‘The smell of cigarettes round the restaurant should have warned me,’ Peter said, rueful in hindsight.
‘Abs was a chain-smoker. I thought your dog was giving the game away, sniffing us out.’ Happily, Peter’s cool head had saved the day. And then his decency in making the phone call to Oxford.
‘I’d forgotten about that call and whom I rang. We were being shunted from one camp to another.’
‘Well said. We need your cool head and discretion now.’
A knock on the door and the cropped head appeared. ‘Coffee’s in the dining room.’
Hendersley explained. Reichenau would brief him on the Abwehr and on its presence in Switzerland. Then he would describe a small task Peter could carry out for him. ‘I’ll work here on some papers during the briefing. Reichenau—’
‘Franz, please.’
‘Franz, perhaps you could call me for the latter part.’
****
‘Now for your education in the confusions of German security.’ The major took several sheets of paper to draw on during Peter’s guided tour, briefly distinguishing the Gestapo (Secret State Police) from the Sicherheitsdienst (Security Service) from the Abwehr (Military Intelligence).
‘Of course, they all tread on each other’s toes and are in a constant battle for Hitler’s favour—which the Gestapo will probably win.’ Then he gave a more detailed breakdown of the Abwehr (Intelligence, Sabotage, Counter-espionage). In Switzerland, Intelligence and Counter-espionage operated out of the Reich commercial office. In Vichy, out of a Paris office.
Without doubt, the Abwehr would be the service interested in Peter’s arrival. He should expect at once to be followed, eavesdropped on, perhaps have his hotel room or office entered. For those first days, he should simply settle into his official duties and routine as naturally as possible and concentrate on being the person he had arrived as. ‘Make them bored with you. They’ll decide on you quickly and don’t have the people for permanent cover once you’ve satisfied them. Then you could kindly think about a small task I would like to suggest.’
‘Any advice on how I’ll know the Abwehr have dropped me.’
‘You’ll know. They’re not very subtle. Worse as victors. If you’ve no more questions, let’s go back to the study.’
****
Hendersley put his papers back into his briefcase and snapped it shut. Not particularly at ease, Peter thought. Worrying the “small task” might put the Vichy mission at risk? Hendersley nodded at Reichenau to begin.
‘When Holland fell, your British colleagues lost touch with an important German agent. He is also an Abwehr officer – the only other, so far as I know – and works in Intelligence. The possibility has arisen to get back in touch, in Switzerland. He has shown he is willing. However, he won’t deal with any of your legation people: he believes the Abwehr might have penetrated some part of it. As so successfully in The Hague, indeed—’
Hendersley broke in. ‘I’m sure that lesson’s been learned, Franz. Peter, we don’t think penetration’s a possibility, but you must stand over the cipher clerk when he’s sending your reports and personally destroy any drafts or copies.’
Reichenau took up again. ‘If you will, we would like you to establish contact with this officer and to offer him an alternative means of communication. Possibly he will give you information to send back. You can do that in your usual report but not giving him as the source. “A French officer told me he had heard that …” Once you have made contact, passed on the new means of communication and have his agreement to continue, you withdraw from the operation. Your part is over.’
‘If he suggests a second meeting, Franz? For further information, say.’
‘Assume it’s a trap, that he is acting under orders. Making contact with him will involve two visits to an intermediary: one to initiate contact, the second to arrange the actual meeting. That might take yet another visit. You will be given the details just before you leave for Vichy. You should not reveal your public name or post to the intermediary or to the officer. Choose a first name to be known by. The officer will arrange a danger signal to call off the operation.’
‘Should I be expecting trouble?’
‘I don’t believe so. This is just standard practice.’
Hendersley sat forward. ‘Are you content to do this, Peter? It’s not what you signed up for. If you’re at all uneasy, feel at liberty to say no. Your mission is reporting from Vichy.’
Was Hendersley hoping he’d demur? But what more could he ask than to have the cover of a second, secret mission in Switzerland? And to learn from it. ‘I’m content.’
Hendersley stood to pick up his briefcase. Peter would be leaving for Vichy from a Foreign Office-owned flat. They would arrange for Franz to meet him there to give him the operational details.
Reichenau went with them to the study door. ‘Peter, thank you for accepting this. It could be very significant. Are you taking your shotgun to Switzerland? The shooting season will have begun.’
‘Not for me, I hope.’
****
‘I’m sorry to have walked you into Franz Reichenau without notice.’ As the car climbed back into the dappled green of the Chilterns, Hendersley broke into Peter’s thoughts. ‘Must have been quite a shock.’
Before he could reply, a military roadblock brought them to a sudden halt. A soldier checked their identities and looked into the boot. Somewhere nearby, planes were taking off, fighters by the engines’ sharp note. Peter wondered how easy it would be to disarm the soldier. As practised in the gym, left-hand forearm blow to the side of the neck with a right-hand kidney punch; follow through with the hand round the mouth. All very well in theory: he’d best go back for another session or two before leaving.
Back on the road, Peter returned to the subject of Reichenau. ‘I don’t see how you could have told me anything in advance. From that call he asked me to make when we got back from France, I knew there was something about him.’
‘You took it all very coolly.’
‘Stunned, most likely. Just as when you proposed Vichy, for which I’m most grateful.’
‘Having come across you, I was more than happy to push the proposal, but the original suggestion didn’t come from me. Someone in the office knew you’d been up to some funny business in France. When he heard what we were discussing, he said you were just the chap.’
****
Back in London, he rang the Finsbury Crown to get in touch with Podger and then went to the gallery to take Rozalia for a drink. With the bond he felt between them, his respect for her shrewd insights and integrity, he decided to risk telling her at least where he was going, and to discuss possible international cables – plausible international cables – between an art dealer and her inevitable Swiss agent.
‘This is to deal with your oprichniki.’
‘Precisely not to deal with them.’
She laughed at his phrasing. ‘You know all such business cables have to be booked and are read by the authorities with the greatest suspicion. If the idea is to best an oprichnik, I will think what can be arranged. Now, do come back to the gallery for half an hour. Possibly my father will be in. He’s very anxious to meet you. Then take me to dinner, please. I want to catch you while your feet are still on the board, even if only the toes are gripping the edge.’
****
Her father had gone, leaving a scrawl of suggestions about the exhibition’s hanging and a drawing from his Paris collection that he wanted reframed. ‘And that reminds me.’ Rozalia lifted her arm dramatically. ‘Your hour has come.’
‘Which of my coming hours has come?’
‘The hour of your Lowndes Square epiphany, my dear. The Delaunay is back from the framers. Could you take it to Lady Lewis before you go?’
‘An epiphany will be good preparation. Tomorrow morning?’
She rang to discover. Then, while she made other calls, he wandered placidly round the gallery looking at the exhibits hung so far, finally picking
up the little sketch her father had left. Charcoal and soft pencil on a rough, heavy sheet; possibly an initial study. A nude, three-quarter view from the back, ending unfinished below the knee. The model had one arm raised – as though performing? The merest indication of a long window. Was she waiting for the painter to be ready? She was ready. But for what? The head was tilted back, the body somehow self-possessed, confident. Something in it drew his eyes back, some sense of familiarity. In the stance? The curve of the back, the tilt of the head? Possibly just an echo of Michelle’s self-possession? A young woman who had come to terms with the life she had made for herself, or what life had made for her.
‘Compelling, yes?’ Rozalia had been watching him. ‘My father is passionate for it. He has some others, probably drawn the same day, and the final painting. If you ring with “Napoleon”, those are what he’ll take.’
****
Over dinner, the sketch hadn’t left him. ‘It’s so sure and so expressive. The artist? What more did he do?’
‘He called himself Paul Cépin, though that wasn’t his original name. He was a Russian by birth. My father thinks he would have been among the great painters of the century.’
‘Would have?’
‘He killed himself not very long after those sketches. My father bought them from his landlord.’
‘Killed himself over that woman?’
‘So says my father.’
‘How tragic.’
‘You would never kill yourself for a woman?’
His instinct was to joke, but the intensity of her look made him take her question seriously. ‘Killing myself if jilted or disappointed in love? I can’t imagine it. I obviously haven’t an artist’s soul. But I suppose I might kill or be killed for a woman.’
‘Your mother. The road you are about to take.’
‘You’re a sorceress. Not only my mother.’ Her eyes were so soft. ‘I would kill for you, Rozalia, to keep you safe.’
‘Oh my dear. “Puskai ya slab, moi mech silion … Though I am weak, my sword is strong.” Thank you.’
He changed the subject. ‘What happened to the woman? Did she commit suicide too?’
‘I will let my father tell you her story when you come to see the other sketches and the painting. He understands what they mean. You must see them.’ She would not say a word more.
****
The Lowndes Square flat was spacious, with high ceilings and long windows, all strapped with brown paper; its emptiness spoke of the best pieces, pictures, bibelots being in store. He offered to place the Delaunay, but it too was to be sent away. A parlour maid brought coffee. He declined a brandy. Lady Lewis took a double: at her age it could do only good.
She was grateful for his finding the time to bring the picture; she had so appreciated how he had discussed it with her in the gallery. Had Rozalia told him anything about her? No? She was the widow of the banker and industrialist Sir Sigismund Lewis, deceased some years. A great collector and a far-sighted man. It was no surprise if Mr Hill had probably not heard of him: he kept himself in the background, declining all further honours, all public office. Discreet support for the arts was his indulgence.
Then her directness caught him by surprise. She had been very taken by his delightful way with Rozalia, of whom she was so fond, so very fond, and by Rozalia’s way with him. Now to speak of Rozalia … After her dear mother’s sad death, Rozalia, the only child, had devoted herself to her father, supporting him and taking much of the business off his shoulders. Her grasp of art and her grasp of the business of art – both were formidable.
‘I’ve learned a huge amount from her on both scores.’
‘I would like to see her edge the gallery a little beyond post-impressionism, but in present circumstances there is simply too much art that can be chosen from beggars. Her father has an unerring nose.’
He wondered if the sleeping partner was speaking. ‘He seems to visit every part of the country.’
‘Plucking bargains off family trees.’ She threw out the quip almost absentmindedly. To return to Rozalia, she wanted to say that Rozalia had never, as far as she knew, allowed any man to be as close to her as he, Mr Hill, had become. So, being so very fond of Rozalia, she had wanted to meet him outside the gallery, to get to know him a little better. Would he be embarrassed if she said that he had unusual charm for an Englishman? Quite continental, quite reminiscent of her travels across Europe with Sigismund.
As she paused for some brandy, studying him over her glass, he pondered the compliment. “Unusual charm”? Oleaginous headwaiter – Hungarian lesser nobility on his beam-ends – heel-clicking hussar in search of a summer affair in a Carpathian spa?
She was continuing. Her late husband had encouraged her to trust her instinct. ‘Mr Hill—’
‘Please call me Peter.’
‘Peter. Rozalia has told me – in complete confidence – that you are going to Switzerland and might need, shall we say, a confidential contact there. I think I might be able to help you.’
To gather his wits took a moment. ‘That would be extraordinarily kind and extraordinarily helpful. If I can do anything in return—’
‘Only give me your promise to continue to support Rozalia in friendship as you do now. Nothing more.’ Her eyes, hooded, worldly, sadly aware, were steady on his.
‘Naturally, you have my promise.’ The turmoil he felt surprised him. ‘Lady Lewis, Rozalia has become immeasurably dear to me. I count the day we met – by chance – as one of my most fortunate in all the world.’ The blue-grey eyes under long, dark lashes. A sweet, peppery scent on ivory skin. A poignant question—better brushed aside. ‘Her friendship and support have meant everything to me.’ She nodded acknowledgement and sipped her brandy, her eyes unwavering. ‘I am off soon on this mission, to Switzerland. There will probably be other missions until the war ends. Rozalia understands that, I know.’ Turmoil gripped him still. The question – no, questions – he mustn’t put to himself had to be suppressed. ‘No matter how long the war lasts, I… my deepest friendship will always be there for her, life permitting. That I promise.’
‘I am certain of it.’ She rang for the parlour maid and asked for a whisky for him. ‘I want you to know that if ever Rozalia should marry, I will act as if she were my own daughter.’
He drank his whisky and said he feared he must go.
‘Peter, I thank you for listening with such courtesy to an impertinent old lady.’ Her eyes had not left his. ‘And for your reassurance. I also know I can rely on your discretion. I will see you at the opening. Rozalia will let you have the details of the contact. He will be at your disposal.’
****
Back in the square, he blew out his cheeks, still amazed. Rozalia was a sorceress. He thought again of their first meeting, when she hovered in the doorway of her flat, that searching glance. They were fated to meet. Wasn’t fate just the name we used when we wanted to classify an event as significant, momentous? Yet something, some charge, had passed between them. Why else had he sought her help, shocked by his mother’s plight? The charge continued to pass, would, he was sure, be stronger now. As for the unanswered questions? Unanswerable now, except for the certainty of the white peignoir patterned in red.
He set off to buy books and a guide or two for his journey: he couldn’t take his old friends. He would get Virginia Woolf’s biography of Roger Fry for Rozalia. Then he would meet Podger for a drink and some lunch at a place in Clerkenwell. ‘Sweetbreads, Mr ’ill. They do lovely sweetbreads.’ Looking ahead, he had a possible Finsbury favour to ask.
Time to departure was shortening.
Chapter Seven
With his final encounter with Burenko only an hour, away, he met the Special Branch officers to receive the latest Intelligence briefing for the Russian’s questions.
‘Thank goodness I’ll be saying goodbye to the man.’ Didn’t that sound rather offensive to the officers? ‘Of course, I’ll miss our little chats. You’ve been a great help and support. Thank
you.’
‘Well, we should be thanking you. But that might be a bit previous,’ said the second, usually reticent, Special Branch officer. ‘He thinks he’s only saying au revoir.’
‘And looking forward to your return,’ said the first. ‘A pity you couldn’t have made it a proper club, with some action. Next time, eh? We can offer a suggestion or two. Our colleagues in vice can introduce you to some of the livelier joints.’
****
He arrived before Burenko at the Thames-side longshoremen’s pub the Russian had proposed and sat on the wooden gallery overlooking the river. The tide was low and in the setting sun the mud banks oozed red; the sluggish river was lurid, its oily surface on fire.
How might a painter’s eye see it? The stillness, the flaring colour and the smoky shadows of lighters, warehouses and cranes along the wharfs opposite; the summer sun’s beating along the tideway.
Reality was barrage balloons swaying and the sun’s rays catching a ragged flight crossing the capital further west, one trailing, lower than the rest. Would those pilots recognise their description in that News Chronicle poem – trying so hard for historic importance – as “greater than the Greek heroes, daily fighting Thermopylae”? The Times had found an apt piece of Blake:
“Liberty standing on the cliffs of Albion…
While with her eagle wings she covereth
Fair Albion’s shore and all her families.”
That simple image was more telling than any lines of ornate antique verbiage.
****
Burenko’s apologetic arrival interrupted his train of thought. For the first time the Russian had a briefcase, which he put down beside him on the bench. He’d been visiting a shipping concern to discuss carriage and insurance. ‘Channel and south coast ports now very dangerous for our freighters from bombing. Germans’ operation against England beginning, I think.’
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