He had not been able to remind Chamberlain that a much earlier monarch had met a bloody end on a scaffold in Whitehall for the crime of defying parliament. In fact, he had not been asked to say anything at all at the meeting. It had been an ambush carefully organised by Lord Halifax, and the fox-hunting C had ridden straight into it. Chamberlain’s final scrawled comment on the paper outlining the case for the assassination had been one of utter contempt for the whole idea: “This would not be sportsmanlike behaviour,” he had written.
Macrae looked left and right, hoping to see the familiar dirty white raincoat flapping around the portly figure of a man who must be as disappointed as he was. Halliday was always late.
He watched a line of ducks ripple up the lake – drake, hen and three smaller birds from last year’s brood. There was a flash of coloured feathers as they lifted from the ruffled water and rose like flowers in flight, their petalled wings beating against the darkening sky.
“Beautiful, aren’t they?” she said.
He turned, gripping the railing tightly, knowing the voice so well yet feeling the shock of a surprise so total that for a moment he thought he must have imagined the words.
She was standing there beside him, looking older and thinner, smiling, dressed in a smart brown woollen coat with mother-of-pearl buttons.
“What are you doing here? How did you know? When did you …?”
His words trailed away as she leant up, gave him a kiss on the cheek and slipped an arm through his.
“The pubs are open; let’s get a drink,” she said.
“Hold on. My colleague is meeting me here.” He wasn’t thinking clearly; he couldn’t think. Where was Halliday?
“I’m meeting you here. It’s all been arranged. Come on.”
“No, let’s walk,” he said.
He took her arm and steered her across the bridge towards Birdcage Walk. They swung left on the path around the park. He gripped her arm tightly. She didn’t seem to mind. He needed the cold air of a darkening spring evening to clear his head. He needed to understand and work out what had happened. Halliday had fixed this. It was always Halliday. Where was the bastard? Why hadn’t he told him?
She began talking in a low voice, as if the plane trees branching over the path were listening. They walked three times around the lake in the gathering dark before she finished. Twice he had tried to interrupt, but she had shushed him. When she had finished her story, they stopped on the bridge, looking back at the lights of Whitehall and across to the gas lamps casting a golden glow along the Mall. There were too many questions to ask, too much more to talk about. It was dark now and getting chilly.
“Let’s go to that pub,” he said. He put his arm around her waist and drew her to him as they left the park. He felt her arm around him as they walked through streets churning with commuters heading for the nearby Victoria Station. They went into the first pub they came to.
She unbuttoned her coat, placed it over the back of her chair and smoothed her skirt. She was wearing an office-style suit, he noticed. She must have a job somewhere. He wondered if Halliday had arranged that as well.
He went to the bar. She wanted a large gin and tonic with lots of ice. He asked for half a pint of bitter. When the gin was placed alongside the beer on the counter, the bubbles fizzing up through the ice and a slice of lemon, he changed his mind. He would have a large gin as well, he said. The barman sighed.
They raised their glasses and clinked them.
“I never thought I would see you again,” he said.
“You saved my life. That’s why I am here,” she said.
“I think you did that,” he said.
“Without that permit I would have been in Sachsenhausen by now – or more likely dead.”
“Even so, you were lucky. I am amazed you did it.”
“What, kill him?”
“Yes. I mean no. I’m not surprised. You had to. I’m just amazed you managed to get away.”
“I worked out that they wouldn’t find the body until late in the day, or maybe not until the night. I knew Kitty wouldn’t say anything – she would just take the money and run. So I had time.”
“And Halliday followed you all the way? I can hardly believe that.”
She laughed then, an exhilarating laugh with her head back.
“He told me he had a hunch when he saw me that morning at the Ostbahnhof. He’s a crazy man.”
“And he introduced you to his people?”
“Yes. I have told my story many times, too many times.”
“And now?”
“They offered me a job using my language skills in some research.”
“What, secret stuff?”
She nodded. “I said no. I want to be a teacher.”
They drank their drinks in silence for a while.
“I’m going back to Berlin tomorrow,” he said.
“I know.”
“Shall we eat somewhere?”
“That would be nice,” she said, and she reached across the table and took his hand, squeezing it hard. Her eyes were on his. She raised her glass, drained her gin, still looking at him. In those eyes he saw two figures in the Tiergarten that night, their urgent bodies colliding and coiling on the damp earth under the trees, hearing only whispered words of love and the quiet conversation of the leaves above them. But it was a lie, he quickly told himself. She was surely using him – and why not? Her body, those whispered words, her urgent gasps as she clawed her nails into his back, they were all part of the unspoken arrangement, were they not? My body and a fleeting moment of passion for a laisser passer, a ticket to freedom, that was the deal, wasn’t it? There was nothing cynical about that, it was a question of her survival. After all she had murdered a senior Gestapo to make her escape – what would a tryst in the woods with a British diplomat mean to her when her life was at stake? And for him, what had he found as he held her half naked in his arms on those frozen nights in the Tiergarten? A little solace for a wounded heart, comfort denied him at home, was that it?
She released his hand. She was smiling now. “Let’s get another drink,” she said. Then he knew it was more, much more.
25
Macrae took the gun case from the cupboard under the stairs. He had pushed it as far back as he could behind the brooms, buckets and mops used by the cleaning lady. It was the one place in the house he knew Primrose would not look.
He took it into the kitchen, blowing dust off the initialled leather case, and undid the buckles on the straps. He placed the rifle on the table, took it out of the oilcloths, drew up a chair and sat down to begin the delicate job of attaching the telescopic sights to the barrel. He had bought those sights from Holland & Holland in London twenty-four years ago. Every sniper on both sides of the war had their own favourite make of sights, and the best were custom-made to conform to the optical measurements of the owner’s eyes.
Macrae had gone to Holland & Holland because he knew they made first-class sporting rifles. He reckoned that the gun sights that enabled a stalker to drop a stag in the Scottish Highlands at a range of eight hundred yards would be good enough for the trenches. So it proved.
He paused, hearing a sound somewhere in the house. The fridge was whirring quietly behind him. A door creaked somewhere upstairs. Maybe a window had been left open. He knew there was no one else in the house. Primrose had gone off with the other wives from the embassy to take her seat in the stand for distinguished guests.
The civilian parade of local bands and children from every school in Berlin would begin to file past the reviewing stand at 10 a.m. An hour later, the military march-past would begin and it would last for three hours. The climax would come with a fly-past of every type of military aircraft in the Luftwaffe, and especially the new Me 109 fighter, the aircraft that would streak over the city in tight formation only a few hundred feet from the ground with a thunderous roar.
During this time, Hitler and his senior ministers, Göring, Goebbels, Himmler, Hess and Speer,
would not leave the reviewing stand except for brief calls of nature. Their arms would rise and fall in salute to the tributes being paid to the Führer on his fiftieth birthday. Their arms would ache, their smiles would freeze into rictus grins and their ears would be deafened by the clamour. It was going to be a very noisy day on the avenue. The rumble and clatter of military vehicles, the cheers of the crowds, the music of the military bands, the planes overhead – all would create a continuous wall of sound. That is what Macrae was counting on. He could already hear the rising tide of sound from the avenue as people gathered and the bands began to tune their instruments.
He stopped fitting the telescopic sight and listened. It was not the cleaner’s day. There was a window banging somewhere upstairs. He was not nervous, just curious. He walked upstairs to make sure. In the drawing room, a small side window had been left unlatched and was swinging slowly in the breeze. He closed it and went to the French windows.
Through the trees he could see crowds milling in their thousands, jostling for position. He could also see the reviewing stand very clearly. A lectern had been set up for the big speech that afternoon. There was a table beside it with water bottles and glasses. But no chairs. The Nazi leadership was never to be seen sitting down in public. That was the rule. But Sir Nevile Henderson would be sitting down with all the other heads of mission. He was probably there somewhere already. He would not want to miss a minute of this.
Macrae looked down at his hands. His knuckles were white. He unclenched his fists. The last meeting with the ambassador had been a shock. Primrose still had not recovered from the news – or forgiven him. Because naturally it was his fault. Worst of all, Henderson actually seemed to enjoy telling him.
It had happened a week after he got back from London. He had been asked to stay behind after another tense staff meeting. The ambassador had remained seated at the conference table and gestured Macrae to do likewise. There were two official white envelopes in front of him. Macrae could see his name typewritten on both. Sir Nevile Henderson came to the point with uncharacteristic speed.
“It has been decided that you have fulfilled your duties here with, how shall I put this, with vigour. It is now time for a new posting. I have here a letter from the War Office in which you will see you have been gazetted as full colonel. Congratulations. Here is a second letter from the Foreign Office in which you are designated as HMG’s military attaché in Lourenço Marques.”
“Where?”
“Lourenço Marques. Capital of Portuguese East Africa. Pearl of the Indian Ocean. An important listening post, given German submarine traffic in the Mozambique Channel. SIS has a man there. The Abwehr and the Italians are also pretty thick on the ground.”
“I don’t understand.”
“I think you understand very well, Colonel. You are being transferred. I am sure you will have an interesting time.”
“When is this to be effective?”
“Immediately, but we understand you will need a week or two to make your arrangements. Your replacement has been told to be in post at the end of April.”
“This is outrageous.”
“No more so than your recent conduct. You seem to have forgotten that we are a civilised, Christian nation. Good luck in your new post.”
And that is how his career in Berlin had ended. There was no appeal and no point in protest. The letter from the War Office had been signed by Hore-Belisha. When he had got the atlas out that night and showed Primrose where Lourenço Marques was, at the tip of the African continent, she had taken the book and flung it out of the window.
She had shouted at him, screamed and yelled, and finally walked out. She didn’t come back that night. He had called Halliday, but there was no reply. He had gone to the Adlon for a few drinks and tried to think clearly. Maybe getting out of Berlin at that moment, the last peaceful springtime in Europe for many a long year, was no bad thing.
Maybe he and Primrose could consider themselves lucky to be able to sit out the coming war in the tropical splendour of Lourenço Marques, wherever that was. Maybe he would ask for a divorce. Maybe he should resign from the army and join Sara in London. Maybe he would ask Sara to come to Portuguese East Africa, because Primrose had made it clear she was not going. What had Sara said? She was going to train as a teacher? Well, there should be plenty of teaching to do at the far end of Africa.
The maybes piled up in an untidy heap on the bar like olive stones. He chewed the thoughts over and spat them out one by one. He finished his drink and swept the maybes out of his mind. He knew what he was going to do. Whatever happened, it would not take him to the Pearl of the Indian Ocean.
He looked at his watch. It was almost ten-thirty. The civilian parades were well under way, but he knew Hitler would not appear until the military march-past began just before eleven. Göring and Goebbels would be vying for the attention of the spectators, each trying to stand slightly in front of the other on the platform as they saluted the parading schoolchildren and workers’ organisations. Hitler would bide his time. He was a master showman who chose his entrance with care.
Macrae shook the bullets from the pouch and slid five rounds into the magazine. He would need only one or two at the most. Five rounds was a precaution in case anything went terribly wrong. But nothing would go wrong. He slid the magazine into the rifle, flipped the bolt up and moved it forward, injecting the first round into the firing chamber. The first and only round, he told himself.
The rifle felt better once loaded. It was ready to fulfil the purpose for which it had been designed by an American armourer called James Lee, whose gun was first mass-produced in a north London suburb called Enfield. A strange combination that had given its name to a great infantry weapon.
He took the rifle upstairs, walked into the drawing room and looked out of the French windows. He pushed a window open but did not step onto the balcony. There was just a chance that they would be watching windows, balconies and roofs that provided a good line of sight onto the reviewing stand. Possible but highly unlikely. Heydrich and his Gestapo gang thought they had caught, tortured and killed or imprisoned every dissident in the country, and they were very nearly right.
Placing one foot on the low wooden sill of the window, he raised the gun and looked through the sights. There was a clear view of the lectern. He swung the weapon slightly to one side and saw Göring. The field marshal of the Luftwaffe had recently lost three stone at a health farm in the Swiss Alps but looked as absurd as ever in a light grey uniform that sagged under the weight of rows of medals.
Maybe he could take the field marshal out with a second bullet. No, he told himself, don’t be greedy. It would be better if Göring were alive after Hitler had fallen. He would make a power grab using the forces of the Luftwaffe. Goebbels and Himmler would fight back with their own special forces. While the Nazis descended into murderous disarray, the army would move in.
And that was what the plan depended on. The more he thought about it, the more he was sure. The conspirators were still there waiting for the opportunity. The assassination would be their chance. They would arrest the leadership, declare martial law and install an interim military government. The whole Nazi house of cards would come tumbling down once the ace in the pack had been removed. Then there would be a bloody settling of accounts.
He put the gun down and looked at his watch. It was ten fifty. Time for a coffee. His hands were trembling slightly. He placed a finger under his wrist, feeling for the pulse. His resting heart rate was fast at eighty-six a minute. He would still have the coffee. Adrenalin was good. He wasn’t nervous. What he was about to do was morally right, an imperative that the gods of any religion would recognise. Macrae was neither religious nor superstitious, but that morning he felt the hand of history on his shoulder.
He swung the rifle up again and focused the sights on the spectators. Through the leaf cover he could see the ambassador wearing his usual red carnation. The rest of the embassy staff were obscured.
&n
bsp; He went to the kitchen, put the kettle on and looked at his watch. It was ten fifty-three. Seven minutes to go. The coffee would not cool in time. He would burn his mouth trying to drink it. That would be a distraction. He turned the kettle off and took deep breaths.
Keep calm, he told himself. You will do this. There will be bloody chaos for a day or two. The embassy will sit tight. Primrose might even go to London as she planned the following morning, if the trains were running. He would follow when the fuss had died down. As for Sir Nevile Henderson and the prime minister – well, it didn’t matter what they thought. They could go to hell.
He walked back up the stairs. There was a groundswell of expectant cheering outside. He swung the rifle up. There was no sign of the Führer. Any minute now. The noise became a roar, a wave of sound that broke over the centre of the city and swept out to the suburbs. The first of the tanks appeared, moving quite swiftly down the avenue, and began rolling towards the reviewing stand; brand new Panzer III tanks, better than anything in the British army.
Macrae stepped onto the balcony and raised his rifle. The noise became a crescendo as Hitler walked onto the reviewing stand and took his position at the lectern. He was wearing his usual army uniform with the peaked cap and Iron Cross 2nd Class. He raised his arm in greeting to the crowds lining the avenue.
The first tanks moved slowly past the stand, while behind lay a long ribbon of camouflaged armour and transport vehicles stretching into the outer suburbs. The intention was as clear as the message it conveyed. This was Hitler’s birthday present to himself: an army that he, the Führer of the Third Reich, had forged out of the chaos of the Weimar Republic. It was an army that no one should doubt he intended to use.
Macrae tucked the butt of the rifle into his shoulder, leaning against the door jamb, and peered through the sights. He had Hitler in plain view now, his head and shoulders neatly bisected by the cross hairs. The Führer’s stance on the platform meant he was presenting the rear and right side of his body to the rifle. Macrae shifted slightly, focusing the cross hairs on a point just behind Hitler’s right ear.
Midnight in Berlin Page 35