by Robert Ryan
Neave smiled, suppressing the urge to blurt how much he had enjoyed The Confidential Agent. Didn’t do to gush. He simply offered his hand and it was taken.
‘Just talking about Leslie Howard,’ offered Neave.
‘I know,’ said Greene gruffly, ‘half the street probably heard you.’ Greene had been in propaganda, for the Ministry of Information, until recently. He was now one of Philby’s new recruits to Six, creating cover stories and backgrounds for agents, when he wasn’t selling the film rights of his books to Hollywood for astronomical sums. Three thousand pounds, Neave had heard.
‘Champagne?’ asked Philby rhetorically. He found and filled a glass for Greene who slurped it appreciatively.
‘Look, Neave, there is someone I want you to meet. Excuse us a moment, Graham.’
They passed out of the kitchen and through the hallway, Philby introducing people as he went. ‘Muggeridge,’ he said of one bright-eyed chap with an oddly strained grin on his face. ‘One of us.’ Meaning MI6, Neave supposed. ‘Just back from Mozambique. Hence the tan. Tony Neave, first man to escape from Colditz castle.’
‘First Englishman,’ Neave corrected as they shook hands.
‘Well, that’s what counts, isn’t it? The home team?’ said Muggeridge as they moved on. ‘Well done.’
They took the stairs, threading through chatting couples, and Philby pushed him along the landing.
Philby swung open the door to a bedroom and let Neave pass inside. On the bed was a young woman, staring out of the window, and for a second Neave was puzzled. He knew Philby had a louche side, and his friend Guy Burgess a bacchanalian streak a mile wide, but this was bizarre behaviour.
‘She’s not in a p-p-party mood, I’m afraid.’
The woman turned to face them and it took a moment for Neave to place her. He had to picture her younger, without the fine lines that had appeared around her mouth and eyes. Then he caught the slightly misaligned stare. It was the nurse from Calais. Odile.
After a while he found himself touching her face, not in any sexual sense, he told himself, just to reassure her, to try to convey his sympathy and his sorrow, although a small part of him admitted he enjoyed the tactile sensation. She didn’t flinch when he moved to stroking her hair. Another Little Cyclone, with an astonishing story to tell.
She had been brought across the Channel by one of his fast boats, had been debriefed at the London Cage in Kensington Palace Gardens while he had been touring US bases in East Anglia, and so he had missed her. She had volunteered for SOE and her file had crossed Dansey’s desk, who sent Philby to look her over, see if she was any use to SIS. Philby, after deciding that SOE was her best option, had nevertheless invited her to the party.
She told Neave everything that had happened to her since Calais. The betrayal at Lille. How, when she heard Harry had been spotted in Marseilles, she worked out that he would route through Lyon on his way north, and her alerting of the Resistance. How they had watched all the bus terminals—she knew Harry was too sly to use the main rail station—his arrest, and the confession to Triffe in the cells. Then, her voice small and trembling, she explained about the baby. Harry’s baby.
‘Did he know that you were pregnant?’ Neave asked quietly.
Odile lowered her head. ‘No. After my baby was born I got Harry’s note asking me to meet him in Paris. He could explain everything, it said.’ She looked up at Neave, her eyes glistening. ‘My baby was part of the reason I went to the Resistance, to tell them that Harry Cole had to be … dealt with. Once and for all.’
‘You didn’t let him try to tell his side of things?’
‘Too risky. Harry could convince me the moon is made of cheese. When I was with him, I loved him. I knew what he said wasn’t always the truth, but that part of my brain was deaf, dumb and stupid. Now, I think he might have killed every bit of love in me. It’s a strange feeling.’
‘Don’t be too hard on yourself. He fooled me, too.’
‘But how? Even I could tell he was not what he seemed. Not an officer or a gentleman.’
Neave couldn’t explain that. It is true, in retrospect, all that Old Boy and Old Chap stuff was just too forced, but at the time, as Odile said, it was easier to accept him at face value. She described unemotionally the shooting at Montparnasse, the getaway car, the leaving of Paris and the journey to London.
‘You really want to go back?’
Odile nodded. ‘Yes. Of course. I have to …’ She struggled for a word. ‘Expunge what Harry did, somehow. Wouldn’t you want to go back if you thought you could do some good?’
He flashed back to the argument with Diana and smiled. ‘Yes. Yes, I would. At least you don’t have to worry about Harry. He’s dead now.’
‘I wish,’ she said with a sardonic laugh. ‘Harry’s not dead. He’s not exactly alive. But he’s not dead. The Sten gun jammed before the magazine was empty. He was hit, but obviously not enough. Before we could finish him off, two German soldiers started firing. It was a mess. We heard they took him to a German military hospital out near Vincennes, but it is almost impossible to get a team in and out of there. Maybe only a silver bullet can kill him.’
Neave leant over and kissed her, lightly, on the forehead and pulled her head onto his shoulder and said quietly: ‘Don’t worry.’ He thought about the Red Ribbon Dansey had signed a few months previously. ‘An ordinary bullet in the right place will do it just as well.’
Twenty-seven
Paris, September 1943
MISSING PRESUMED EATEN. THE notice with its wistful description of a much-loved cat, tacked to a tree at the edge of the Bois de Vincennes, made Pieter Wolkers smile as he walked down the drive towards the military hospital. It was about time something did. Paris had lost its sparkle for him, ever since Sicily had fallen, and now the Italians had gone and surrendered, his mood was increasingly bleak.
Yet his superiors were acting as if these were minor setbacks, as if they weren’t up against the huge force looming behind starved, battered Britain, the USA. Of course, everyone in the various branches of the security services followed Hitler’s official view of America—a country of children, run by gangsters. Wolkers knew better but he kept his opinions to himself. Since the pictures and descriptions of the camps in the underground Combat and Liberation newspapers, he knew where he would end up should he open his fat mouth.
He nodded to the nurse on duty at the desk, flashed his ID to the armed sentries, and mounted the stairs to the rehabilitation ward two at a time. There had been victories for his side, of course. Agents captured, broken, turned, their radios played back to London, but these were pinpricks. Barbie had picked up the elusive Jean Moulin in Lyon. A great coup, having de Gaulle’s personal emissary to the Resistance, but then the fool Barbie had tortured him so badly, he died days after his arrival in Paris. So they gave him another Iron Cross. Unbelievable.
Harry was sitting up in bed in what had once been a very grand bedroom of the château, but, stripped of all furniture, carpets and art, it was cold and echoey. The window was open, and the first of the year’s east winds was blowing. Harry looked at Wolkers with dull eyes.
He’d been warned that some of Harry’s memory had been affected by the shooting, but that he would be out in a week or two. Wolkers had insisted he be assigned to his V-man unit. There was no argument from Diels, who had at last got his wish to move from Lille and was installed in Avenue Foch. The Reich’s intelligence services were loyal enough to those who fell in the line of duty, but they didn’t especially crave damaged goods.
Wolkers sat on the side of the bed, took a slab of chocolate from his pocket and handed it across to Harry, who broke off a piece and let it melt on his tongue.
‘Nice,’ he said in a low croak.
‘Swiss.’
‘Where—?’
‘Don’t ask. How are you?’
‘Not bad for a dead man. I’m sorry … do I know you?’
‘Wolkers. We had some … dealings together in the Lille area. You sent me
…’ He struggled for her name for a second. ‘Odile.’
Harry flashed back to Monveaux, and the slowly revolving bodies in the square. This was the civilian who had been arguing with the SS. He knew who he was now, but what did he mean by sending him Odile? The mosaic slowly came together. This was the man King had contacted, using his name, to trigger the blowing of the ratlines. ‘Of course.’
Wolkers said quietly, ‘Harry, on your release you have been assigned to Section Fifteen. My section.’
Harry could smell alcohol on his breath. ‘And what does Fifteen do?’
‘The usual shit. Hang around bars, keeping their ears open. Watching for suspicious individuals, reading the denouncements that just keep coming.’
Harry shrugged. It didn’t sound particularly elevating work, but he’d need some kind of employment. The Dutchman ran a hand through his hair and decided to make his pitch. ‘Been keeping up with the news, Harry?’
‘Off and on. Which bit of the news are you interested in?’
‘All of it. The Russian Front. North Africa. Italy.’
Harry said, cautiously: ‘I know what you mean. Doesn’t look good from this end.’
Wolkers nodded, pleased he had correctly judged the measure of the man. ‘The High Command prefer the word elastic. Meaning they expect themselves to bounce back.’
Harry dropped his voice. Like Wolkers, he knew they could be executed for this conversation. ‘But you don’t think so?’
‘I told your friend Odile I was a gambling man. That I had totted up the odds, and backed the right horse. I still think I made a sensible bet.’
‘But?’
‘Didn’t factor in the Americans. Didn’t factor in fighting on two fronts.’
‘You weren’t alone.’
‘No, but I seem to be one of the few prepared to admit it.’
‘So when did the scales fall from your eyes?’
Monveaux, Wolkers wanted to say. That was when the cracks in his faith first appeared. It was an act by a people who considered themselves above common humanity. The award for Barbie, when he had clumsily murdered a potential trump card, added criminal stupidity to the charge sheet. ‘A long time ago.’
‘But you’re still here?’
‘Where can I go? We’re tainted, you and me, Harry. Now we have to bet on the one thing we know is a certainty.’
‘And that is?’
‘Ourselves. You and me. We always looked after Number One, I suspect, and we should do so again. Once we start doing that, we’ll be … what’s your expression? Quids in. I have a proposition for you.’
‘Whatever it is, I have a price.’
Wolkers walked over to the window, pulled aside the billowing gauze and lit a cigarette. ‘It’s dangerous, and if we are caught, we’ll probably be shot.’
‘I’m getting used to that.’
‘Firing squads tend not to miss.’
‘The last lot didn’t miss, just in case you didn’t notice. They just didn’t hit anything too vital. Harry’s luck is holding, that’s all. Give me one of those.’
Wolkers lit a second cigarette and gave it to Harry.
‘Swiss chocolate and British snouts. You are a man after my own heart.’
‘That’s what I thought.’
‘Whatever your scheme is, and I bet I can hazard a good guess, all I want in return is for you to find me someone.’
‘Is it a woman?’ asked Wolkers cautiously, thinking of Odile.
Harry shook his head. ‘A man. Called King. Or Rex. I can give you a very good description.’
‘Why do you want him?’
‘I want him to tell me a few things. Write them down. Sign it. Then I want to kill him.’
‘You don’t strike me as the killing kind, Harry.’
‘Watch me.’
‘OK. I’ll tell you my side.’ Wolkers quickly outlined his scheme to take them out of the war and into the good life. ‘Well? What do you think?’
A nurse knocked on the door. ‘I am sorry to interrupt, but we have some visitors from the Soldiers of the Fatherland charity. With some parcels … would you mind?’
Wolkers shook his head. ‘Not at all. I was just going. We have a deal?’
Harry nodded. ‘On that one condition.’
The four people from the charity came in before Wolkers could make his exit and he hesitated for a second, taking in the tall, striking woman with the elaborately wrapped package in her hands. She was dressed in a tailored white suit, with a large hat, decked with lace and feathers. She wasn’t young, but something in the dark eyes made him quiver.
Harry pulled himself up in bed and stared at her, but for different reasons. It was the Contessa Hellie von Lutz. And the last time he had seen her, back in Le Touquet, he had claimed to be an English spy.
The Wolkers plan was straightforward enough. After each day’s arrests, a sheet was posted in the SD operations office on the ground floor of 82 Avenue Foch. It gave the name and the address of the detainees, plus a code for the crime, indicating if it was being a Jew, a spy, a black marketeer; having an illegal radio; ration book or identity card fraud; being a communist or freemason; anti-social (ie anti-German) behaviour—or if it was preventative custody; no crime committed yet, but the potential culprits taken in as a precautionary measure.
After 24 hours a second code was added, which told Wolkers whether the individuals were likely to be released or were to be processed through Fresnes or Drancy and transported or executed. The names on the latter list were also dispatched to one of the approved French accountancy firms, whose job it would be to take a full inventory of the detainees’ apartments and liquidate the goods on behalf of the Reich, keeping twenty per cent for themselves.
Such were the numbers involved during the round-ups of late 1943, that a backlog had built up. Consequently it was often three or four days after the arrests before stock was taken and the contents either sold or sent for cataloguing in the vast warehouses to the east of the city, to await shipment to Germany. This meant that should anything of value disappear from the empty houses or apartments between the time of arrest and the visit from the money men, it would not be noticed. As long as they were careful.
The first outing for the Wolkers plan was a second floor apartment in a grand block on the Avenue de Villars. The Jewish owners had been denounced by a neighbour, snatched by a team of gendarmes two nights previously and were being held in the unfinished housing complex at Drancy. The concierge of the block was bribed by Wolkers, using extra food coupons that some poor sap in Fresnes prison wouldn’t be needing where he was going.
So when he arrived at Avenue de Villars, Harry had a full set of keys. He removed the Gestapo tape that sealed the entrance, ripping off small flakes of paint, which he would be careful to mask when he put the new barrier back. Once inside, he made sure all the curtains and shutters were closed before switching on the light. He paused for a moment at the sight of the dinner plates still laid on the table awaiting food, the cigarette with a two-inch-long ash on the sidetable, the sewing abandoned on the floor, all the signs of a normal life unexpectedly terminated. A white cat padded up to him and meowed plaintively. His resolve wavered, and he reminded himself of what Wolkers had said: the arrested with an NN after their name—Nacht und Nabel, night and fog, the code for the camps—or A, for Arbeiten, forced labour, they were as good as dead already. A slot in the Reich’s vast machinery of misery had already been prepared. Short of a miracle—and miracles were in very short supply—they would never see the apartment again. So they were really only stealing from the bloodsucking accountants and Germany. It was almost an act of resistance.
Harry went through to the kitchen and found some pâté in a cooler box, which he put down for the cat, and returned to the living room. A quick glance told him there were good pickings here—white gold picture frames, solid silver tableware, a pair of antique snuff boxes. All went into his carry-all. Somewhere there would be the family’s emergency stash which
they may not have had time to access—diamonds, perhaps, even good old-fashioned money. Harry kept his mind focused on the work, and slowly filled up the bag.
Wolkers had arranged that the money they raised would go into an account at the Swiss Bank on Avenue Montaigne. Once there was enough cash to keep them going for a while, then they would head to Zürich or Berne or Geneva while Europe finished tearing itself apart. It was a good scheme, if only Harry could suppress the feeling of nausea that rose in his throat as he rummaged through the possessions of the disappeared.
He forced himself to recall the flipside of this pact. That, at Harry’s request, a new question had been added by his partner to the interrogator’s list in the cells of Fresnes and Foch: have you heard of a British agent called Henry King?
‘And then she said to me … I’ve been looking on three floors and I’ve been fucked five times on the way!’
Harry laughed at the memory and Wolkers smiled indulgently. Harry had told him it before, more than once. It was early evening and they were in a scruffy bar in the Pigalle—chosen not for the peeling décor, but because it had a supply of coal for its stoves—celebrating the haul from the Avenue de Villars apartment. Wolkers’s fences had given him eleven thousand francs. A fraction of the loot’s true value, probably, but a healthy enough start to their retirement fund.
Wolkers clicked his fingers for a fresh round of drinks. ‘You know who she is? I recognised her at the hospital straight away.’
‘I know who she says she is,’ said Harry warily.
Hellie had remembered Harry all right, despite the damage and bandages, and greeted him like an old friend. She had sent away the other members of her charity team and had sat and talked to him. It was only after a while he realised that she had created her own explanation for his presence in the Hôtel Atlantic. That on their first meeting, he had been a German spy posing as an English spy.
She had stayed for half an hour, locking the door and pulling the drapes and reinterpreting the whole concept of charity towards the wounded in a way no red-blooded soldier could object to.