. Big and juicy and freshly pulled. You’re a gardener, Herr Moncrieff? You understand vegetables? How much better they can taste straight from the soil? At home, my wife tends the garden. She uses horse dung. We have a man who brings it to the house. I fought alongside him in the old days. He’s my age. He understands everything. And we pay him not in money but in carrots. And you know why? Because he loves carrots.’
Moncrieff was watching Hess carefully. There was something in his eyes that seemed to lasso a passing thought and not let go. One sentence led inexorably to another. Carrots. And yet more carrots. Maybe the MI6 men were more right than they knew, and maybe Goebbels, too. Maybe this man was slightly unhinged.
‘I understand about sticks and carrots, Herr Hess,’ Moncrieff said. ‘So what exactly did you bring?’
‘From Germany?’
‘Yes.’
‘I brought hopes of peace. That’s why I’m here. Peace and understanding. In Germany we’ve always known there should be no blood spilled between us, between our two peoples. We’re too similar, too close. And that’s the Führer’s view, as well. He admires you and most especially he admires your empire. That’s why the fight you put up last summer came as no surprise. I was sometimes the one who took the Führer the figures about our losses, the Luftwaffe losses, the number of planes we’d lost over the Channel that day, and you know what he’d say to me? Rudi, he’d say, these people fight like lions because they’re tough, because they conquered half the world, and that’s where they still belong, out there looking after their empire, leaving us alone. It’s a little like the carrots, Herr. Moncrieff. The British are the gardeners of Europe except their allotments lie overseas. Turn your back on us, Herr. Moncrieff, and I promise you we won’t feel insulted. Not for a moment. What belongs to us belongs to us. By birthright? By conquest? It doesn’t matter. And what belongs to you British rightfully belongs to you. Exactly the same logic. What you have, you hold. In our two worlds, possession is everything and after that all argument is a waste of breath. Yes? You agree?’
Moncrieff said nothing. France, he thought. Holland. Spain. Portugal. Empires that lasted generations and were now dust in the wind. Maybe that same fate lay in wait for Nazi Germany. Maybe.
‘We shouldn’t be fighting,’ Moncrieff said at last. ‘You’re right.’
‘Good. Very good. You agree after all. That makes you a wise man, Herr. Moncrieff. You know Churchill? You’ve met him?’
‘Once. Very briefly.’
‘Then you’ll know that we waste our time with such a man. Churchill is the rock between war and peace. We have to move that rock. We have to blow it up. We have to get rid of it.’
‘Only we can do that. You’d need an election. I think it’s called democracy.’
‘What?’ Hess’s eyes had narrowed. He had little wit. He scented a trap. ‘What did you say?’
‘We vote our leaders in. And when the time comes, we vote them out again. To think otherwise is not to understand the English.’
‘But the English hate Churchill.’
‘You think so?’
‘I do. They hate him and they fear him and in both instances they’re right because Churchill will bring you nothing but blood and sacrifice and piles of the needlessly dead.’
‘That’s exactly what he promised us.’
‘He did. I know. And that shows something else. That he’s a madman. All he thinks about is war. What he doesn’t understand is peace. He knows that’s what we Germans want. People in your country, serious people, wise people, good people, tell him all the time but a man like Churchill never listens. That’s why I came. To talk to the good people. And to make peace.’
‘You brought proposals with you? Peace proposals?’
‘I did,’ he tapped his broad forehead. ‘Up here. Ask Duglo. Ask Kirkpatrick. In Scotland, when they came to me, those two gentlemen, that’s all I talked about. Peace. Peace. Peace. How
we get there. Together. How we make peace. How we hatch it like a big fat egg. And how we all prosper afterwards, once the fighting is done. No one wants to fight, Herr Moncrieff. Not if you’re German, not if you’re British. Only the warmonger wants to fight.’
‘The warmonger?’
‘Churchill.’ He spat the word out, then lay back against the pillow, his eyes closed, seemingly exhausted.
Moncrieff took his time. He was very close now. He knew it.
‘So did these ideas of yours, these peace proposals, exist on paper?’
‘Of course they did.’
‘In detail?’
‘Of course,’ his eyes opened. ‘You think we’re savages? You think we can’t read? Can’t write? Martin Luther was a good German, Herr Moncrieff. He put his thoughts on vellum and nailed them to a door in Wittenberg. That changed the course of history. And so will we.’
‘We?’
‘Me, and my people in Germany, and people here, good people, who know that Churchill is wrong. Not just wrong but dangerous. We all agree on that. We all know that there is no peace in the world with that man in charge.’
‘And your peace proposals? On paper?’
‘You have them. They were in my belongings. I’ve explained all this a thousand times. Two thousand times. Read them, Herr. Moncrieff. You need to read. It’s black and white. Thirteen pages. Ernst Bohle did the translation. He works for the Auslands-Organisation. It might not be perfect but everything is there, every proposal, everything we need to discuss. I was promised safe passage. The King must know this. Please remind him. I deserve to be treated properly. And when my work here is over I want to go home.’
Moncrieff stiffened in the chair. He could hear voices outside. An interruption, he thought. Trouble. He leaned forward, sensing that time was suddenly precious.
‘These proposals,’ he said. ‘What are they?’
‘You want me to go through them? Explain them? How generous they are? How respectful of the English? All thirteen pages?’
‘Just the key points, Herr Hess. That’s all.’
‘I see…’ Hess was frowning now and Moncrieff knew at once that this was a man whose mind functioned only in longish paragraphs. Reducing something to its essence appeared to be beyond him. Odd, he thought, given the fact that he was an accomplished pilot, that he could squeeze the details from a chart, compute compass readings and engine settings and fuel loads, lay a course across the North Sea, and deliver himself intact on the other side of Scotland, albeit by parachute.
Moncrieff was just inches away now, seeking some kind of answer, some kind of clue to what bombshells might lie among Ernst Bohle’s thirteen pages, when the door opened to admit one of the two MI6 agents. With him was a much older man in a loosely belted gabardine raincoat. He was carrying a bulky leather case.
‘This is Doctor Ellis,’ the agent spared Hess a glance and then looked at Moncrieff. ‘The overnight nurse has worries about our friend’s blood pressure. She also thinks he’s in danger of hyperventilating. I’m afraid we have to bring this interview to an end.’ A thin smile. ‘On medical grounds.’
Moncrieff nodded. He didn’t care. He’d got what he came for and he was very happy to leave with that knowledge. He extended a hand. Hess was looking confused.
‘You want to know about the peace treaty?’ he said in English. ‘And you’re leaving?’
*
Wilhelm Schultz received the summons to the Air Ministry late on Friday afternoon. A package was waiting for him in the Reichsmarschall’s office. When he got to his feet and reached for his leather jacket an aide offered to run the errand for him, but Schultz shook his head. He needed the exercise. Life behind an Abwehr desk was designed to make people fat. He’d be back later.
When he got to the Ministry he was told to wait for Goering’s adjutant. He stood in the big picture window, his arms folded, watching a succession of pretty women out in the bright Berlin sunshine. When the adjutant arrived, he was carrying a carefully taped field-grey folder.
‘With the Reichsmarschall’s compliments, Herr Schultz,’ he said. ‘When you’ve made contact with the English and decided on a rendezvous, I’d be obliged if you could give me a call.’
‘Why?’
‘The Reichsmarschall has some ideas about delivery.’
‘Me, you mean? Or the letter?’
‘Both, Herr Schultz. And I gather speed is of the essence.’
Schultz returned to Abwehr headquarters. His aide was going through a sizeable pile of files in his office. Schultz dismissed him and shut the door. The Abwehr agent at the German Embassy in Lisbon was an East Prussian called Wolfgang Spiegelhalte. He and Schultz had drunk themselves unconscious in a number of bars across Europe, always at the owner’s expense. When he finally answered the phone, he recognised Schultz’s voice at once.
‘Wilhelm! Wie geht’s?’
Schultz kept the conversation brief. He knew that Spiegelhalte had a channel to an Englishman called Hesketh who was always trying to sell bits and pieces of information, loose change by and large but occasionally interesting. He also knew that Hesketh made the same approaches to every other player in the Lisbon game.
‘Ask him about an English agent. MI5. Tam Moncrieff.’ Schultz spelled the name and asked Spiegelhalte to read it back. ‘You’ve got that? You know how to get hold of Hesketh?’
‘My pleasure.’
‘Tonight, Wolfgang. In fact, better do it now.’
‘Of course, my friend. You’re down soon? Is that what I’m hearing?’
‘More than likely.’ Schultz checked his watch. ‘I’ll wait for your call.’
17
Kacper Wojcek was tiring of life in the MI6 safe house. He’d been there since the transfer from the Infirmary in Glasgow. It was no more than a farm worker’s cottage, really, thrown up in the nineteenth century, a pile of bricks and leaky slates with a view of sodden fields to the west, an outhouse that appeared to serve as a rubbish dump, and a manic sheepdog which barked half the night and kept him awake. When he enquired where, exactly, they were they told him not to worry. Glasgow was only an hour away. Soon he’d be home again with fifty pounds in his pocket to thank him for everything he’d done.
The stay, already far too long in Wojcek’s opinion, had been sold to him as a period of necessary convalescence after his ordeal at the hands of the tall Scot from London. He’d been through it a million times in his head, reliving the nightmare, and twice – in reply to their questions – he’d described what had happened. It was the fear of drowning that still haunted him. For someone who had a dread of water, who couldn’t even swim, the knowledge that his lungs were slowly filling was impossible to explain.
Then, on what he suspected was the Saturday, they told him his time was up. That evening someone would be coming to drive him home. In the meantime, they thought they owed him a drink or two. Bottles of vodka appeared and a couple of faces he didn’t recognise stepped into the tiny kitchen. There was food, too, sandwiches with generous fillings of cheese and early tomatoes and even a slice or two of ham. One of the strangers, who knew he was Polish, had managed to lay hands on a jar of pickled herrings and the men round the table watched him wolfing them down. Glaswegians, he thought. These folk know how to look after you.
By mid-evening his driver still hadn’t turned up but by this time, drunk, Kacper had ceased to care. He could go home any time, tonight, tomorrow, the next day, whenever. But for now there was no sweeter prospect than another glass of vodka, another toast to fallen comrades, another song. They asked him to sing them something Polish and he was glad to oblige. As a student in Warsaw, the few times they had money he and his friends would drink in a cheap bar near the station, and the words to the songs had never left him. There were four of them at the table, two Scots, someone from further south, and Kacper himself. He made everyone at the table link arms and sway together, to left and right, as he stumbled into the song, tripping up on the lyrics, making everyone laugh.
>
Ja nie dbam o czerwony nos,
he sang,
I o to że wciąż tyję
Ja biorę kufel w ręce swe
I piję i piję i piję.
I don’t care about my red nose,
I don’t care I’m getting fat
I take another pint in my hand
And I drink, and I drink, and I drink.
His new friends wanted more. The songs went on until his memory had gone and his mouth wouldn’t work any more and he couldn’t stand up when his bladder was bursting and he knew he had to have a piss. And so he wet his trousers, there in the kitchen on the rough floorboards, dimly aware that the laughter had stopped. Then came another face in the room, a stranger, someone he hadn’t met before, and unseen hands were carrying him bodily out of the cottage.
He felt rain on his face, and a gale of wind, and then he was lying full length in the back of a car. Mumbled conversation. A cough from the engine. The wheels churning as the car reversed into the narrow lane that ran past the cottage.
His eyes were still shut. The car lurched to a halt. Then it began to move again and the moment it rounded the next bend he started to be sick. Someone in the front was cursing now but he paid no attention. Agata, he thought. Tomasz. Roseanne. How pleased they’d be to see him. The stories he’d have to tell.
He began to be sick again, pawing blindly at his mouth, tasting the vodka in his own vomit. Then, mercifully, there were no more bends, no more sudden stops, and he drifted away, the faintest smile on his face.
When he came to again, it was dark outside and the car had stopped. The moment the rear door opened he could hear seagulls and the howl of the wind. Pulled bodily from the car, he struggled to stay upright. More hands, tugging him forward. The ground was rough beneath his feet. From somewhere ahead came the growl of the ocean.
He had no idea what was happening, no idea where he was, and so he started singing again, one of the drinking songs, the one about the flirty waitress with the wandering hands, and then suddenly they’d come to a halt. He tried to focus on the faces around him. They seemed to be melting away. Then he looked ahead, into the darkness, struggling to remember the next line, and the line after that, surprised by the small pressure in his lower back, the gentle shove, the ground giving way beneath his feet, and the feeling – quite suddenly – of being weightless.
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