The Winter Garden (2014)

by Thynne, Jane

  ‘But Udet’s back here now. His time in Spain is in the past.’

  ‘Precisely. And it’s the future I’m concerned with.’

  ‘So what is it you want from me?’

  ‘It’s to do with something new. Something that could make a great deal of difference to the way that wars are fought.’

  ‘If wars are fought.’

  ‘Your optimism does you credit, Clara. However, I’m afraid I can’t share it. What I have discovered is something that could drastically change the outcome of any future European conflict. To the German advantage.’

  Clara finished her cigarette and ground the stub with her shoe.

  ‘And what makes you think you’re not taking a huge risk, Captain Sommers, in telling me all this?’

  ‘I am. As I said, I know all about risk. This is a calculated one.’

  The park was utterly quiet. To the left came the dim, continuous sound of traffic. Her nerves strained for sounds of entrapment.

  Quietly he said, ‘Listen, we can’t talk here. I don’t want to put you in any danger, but everything I hear about you makes me think you might be able to help me.’

  Everything he had heard about her? That remark, so casually uttered, startled her. They knew who she was, obviously, and they were aware of her work. But it was still a shock to think that she was being discussed somewhere, far away, in offices in central London, by military types in three-piece suits whom she had never met.

  ‘You’ll need to get in contact,’ he continued, matter-of-factly.

  ‘You want me to telephone you?’

  A little snort. ‘Of course not.’ Most telephones belonging to suspect foreigners were monitored. Whenever a foreigner arrived in Berlin, telephone repairmen would arrive on the pretext of ‘checking their connections’. Thereafter, making a call was like performing a two-handed play for the benefit of a large, invisible audience.

  ‘I want you to come and see me. Flat 2, Duisberger Strasse 58. It will have to be soon. Any evening this week. Repeat that address to me.’

  ‘Flat 2, Duisberger Strasse 58.’

  She thought of Archie Dyson saying Lie low. Do nothing. Work and eat and sleep and do nothing else that anyone could consider suspicious.

  He was still gazing out into the darkness. ‘I hope you’ll decide to come, Clara. It is a matter of great importance. I’d go so far as to say it could change the course of a coming war.’

  He stood up and said more loudly, ‘Now, I trust you’ll excuse me if I leave you here.’

  Clasping her hand he gave her the swift, dazzling smile, then turned on his heel. She stood and watched him walk away down the path, until the shadow of the looming trees enveloped him like a glove.

  Chapter Fifteen

  The policemen merely wanted a word with her, that was all.

  The day before, Ilse had handed the lighter in. She had been down to the end of the garden, to the place where Anna was killed, to put a bunch of edelweiss on the spot and say a little prayer. To show she cared, even if nobody else seemed to. Far from remembering Anna, everyone here just wanted to forget. No one wanted to draw attention to the fact that a woman could go to a Reich Bride School and end up murdered, so the patch beneath the trees had been tidied up, just like everywhere else at school. The grass had been smoothed over and the leaves raked, and there was no sign of blood or scuffed earth or anything else to suggest that only a couple of days ago a woman standing there had been brutally shot.

  Ilse’s religion wasn’t complicated. Her parents were Lutherans, but she reckoned God would not mind the absence of ceremony. She checked over her shoulder then said her simple prayer, very quickly, under her breath. ‘Please God, bless Anna and welcome her into your eternal band of angels.’ And then, when she opened her eyes, she caught sight of a tiny speck of silver, glinting at her between the roots of the pine tree, deep in the grass. It was like a message, which said that her prayer had been heard. She rubbed her damp eyes and looked closer. It was Anna’s silver lighter. She had bent down and put it quickly into her apron pocket. And there it had stayed all morning, burning a hole, until she had a chance to go back to the dormitory at lunchtime and slip it into one of her spare shoes.

  Ilse was torn about the lighter. She didn’t want to give it to the instructors because she knew it would be donated to the Winterhilfswerk campaign and she couldn’t bear the thought of Anna’s precious silver lighter being melted down with all the razor blades and toothpaste tubes and tin cans to be turned into aeroplanes. On the other hand, what if someone found it? Fräulein Kampfner, the dormitory supervisor, was always raking through the brides’ belongings, ostensibly for ‘tidiness’ and ‘hygiene compliance’. What if she unearthed the lighter and accused Ilse of being a thief? She would know it was Anna’s because of the initials. What would Otto say? She might even be asked to leave the Bride School. After a couple of hours of these terrible thoughts thumping through her head, by the end of the day Ilse had taken the lighter down to Fräulein Kampfner and handed it over.

  Then the next morning the men from the Reichskriminalpolizei, the Kripo, turned up.

  They just wanted a word with her, that was all, said Fräulein Wolff, showing them into the music room. She provided coffee and a plate piled with ginger biscuits, and the men had been very nice. Inspector Hans Kuckhoff was a fat, avuncular sort with a white moustache, smelling strongly of cigars, and Inspector Ule Georg was a smiley little man who kept making jokes about finding a bride for himself here.

  ‘These are respectable ladies, Georg,’ his colleague corrected him. ‘Too good for the likes of you. Besides, they’re all spoken for.’

  Both of them insisted there was no way on earth that Ilse was in any trouble. Inspector Kuckhoff said she had been very responsible to hand in the lighter and it was an action worthy of a Reich Bride.

  ‘After all, it’s a nice-looking object. Engraved and everything. It’s probably worth a bit. Another girl might have tried to keep it for herself. But you were honest, Fräulein Henning. That’s the kind of honesty the Führer wants in a German woman. It may well be rewarded.’

  Ilse wondered if he was suggesting that she might have wanted to profit from it.

  ‘I would never have sold the lighter. Anna was my friend. I just wanted to help find her killer.’

  The Inspector spread his hands. ‘Of course you did, Fräulein. My apologies.’

  After draining his coffee and fitting several biscuits one after the other into his capacious mouth, Inspector Georg mentioned the visit from the New York Evening Post journalist and confided that Fräulein Wolff had tried to cover it up initially because she did not want to be blamed for authorizing an interview. He laughed.

  ‘But if you could help us, Fräulein, we would like a few details of what happened when this journalist visited. Just for the record.’

  So that was when Ilse had told them. She had to, really, and besides, they had commented on her honesty with the lighter, so she explained that she had passed on Anna’s case to the lady because she said she was a friend of the family.

  ‘What friend of the family?’

  ‘I’m not sure. In fact, Fräulein Harker said she knew a friend of the family. So you’d have to ask her.’

  Inspector Georg knitted his brows and brushed some crumbs off his trousers.

  ‘This case. What did it look like?’

  ‘It was just a little stationery case. It wasn’t important or valuable. Anna used to keep her letters in it. That’s all.’

  After that Inspector Kuckhoff made a few notes in his book and slapped his thighs in a satisfied manner, and Inspector Georg commented on how lucky Fräulein Henning’s fiancé was to have such a pretty young bride, and the two men left.

  That might have been the end of it, apart from one curious thing. It was late afternoon and Ilse was in sewing class, where she was embroidering a pair of knitted gloves for Otto, with Heil on the back of one hand and Hitler on the back of the other. They were to be his Christ
mas present. She pictured Otto standing guard in some freezing outpost, his breath in clouds, clapping his hands together and thanking God for his fiancée and her thoughtful gift. That thought led to an extended reverie of the married life that awaited them, and how she would welcome Otto when he returned, cold and tired from service, with the stove lit and a fragrant stew bubbling, after which he would fold her into his arms and . . .

  This daydream was interrupted by the crunch of gravel outside and the weighted thud of a car door slamming. Casting a glance down from the window she saw the strangest thing. She was absolutely certain of it. The sleek black Mercedes Benz 540K exiting the gates was one that no one could mistake. Not just because it was the size of a small tank, with bulletproof glass and armour plating. But also because it had a personalized number plate which identified it as the property of Joseph Goebbels, the Reich Minister for Propaganda and Enlightenment.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Since the extraordinary episode of Thursday night, Clara had been thinking continuously about Ralph Sommers. She couldn’t get his face out of her mind. The smile, slightly mocking, and the patrician voice with its perfect command of German. The faint crinkling of skin around his eyes. And those eyes themselves, at once sensual and serious, with splinters of darker green around the edges. Why should she trust him? She had met him in the thick of the Nazi élite, after all. He had followed her with the skill of a professional, though just what sort of professional, she couldn’t judge. He had described himself ambiguously as a ‘freelance’, whatever that meant, yet he had asked for her help. She didn’t imagine that she could be any help to him. If his approach was a trap, then it was a most elaborate one. Surely, by confiding in her, he was taking as great a risk as she was. Yet altogether, she decided, it was essential that she remain on her guard.

  Duisburger Strasse in Wilmersdorf was a row of solid, nineteeth-century, high-ceilinged houses with filigree wrought-iron balconies protruding like lace on a heavy bosom. The street door was open, so Clara entered and knocked several times on the door of apartment two but there was no answer. She would have left, but the faint strain of music coming from behind the dense oak door told her that someone was at home. Eventually it opened and Sommers stood there, unshaven and wearing a dark blue silk dressing gown, which gaped at the neck to reveal a line of tawny hair leading down the chest. She wondered if she had disturbed him with a woman. He stood aside.

  ‘You’d better come in.’

  He seemed entirely unsurprised to see her. And unembarrassed at being only partly dressed. He led the way into a drawing room and gestured at a sofa.

  ‘Sit there for a moment, will you? I’ll get some clothes on.’

  While he went into the bedroom across the hall she looked quickly around for anything the drawing room might reveal about him. Nothing about the place, no glass ringed with lipstick, no flowers on the mantelpiece, suggested the presence of a woman. The only female to be seen, clipping roses in a wooden-framed photograph, was the age to be a mother or an aunt. There was a blue flask with the label ‘Extract of Limes, Geo.F. Trumper, Curzon Street, Mayfair’. A pair of gold cufflinks on the desk, engraved with the initials R.G. S. A globe-shaped, cut-glass lighter, a heavy brass ashtray and an open bottle of Johnny Walker whisky on the table. A pair of brogues stowed neatly beside the armchair with the inscription ‘Church’s of Turl Street, Oxford’ on the inside sole. A tweed jacket hung on the back of the door. The furniture of the room suggested a long-term tenancy, rather than a man living out of a suitcase. There was a desk, with a lamp and a leather-backed chair and an open copy of an Edgar Wallace thriller. It was almost as though someone was attempting to project an idea of utter Englishness.

  There was a Bach sonata on the gramophone. The music hung in the air, the notes twisting up, delicately rippling and declining, like something infinitely sad. Sommers returned, lifted off the needle, then walked across the room and detached the telephone from the wall.

  ‘I hoped you’d come.’

  He tilted the whisky bottle towards her in enquiry, and when she shook her head he poured a finger for himself.

  ‘The telephone’s just a precaution. Don’t worry. It’s quite safe.’

  She took the armchair closest to the door and Sommers sat opposite. Leaning back, his glance travelled involuntarily to her stockinged legs in a way that surprised her. An agent should know to keep their gaze steady. Not to give their thoughts away with telltale glances. The eyes were the first thing to betray you.

  ‘I assume, given that you’re here, you feel you might be able to help?’

  ‘You’ll need to explain a bit more,’ said Clara, neutrally.

  ‘Of course.’ He stroked an eyebrow thoughtfully. ‘Perhaps a bit of background might help. Earlier today two Panzer tank regiments were dispatched from Neuruppin, about an hour north of here, to Spain. Nothing unusual about that, but it’s a sign that the German involvement in the Spanish war is not letting up. There are men and machines being sent out there constantly.’

  ‘Go on.’

  ‘Everyone should be asking themselves what the involvement in Spain actually means. And the answer is, it’s a preparation. The Luftwaffe was mobilized at the start of this year and since then they’ve undergone a vast expansion. They have seventy military airfields around the country. They’ve increased aircraft production to unprecedented rates. The Germans possess the fastest bomber in the world – the Do 17. They’ve a production line at Heinkel’s factory on the Baltic coast turning out dive bombers in enormous numbers. To date they’ve amassed thirty bomber squadrons, six dive-bomber squadrons and twelve fighter squadrons. Two thousand three hundred and forty aircraft in all. Your Ernst Udet’s technical division is coming up with new ideas all the time. The only thing that’s holding them back from producing ever more machines is the shortage of steel and aluminium. This matters because everyone accepts that air numbers are going to be vital in the coming conflict . . .’

  ‘The coming conflict? Then you have made your mind up.’

  ‘Clara, it’s right in front of your eyes. They’re preparing for war on a major scale. The German army is growing stronger by the month. All the munitions factories are working overtime and they won’t stop until they’ve turned every saucepan in Germany into a dive bomber. Even before Hitler got involved in Spain, the rest of the high command assumed war was coming, though not before 1941. Now it seems we’re looking at some time sooner. Maybe even as early as next year. Britain badly needs to get up to speed.’

  ‘Is Britain not, then?’

  ‘Sadly we’ve spent too long listening to the pacifists who are determined to prevent rearmament. Those people who say that there’s no point defending ourselves because the next war will wipe out mankind. Or the others who say let Hitler have his way with Europe, as long as he leaves Britain alone. They’re fools, the lot of them, if they think Hitler can be trusted. We need to match Germany’s achievements right now. In heavy bombers for a start. Just think of what a five-hundred-pound bomb or even a thousand pounder could do if it was dropped on London.’

  ‘No one in their wildest dreams is talking about bombing London.’

  ‘There’s no telling with the wild dreams of some people.’

  She shifted in her seat. His sense of quiet alarm was contagious.

  ‘When I met you the other day, you mentioned that many British people agreed on an alliance. Surely Hitler hasn’t ruled that out?’

  ‘You’re right. And for what it’s worth, I think that’s still what Hitler would prefer. In the past he’s favoured a grand alliance, with Britain being superior on the sea, Germany on land, and equals in the air. It makes a lot of sense. If he achieved that, he would be able to concentrate all his force eastwards, towards Russia, in search of that living space he talks about. He would absorb Poland and White Russia. In the meantime the regime has decided that a German–Italian alliance will be important, so for Mussolini’s visit the other week they put on a huge display of military p
ower. But Hitler is still listening to powerful British voices who would like to see Britain and Germany as brothers in arms.’

  There was no doubt to whom he was referring. Her father, Sir Ronald Vine. The image of her father, with his craggy figure and penetrating blue eyes, tirelessly giving dinners and making speeches to serve fascism in Britain, rose up between them and Clara felt a faint, defensive stab of loyalty. She might hate everything he stood for, she might have devoted the past four years to undermining the Nazi regime in every way she could, but it still pained her to hear her father spoken of with contempt. Family loyalty was deep and instinctive and one of the toughest ties to sunder.

  ‘Why not just say it? You’re talking about my father, aren’t you? Well, he’s not the only one.’

  ‘That’s true, and it’s what I fear. Powerful men like your father ensure that the case for an alliance is heard at the highest levels. And – this is what concerns me – any information from here which puts an alliance in doubt may get quietly suppressed by those factions in the Government who would prefer not to cross swords with Herr Hitler. People who favour appeasement ahead of action.’

  Clara looked away to hide the film of tears which had suddenly misted her vision. Was it the mention of her father, or the fact that she was speaking English in the room of an archetypal Englishman, that brought a sudden, painful nostalgia for her homeland? Her home in Ponsonby Terrace, her friends, the theatre school, the parties and plays, even the BBC programmes on the wireless, all seemed so far away. Another life. For a second, her mind travelled back up the railway line through Kent, past embankments blowing with wild flowers and horses gazing peaceably over the fences, then slid into dingy, busy London, with its parks and squares and sooty spires.