Estocada

  ‘You’re sure you’ll be OK? You’re sure you don’t need me?’

  Tam was already looking down the road. He might have been imagining it but he thought he caught the first pale light of dawn away to the east.

  ‘You’ll need this.’ She was holding out his passport. ‘It’ll get you out OK but they’ll never let you in again. Persona non grata. In some quarters that stamp is a badge of honour. Cherish it. Show it to your grandchildren. Are you married, by the way? I never asked.’

  Tam shook his head. No wife. No children. He opened the passport and flicked through to the page that held his entry stamps. She was right. Wiedereintritt verboten. Re-entry forbidden.

  He pocketed the passport and bent to kiss her goodbye but she took a step back, keeping her distance. He knew he’d hurt her. It was there in her eyes. She held his gaze for a long moment and then forced a smile.

  ‘We were going to Spain,’ she said. ‘Remember?’

  ‘I do,’ Tam nodded.

  There was a long silence. Then a car whined past. Bella’s face was pale in the throw of the headlights.

  ‘You think you’ve failed?’ she said. ‘Is that it?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you may be right. But we all failed. Every single one of us. You know what the Czechs are carrying to work now? In Prague?’

  Tam shook his head. She’d stepped a little closer. There were tears in her eyes.

  ‘Gas masks,’ she said. ‘They’re carrying gas masks.’

  29

  BERLIN, 15 SEPTEMBER 1938

  First light. Dieter Merz was about to leave for Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse when Georg arrived at the Potsdam stables. The call had come minutes earlier. The voice at the other end of the phone, a Kriminaldirektor, presented his compliments and requested Merz’s presence at Gestapo headquarters at his earliest convenience. Pressed by Dieter for details, the Kriminaldirektor confirmed that the matter was in connection with a Miss Ayama. The sooner Merz appeared at Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, the better.

  Dieter was hand-cranking his borrowed BMW when Georg drove in. He got out of his car and gestured towards the house. Georg had always been an early riser but turning up at this hour promised nothing but bad news.

  ‘We need to talk,’ Georg grunted.

  Dieter began to explain about the conversation with the Gestapo but Georg cut him short. He’d taken a call himself, unpardonably early.

  ‘From who?’

  ‘One of Goering’s aides. Der Eiserne sends his compliments, by the way. He thought your run-in with Streicher at Nuremberg was the high point of the evening. Maybe that’s why you got the promotion.’

  ‘Promotion?’

  ‘Major. Backdated to when you got back from Japan.’

  Dieter stared at him, then returned to the house and unlocked the door. Georg wanted coffee.

  ‘I’m not going to Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse?’ Dieter couldn’t make sense of the news.

  ‘No.’

  ‘Why not?’

  Georg had found the coffee. He filled a saucepan with water and put it on the stove. Then he turned round and gestured for Dieter to sit down. Dieter shook his head. He was getting angry again. Georg was making a habit of treating him like a child.

  ‘Keiko’s been released,’ Georg said.

  ‘When?’

  ‘Yesterday. They delivered her to the Japanese Embassy.’

  ‘So when do I get to see her?’

  ‘You don’t, compadre. She’s a spy. Apparently Goering’s seen the evidence, so it must be true.’ He spooned the coffee into a jug and checked on the saucepan. Then he turned back to Dieter. ‘The Japanese are taking her to Hamburg this morning. There’s a boat to Yokohama leaving tonight. They’re calling it reassignment but what it boils down to is deportation.’

  ‘So this is against her will?’

  ‘Far from it. It seems she’s happy to go. And after a week with the Gestapo, nobody would blame her. They shaved off her hair, by the way. The aide said Ribbentrop barely recognised her.’

  ‘She said goodbye? To Ribbentrop?’

  ‘She did. Maybe there was more to all that than we know. Don’t torment yourself. It’s over. Finished.’

  Dieter stared at the table. Keiko, he thought. Gone.

  Georg was pouring hot water on to the coffee. He had more news. The British Prime Minister was due in Munich this afternoon. He’d decided to fly to Germany and pay a personal call on the Führer to sort out all the Sudeten nonsense. Goering had personally ordered a Luftwaffe fighter escort for the last half hour of the trip.

  ‘It seems the man’s never flown before. It’s our job to make him realise what he’s been missing.’

  ‘Our job?’

  ‘You and me, compadre.’ Georg put a cup of coffee on the table in front of Dieter and gave his shoulder a squeeze. ‘A 109 each. Just like the old days, eh?’

  *

  The British Airways pilot bringing Chamberlain to meet Hitler had already filed a flight plan. He’d be taking off from Croydon Airport at mid-morning and tracking south-east along the Franco-Belgian border before entering German airspace north of Metz. With the predicted tailwind, he should be on the ground in Munich by 13.30. Time for the welcoming party to position themselves was therefore short.

  Georg drove Dieter to the airfield at Johannistahl. On Goering’s orders, ground staff had already checked and fuelled two of the new Emils. A take-off at ten o’clock should put them on a Luftwaffe base just kilometres inside the western frontier by half-past eleven. After refuelling, they’d be airborne again in time to intercept and escort the incoming flight from London.

  It was months since Georg had last sat in a fighter plane and watching him fold his long frame into the cockpit, Dieter felt a hot gust of kinship from their time together in Spain. He’d loved the simplicity of those days. He’d loved the scruffiness of the villages and the slow rhythms of life amongst the mountain people. These were the toughest of men and often the happiest, too. When the big Atlantic depressions rolled in from the west, and the winds and the cloud base made flying impossible, he and Georg would find a local bodega and settle in for the evening. He remembered the guttering candlelight, and the draught through the ill-fitting door, and the howl of the wind down the rough stone chimney, and the endless toasts to God and Franco. Those winter nights in front of a roaring fire had a simplicity and an almost animal warmth that he’d known even then was doomed to disappear.

  And Keiko? Dieter shook his head. Even then, even before he’d met her, the woman he loved had probably been pledged to some greater cause. Her father? Her family? The Emperor? Japan itself? He’d no real idea but what hurt most of all was the knowledge that she must have seen this coming. One day the regime would find her out. And so it had proved.

  ‘Major Merz?’ It was the base controller. Merz and Messner were cleared for take-off. Wind 12 kph from the south-west. Barometric pressure 997 mb.

  Dieter adjusted his altimeter and signalled to his engineer that he was ready. Georg had begun going through his start-up drills, head leaning forward in the cockpit, an attitude of intense concentration. With a cough and a splutter his engine caught, tiny puffs of black smoke quickly shredded by the wind. Then Dieter did the same, hitting the starter button and feeding in maximum boost until he could feel the airframe quivering around him.

  An hour and a half later they performed a low pass in front of the control tower at the Luftwaffe base near the border, and then circled around to land. That morning, Goering had put his entire fighter force on combat-readiness, a tactic calculated to spice the coming negotiations over Czechoslovakia, and the lines of 109s were visible on the airfield below.

  After Dieter and Georg had landed, the Oberstleutnant in charge brought them the news that the British Prime Minister’s flight was on track and on time. The pilot anticipated crossing into German airspace in forty-seven minutes.

  Perfect. Dieter and Georg drank coffee while ground crews refuelled the aircraft. A young wom
an from the local paper made an appearance to quiz Dieter on what it felt like to be on screen in every cinema in Germany. Last week’s performances over the Zeppelinfeld had already found a place in newsreel reports and Dieter watched her pencil racing over her notepad as he detailed the sequence of loops and rolls he took from display to display.

  ‘He makes everyone think it’s easy,’ Georg told her. ‘He even fools my wife.’

  Fools my wife? Dieter wanted to know more. They were walking out to the 109s. Georg was studying a curtain of grey on the western horizon. There’d been no mention of cloud in the earlier forecast.

  ‘She wants you to be godfather to the little one,’ Georg said.

  ‘Godfather? Me? You’re serious?’

  ‘That’s what I asked her.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘She’s dead set on the idea. God knows why.’ He came to a halt beside Dieter’s aircraft and looked down at him. ‘So what do you say, compadre? Shall I tell her yes?’

  *

  Dieter and Georg took off minutes later. They climbed at full power, heading for the distant overcast, quartering the sky for sight of the British aircraft. It was a Lockheed Electra, two engines, twin rudders at the back, and Dieter spotted it first, high and slightly to the right. It was a dumpy little thing, reliable, pedestrian, perfect, Dieter thought, for a British politician about to get his first taste of Adolf Hitler.

  ‘Your two o’clock high,’ Dieter told Georg.

  Dieter led the way, still climbing. He let the Lockheed pass and then hauled the 109 around until the British aircraft was on the nose, still heading south-east. Over breakfast, they’d agreed Dieter port and Georg starboard, and as they closed on the Lockheed, Dieter called the split. Moments later, Dieter was nicely positioned fifty metres off the Electra’s left wing. Through the side of his canopy he could see the surprise on faces at windows in the fuselage and he lifted his hand to acknowledge the pilot’s greeting. At the briefing, he’d been told that this man spoke a little German.

  ‘Wilkommen in Deutschland,’ Dieter said.

  ‘Vielen Dank,’ came the reply.

  ‘Your passengers are OK? We’re not too close?’

  ‘My passengers are fine.’ The pilot seemed amused. ‘They’ll do what they’re bloody well told.’

  Dieter laughed, trying to imagine what awaited them once they’d landed.

  According to Georg, Ribbentrop would be waiting for his visitors. There’d be a welcoming committee, a line of soldiers to inspect, maybe a red carpet, maybe even a band. A limousine would be ready to take the British Prime Minister to the railway station and thence south to Berchtesgarten. Another drive would follow, whisking Chamberlain up the zigzag road to the Berghof. There, in the late afternoon, he’d meet Hitler.

  The three aircraft droned east, away from the thickening line of cloud. Below, to the left, Dieter tracked the shadows as they raced over field after field. Sooner than he expected, the dark mass of Munich began to fill his forward view.

  Dieter checked on the Lockheed again. The British pilot was gradually losing height, riding a patch of turbulence.

  The Führer, Dieter thought, waiting in his mountain lair. The voice in the tunnel. The madman who chews the carpet. Those soft, soft hands. And the eyes that give nothing away. There would follow hours, maybe days, of negotiation. Messages passed back to London. Pleas entered. Positions staked out. Compromises half-agreed. Concessions abruptly withdrawn. Then one last session, Hitler still on his feet, probably past midnight, everyone else exhausted, the Czechs abandoned, the world holding its breath while the men in the field-grey uniforms marched east.

  Dieter took one last look at the Lockheed and then peeled off, dropping a wing and pushing the throttle lever to its limits.

  Estocada, he thought.

  30

  LONDON, 15 SEPTEMBER 1938

  Tam arrived back in London in the early afternoon. A car and a driver were on hand to meet the incoming flight and Ballentyne was waiting in the Mayfair safe house. Tam explained everything that had happened since his return to Berlin. The news that Tam had mounted a bid to resolve the Hitler issue on his own initiative drew a murmur of surprise from Ballentyne.

  ‘You told them you tried to kill him? You admitted it?’

  ‘I did.’

  ‘Under duress?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘And yet they released you? In my book that makes you a very lucky man.’

  ‘Meaning?’

  Ballentyne wouldn’t answer. When he offered a drink Tam shook his head.

  ‘You think I’ve done some kind of deal?’

  ‘It’s a possibility. You have to admit it. Nothing in this world happens by accident. These people can be pretty persuasive. You wouldn’t be the first to buy them off. Nor, I imagine, the last.’

  Tam was staring at him. In the spirit of total candour he’d laid everything out, exactly as it happened, determined to settle his accounts and be on his way. Not for a moment had he appreciated that he himself might have become a security risk.

  ‘So what happens next?’ he asked. ‘You want to lock me up? Pour water down my throat? Wait for me to drown?’

  Ballentyne looked briefly pained. The operation to stiffen the German opposition, he admitted, had failed. Chamberlain, ignoring the advice of countless others, had elected to resolve the Sudeten problem in person. Ballentyne hoped some settlement might emerge from the days to come but suspected the worst. If you happened to be a Czech living anywhere near the border now might be the time to pack your bags and head east.

  Tam nodded. He was angry. He wanted to know how long he’d be expected to stay in London. Would there be a full post-mortem? Days of incessant interviews? Checks and counter-checks? Would Bella be hauled back to attest on his behalf? Swear blind that he hadn’t become a Nazi stooge?

  ‘God, no. We’ve put you through far too much already. And for the record, we’re truly grateful for what you’ve done.’ Ballentyne checked his watch and got to his feet. ‘Your father’s not too bright, by the way. It might be wise to pay him a visit.’

  *

  Tam spent the night in a Bloomsbury hotel at Ballentyne’s expense. Next morning he walked the mile and a half to his father’s nursing home. The matron greeted him with the news that his father had taken a turn a couple of days ago and wasn’t responding to treatment. He was refusing to eat and even getting liquids into him was proving difficult. She led him upstairs and paused outside his father’s door.

  ‘You’ve lost a good deal of weight yourself, Mr Moncrieff. Nothing serious, I hope.’

  Nothing serious? Tam sat with his father for the rest of the morning, trying hard not to dwell on the last couple of days. The old man was skeletal, his face already a death mask. Twice the sunken, rheumy eyes flickered open but on neither occasion did he recognise the presence at his bedside. Finally, at lunchtime, Tam said his goodbyes to the staff and headed for the door to make his way to King’s Cross Station. As a parting gift, the Matron pressed a packet of sandwiches into his hand.

  ‘Something for the journey,’ she said. ‘We’ll keep you informed.’

  *

  Over the next week or so, back at The Glebe House, Tam snatched what time he could to monitor the regular wireless bulletins on Chamberlain’s progress in Germany. The first meeting with Hitler led to another round of negotiations, this time in Bad Godesburg. The radio reports were kind to the Prime Minister but Tam could sense that the ex-Lord Mayor of Birmingham was no match for a gangster of Hitler’s pedigree. When the talks finally broke down and Chamberlain reported back to his Cabinet, it was evident that war could be imminent. Anti-aircraft shelters were readied in Central London. Plans were under way to evacuate children to the countryside. Then came the moment when the Italians intervened, offering to broker yet another meeting, and the country held its breath.

  By now it was the end of the month and Chamberlain once again flew to Munich to confront Hitler. Two days later London erupted to wel
come him home. He had, he said, headed off the near-certainty of war. In addition, he’d secured a written pledge from the German Chancellor guaranteeing peace in our time. And all this for the modest cost of three and a half million Czechs. On the first of October, with the blessing of Britain and France, Hitler’s divisions marched into the Sudetenland.

  Next day the London Times carried photos of Wehrmacht troops crossing the Czech border. Tam recognised the lie of the landscape, the softness of the Bohemian hills, the sullen peasant faces watching the Germans march by. A handful of MPs expressed their shame at the Czech sell-out but the rest of the country were only too pleased to believe Chamberlain’s promise of a lasting peace. That night Tam sat up late with a bottle of malt whiskey. And wept.

  *

  The following week, early in the morning, Tam took a call from the nursing home. His father had died in the night. The matron offered her sympathies and enquired what arrangements Mr Moncrieff might have in mind. Later that morning, Tam phoned his sister and broke the news. Vanessa appeared to be unsurprised. Their father, after all, was seriously old. All things being considered, he’d had a thoroughly good innings. Alec was in South America just now and she thought it unlikely he’d make it back for the funeral.

  Tam shipped his father’s body north and paid a visit to the village rectory. A date was fixed for the funeral in the third week in October. Vanessa attended, together with a number of relatives and local friends who’d known Tam’s father in his prime. As the mourners filed into the tiny granite chapel, awaiting the arrival of the hearse, Tam was surprised to spot Ballentyne and Sanderson. The latter, sporting a deep tan, paused at the chapel door to shake Tam’s hand and offer his condolences. Tam had arranged for a modest wake back at The Glebe House after the interment.

  ‘Soup and sandwiches,’ he said. ‘And a little something to drink.’

  Ballentyne and Sanderson exchanged glances. Tam could sense that Sanderson wanted to be on his way but Ballentyne seized on the invitation.