Black Roses

by Jane Thynne

  ‘So this latest row then. It’s just about the womanizing?’

  The American had entered the room and begun photographing the paintings. Leo wondered briefly why. There were plenty of postcards weren’t there, in the kiosk downstairs? Then again, Americans tended to photograph everything. It was a habit of theirs. Perhaps they thought looking through the lens of a camera was the only authentic way of seeing the world.

  ‘I don’t think so. She was talking about him being jealous.’

  ‘Who would he be jealous of?’

  ‘That’s just it. She’s there at home most of the time, unless she’s out with him. They seem to spend every night watching films.’

  He drifted away as if transfixed by a Seurat of three women at the seaside in varying stages of undress. Clara caught up with him.

  ‘I still can’t understand why you want to know all these trivial things. What use is it to you?’

  He gestured to the painting in front of them. ‘Pointillism.’ She frowned, so he continued. ‘The amassing of tiny specks of colour, which when seen close appear meaningless but from a distance create an effect. They got the idea from tapestries originally. When French restorers worked on them, they noticed that the only way to replace missing sections was to look at the colours surrounding them. You need to look at the interplay of colours, the role of every little bit, to find out what’s missing. It all counts. When you’re trying to see the big picture, you need details.’

  Clara stared at the women and the seascape behind them, letting the focus of her eye relax until the turquoises and the azures of the water blurred into one brilliant blue. She spoke softly, without moving her head.

  ‘Goebbels distrusts me, I know. You should have seen his face when I visited the other day.’

  She remembered the shining, intent dark eyes that flickered over her as he passed down the corridor.

  ‘Don’t worry. You’re doing well.’

  Leo loved being here, surrounded by scenes from the past, reminders that beauty and sensitivity and civilization had flourished and would flourish again outside this brutal regime. He wished they really were a pair of ordinary sightseers, drifting around discussing art, with nothing more pressing to decide than where to go for lunch and whether to visit the Brandenburger Tor or Sanssouci. He’d like to know if Clara felt as passionate about painting as she did about poetry. He longed to debate the pictures in front of them. Instead of which, he had a pile of work waiting for him back at the office, no chance of lunch and his conversation with Clara must be confined to the business in hand. He stared over at a small Manet pastel of a woman naked in a tin bath. It was a graceful, understated study, the light glancing off her ordinary, imperfect curves. The model’s back was turned to the painter, and she was looking up at him, bold and unashamed, as the water ran in sparkling rivulets down her thighs. She seemed utterly unconcerned at being observed. Not proud and theatrical like Marjorie, but spontaneous and fresh.

  ‘You haven’t mentioned Müller.’

  Clara was looking at the nude too, and immediately detected his train of thought.

  ‘I haven’t seen much of him,’ she said shortly.

  ‘That’s a shame.’

  ‘Not for me.’

  ‘But this isn’t for you,’ he said, with an edge of impatience, as though he were talking to a subordinate, or a child.

  ‘I know it’s not. But I don’t see how this . . . whatever you call it . . . can profit from my seeing Sturmhauptführer Müller.’

  ‘It will help. Just the appearance of it would help.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘You need to be someone they would never suspect. Anyone liaising with a Nazi official would have to be above suspicion.’

  ‘I don’t see . . .’

  ‘You may not see, but that doesn’t matter, Clara. Just keep meeting him.’

  He was riffling through a French guide to the museum’s pictures, consulting the notes on the Manet.

  ‘It’s perfect from every point of view,’ he continued as if he was explaining the style of the work in front of them. ‘It suits them, because they’re keen to build up connections with people from England, and it suits us because Müller is valuable cover.’

  Clara looked down at the page too. ‘But if I keep meeting him he’ll assume I return his interest. What can I do about that?’ He didn’t answer, so in a low tone she added, ‘It’s difficult to go on meeting a man who . . . who expects something.’

  Leo turned a leisurely page. ‘No one said doing this was going to be easy. It’s for your own safety. You’ll think of something.’

  This remark had a curious effect on her. She looked him full in the face, with a high spot of colour in her cheeks and a kind of frustration in her expression, and then in a tight voice she said, ‘I’m starting to wonder why I’m doing this at all.’

  After which she turned abruptly, and made her way down the wide marble hall and out of the gallery.

  Leo stared at her retreating back in astonishment. If he had been taking notes, he would have had to include the impression that there were tears in her eyes.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Goering’s pale grey airforce jacket was studded with strips of medals, marching across the broad expanse of his chest.

  ‘If he gets any more he’ll have to start going round the back,’ murmured Leo’s boss Foley, in a voice drier than the sherry he was sipping.

  Dyson, the embassy attaché, grunted. ‘Goebbels has a new nickname for him apparently. He calls him the Christmas Tree.’

  ‘They say he’s had a rubber set made to wear in the bath,’ added Leo.

  The new Prime Minister of Prussia was attending a party at the British Embassy for which a collection of dignitaries, socialites and assorted journalists had been assembled. No matter how grandiose Goering might be, he was never likely to outshine Number 70, Wilhelmstrasse. The grand colonnaded Palais Strousberg was a magnificent and stately building, designed originally for a railway pioneer and bought by the British Government when the previous owner, a banker, went bankrupt. The visitor passed through a two-storey marble hall, where fountains splashed gently, to a spectacular ballroom, which that evening contained a large gathering of National Socialist officials, fortified by liberal quantities of His Majesty’s champagne. They had all been there quite a while. In the new regime everyone who was not a Nazi, even if they were foreign ambassadors, expected to be kept waiting. And Nazis themselves were kept waiting by officials of a senior rank. This etiquette of unpunctuality broke down a little, however, towards the top. Although Goering had arrived promptly, Goebbels was late, which could either have been unavoidable, or a calculated snub, and going by everything they knew, the British assumed the latter.

  Leo moved to talk to a group of aides. It was incredible to him how easily the National Socialists had eased themselves into high society. Industrialists and aristocrats fought to host their evenings. These men who just months ago were staging fist fights on street corners, now spent their evenings being courted by ambassadors and princes. Though Herr Hitler was not attending tonight, there was a big turn-out of all the top brass. The rising young architect Albert Speer was there and von Ribbentrop had just arrived with his hard-faced wife, her gaze raking the room like a searchlight for the most prestigious guests. Across the room the bushy-browed Rudolf Hess glowered at Goering with a look of invincible hatred. Goering himself was kissing hands as he circulated, his pudgy fingers glittering with rings like some ancient potentate.

  ‘The Minister is celebrating his success on today’s hunting trip,’ said one of the lackeys, stiff as a ramrod with an expression to match. ‘He has managed to shoot more than three hundred in a single afternoon.’

  ‘Animals, I trust,’ murmured Leo.

  The Nazi gave him a contemptuous look. So much got lost in translation with these British. He was a desiccated fellow with a face of parched solemnity and all the conversational skills of a Ministry press release. He tried again.
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  ‘Let us hope that tonight will be evidence of the friendship between our two nations. Germany has a great love of England, whereas France plans to squeeze her like an orange. It is France that England should beware of.’

  ‘Is that so?’

  ‘Of course. Although it is important that England recognizes she has responsibilities too.’

  ‘What might they be?’

  ‘England must be the breakwater to stop the Communist flood. You saw how the Communists set fire to our Reichstag? They would like to set fire to the whole of Europe.’

  Leo noticed Hitchcock, Archie Dyson’s deputy, coming towards him, signalling that he lose his companion. He carried two glasses of champagne and nodded towards a side door that led into a corridor. A few feet further on was an empty office, the typing pool, which Hitchcock entered, kicking the door closed behind them. He didn’t turn on the light.

  ‘Thanks, Quinn.’ He handed over a glass. ‘Just to say. We’re rather pleased with your progress.’

  He perched on the edge of a table and leant back. Hitchcock liked to cultivate the air of effortless establishment superiority he thought was essential for someone working for the British Government’s secret service. In that, as in so many things, he was mistaken, Leo thought. From what he had seen of it, the secret service was full of oddballs and misfits. Lone wolves like himself who knew how to assimilate, but never properly belonged. Besides, he never really saw the point of Hitchcock, who seemed to spend most of his time playing golf and being dined by businessmen in the Ku’damm’s classier bars.

  With difficulty Leo wrenched his thoughts back onto the subject of this conversation. Hitchcock was referring to the communication Leo had sent a week ago to London and was now regretting.

  “Fluent German speaker. In regular contract with Frau Docktor Geobbels and Goering’s girlfriend. Privy to an enormous amount of inconsequential chatter, but possibly information.”

  The message had come back that Leo was to “maintain contact”. His next report must be written the day before Bag Day, the day the diplomatic bag went to London, which was tomorrow. He should be aware there was increasing Gestapo surveillance of foreigners. Telephones would be tapped and there would be routine shadowing of people with embassy or journalistic links. It went on to say his source should be made fully aware of the operational difficulties and take all the “requisite precautions”.

  ‘That’s good.’

  Hitchcock was lighting another Corona. He would never have bought his own cigars. He was probably making the most of the Embassy’s supplies.

  ‘Yes, and it’s a stroke of luck for us to find a source so close to the high command. That kind of high-grade intelligence is going to get increasingly valuable, I’d say. Head Office are beginning to wake up to the realities of this regime. There’s talk of budgets being increased.’

  Leo was only too aware that Clara was a valuable prize. The opportunity she had to peer below the surface of Nazi society, and glimpse the fault lines and the fractures that lay beneath, made her an extraordinary asset. Unique probably. But hearing Hitchcock talk about her put Leo’s teeth on edge.

  ‘Pleased to hear it.’

  ‘In fact, while you’re at it, there’s something else I’d like you to take a look at.’

  ‘What’s that?’

  ‘Probably nothing. But they’re quite interested in London. He’s a walk-in. He says he represents the Red Front Fighters Union. He wants paying for identifying Communist contacts in Britain.’

  ‘And would he be in a position to know?’

  ‘Yes, but they want us to check him out first. I wondered if you’d see him. You might need Xantener Strasse.’

  The apartment in Xantener Strasse was in an anonymous beige building situated a block south of the Ku’damm. It was a tall, nineteenth-century block, with frosted glass in the front door, and a long, dark hallway lined with pocked tiles. The owner of the bakery next door lived on the ground floor and the rest of the block housed the kind of transient population that passes through any large city, travelling salesmen, the proprietor of a ceramics factory in Munich, a visiting academic from the University of Hanover. Neighbourliness was in short supply, which made it pretty much ideal. The British apartment was on the third floor and contained a bedroom, a bathroom, money and a small amount of tinned food. As far as the owner of the block was concerned it belonged to a Herr Edvard Zink, who ran a small company supplying cigarettes and spent most of his time away, leaving the apartment deserted, apart from the occasions when Herr Zink’s employees spent the odd night in Berlin. The company’s brass plaque was by the bell. It was generally used as a safe house by whoever needed it.

  ‘There’s a lot of interest in that direction just now,’ said Hitchcock. ‘It’s down to the Nazis’ haul after the Reichstag affair.’

  He was referring to the day after the fire, when vans of storm troopers had descended on the headquarters of Social Democrat organisations and the KPD, the German Communist Party, seizing the members and carrying off lorryloads of documents.

  ‘There was a cache of papers seized by the SA from the KPD. Goering claims there were plans for attacks on public buildings and assassinations of public figures. London takes the Comintern threat seriously, as you know. Guy Liddell from B division has been invited over to discuss the haul with Rudolf Diels. I take it you know who I mean?’

  Leo nodded. It was hard to miss the man Goering had appointed head of the political police, if only because his hatchet face was badly marked by duelling injuries inflicted when he was a student. Diels was a lawyer by training, an expert on building up information to incriminate political radicals and, if that didn’t frighten them, the three long curving scars that puckered and bisected his visage never failed to induce a shiver. The challenge was to tear your gaze from those scars and fix instead on his narrow, calculating eyes.

  ‘The Prince of Darkness? Friendly chap. I think I saw him talking to the Ambassador earlier.’ Leo stood, hands in pockets, studiedly neutral.

  ‘Yes, well. From what they say, apparently there’s records of Soviet funding for organizations in Britain and details of individuals who pose a threat.’

  ‘You’d think if we’re talking about threatening individuals, there’s no shortage of them right under our noses.’

  ‘Price of liberty is eternal vigilance and all that,’ said Hitchcock, tapping the side of his nose in a way that irritated Leo intensely. ‘Names have come up that need checking out.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘So you can take care of the walk-in then? You’ll set up a meeting?’

  ‘Sure. Ask him if he likes Rilke.’

  ‘Rilke?’ Hitchock’s face expressed a mixture of suspicion and incomprehension that made Leo think of the line in that Schlageter play: “When I hear the word culture I reach for my gun.” Already several senior Nazis had been heard parroting the line for their own amusement, but it could have been coined for Hitchcock too.

  ‘He’s the Germans’ favourite poet. Tell him there’s a bookshop on Leonhardstrasse which has a great selection.’

  ‘Right you are.’ Hitchcock cast him a quizzical glance, then patted him on the back. ‘Good man.’

  They went back into the ballroom, and Hitchcock said, ‘Ah, I see old Mickey Mouse has arrived.’

  It was fascinating to see Goebbels close up: the huge ears, which had earned him the nickname, the tight, clever-looking face, the alert brown eyes. But it was his companion whom Leo was looking out for. Sturmhauptführer Müller, a dark, good-looking brute in his forties, was whispering into the little minister’s ear. He was a burly, muscular man with a tan that suggested a life outdoors and a physical energy only just confined by his perfectly pressed uniform. At once Leo’s senses were on the alert. Every instinct in his body united and he felt a stab of emotion, which he identified as professional attention. He signalled to the waiter for another glass of champagne.

  So this was the man who had taken an interest in Clara.
What had she said? “It’s difficult to go on meeting a man who expects something.”

  He knew exactly what she meant, but he had ignored her perfectly normal female delicacy. It was hardly a surprise that Müller should take an interest in her. There was something about those dark brows, not the plucked, pencilled lines German women went in for, and the violet eyes beneath them. Something that suggested turbulence barely contained, along with the petulant lips and the curly hair that constantly escaped from its style. That scent she wore, with its spice and vanilla, that you caught a snatch of when close. He pictured again the flush on her cheeks and the filmy eyes as she left the art gallery and yet again regretted being so curt with her. God knows what she thought of him. But there was no choice. It was the only way. The sooner she understood what she had signed up for, the better really.

  Leo accepted another glass from the waiter and took a large gulp. An agreeable numbness was starting to take the edge off things. It was time to concentrate on his duties as a host. Yet it was impossible to stop thoughts of Clara running through his mind. He heartily wished he had never mentioned her existence to Head Office, only at the time it had just seemed too promising an opening to ignore. With the result that he had raised expectations and placed her under a threat she couldn’t properly understand.

  The nature of that threat had in a matter of months become only too plain to him. Since their seizure of power, the brutality the Nazis had employed on the streets had become legitimized, and violent interrogation, torture and arbitrary imprisonment were now the norm. The mere fact of being female did not guarantee decent treatment. The first reports from women who had been arrested in the recent crackdown suggested they suffered the same beatings and savagery as their male counterparts. The fate of a woman found spying didn’t bear thinking about.

  A sick feeling of disgust arose in him. He felt contagious. As though merely by meeting Clara he had infected her with some kind of disease that also ran through him. He looked across at the circle of National Socialists laughing and drinking and standing slightly apart from them he saw Bella Fromm, the upmarket gossip columnist from the Vossische Zieitung, spikily aquiline with her raven hair, and the hooded eyes that implied, before she had written a word, the profound scepticism she felt towards the new regime. Then he thought back to the problem of the message from Head Office.