The Secret of Spandau

by Peter Lovesey

  Once out, they formed three ranks, holding their machine guns across their chests. They wore red-banded peaked caps, tunics with high collars and the breeches and jackboots of the Soviet Army. At a few sharp orders from their NCO, they dressed from the left, turned right and marched briskly towards the castellated archway at the main gate. The coach drove off along Wilhelmstrasse. As the column approached the blue double doors, the right side opened and the men marched through. The door immediately closed behind them. The spectators waited for the changeover ceremony to take place inside. An empty bus arrived.

  In ten minutes, the door opened again and out marched a triple column of French guards: two officers, eight NCOs and forty-four men, relieved after a month of guarding Spandau’s solitary old Nazi. The same ritual had been enacted each month by American, British, French and Soviet forces ever since 1947. The French bus drove away and the crowd dispersed – all except one, who pushed his cycle across the street to the Melanchthon Church opposite, and continued to wait. On that side, the summer foliage obscured him from the watchtowers and the windows at the prison entrance.

  He was Red Goodbody.

  Since returning to Berlin the previous Tuesday, Red had been working on the problem of getting into contact with Hess. He had come out here each afternoon and stood by the church notice board, taking a demonstrative interest in the order of services whenever anyone passed. He knew every preacher for the next six weeks. Periodically, he walked his cycle across Melanchthon Platz, the intersection with Wilhelmstrasse, and sat on a bench in front of the five-storey apartment block there. Across the six lanes of traffic, he could see the battlemented profile of the prison directors’ building.

  Cedric Fleming’s world scoop had seemed a thrilling prospect in the comfortable obscurity of a cottage in the heart of England. Against the reality of Spandau the best you could say about it was that it was improbable. But Red’s persistence had at least told him a little about the prison routine. In another few minutes he expected to learn something more.

  This sort of surveillance, or spying, or whatever it amounted to, was alien to Red’s nature. He disliked lone assignments. All his best stories had come through face to face conversations, preferably over glasses of beer. It was not that he felt imperilled by keeping watch on Spandau; he was just a gregarious man who was not used to working this way.

  He checked his watch. It was time to cross Melanchthon Platz again and stroll past the church where he would get a clear view between the trees of the prison gate. The timing was exact. A small door was built into the right-hand entrance gate. It opened and a figure in a blue and red tracksuit emerged and jogged towards Wilhelmstrasse, to turn left, in the direction of Spandau town. He was sandy-haired, average in height and probably around thirty years of age. Red had watched him set off on his run at precisely this time for the past three days. Today, he would be following him.

  It was easy to be inconspicuous on the opposite side of a highway as wide as Wilhelmstrasse, and Red cycled at a leisurely pace along the pink track reserved for cyclists, allowing his man to stay ahead by at least fifty metres. Logically, he was going to be English or American. They were the jogging nations. The French preferred cycling and the Russians were not allowed to go out alone.

  Presently, the jogger stopped at a crossing, preparing to come over to Red’s side of the highway. Red squeezed the brakes, and took a consuming interest in the appearance of the apartment blocks to his right. Someone had written Tommys Raus on one of the walls.

  He was soon on the move again. His quarry crossed the street and took a turn to the right. It led over a bridge across the Havel and linked with the busy Charlottenburger Chaussee. He continued running towards the city at an even, economical stride, passing the direction signs for the Olympic Stadium.

  Shortly after the Palace of Charlottenburg came into view, the jogger turned right and set off down a smaller street. Several more minutes of steady running, and he entered a park where children were playing beside a modern, sculptured fountain. Further on was a car park, and beyond that a handsome, glass-roofed building that Red had not seen before: the new Charlottenburg sports hall. If the runner had plans for additional exercise, he was indeed a dedicated sportsman. Not the sort to open up over a few beers.

  He went through the swing doors while Red was parking his bike. You don’t throw your bike down in a heap in Berlin.

  ‘That guy who just came in ahead of me – is he a track star?’ he asked the girl at the ticket office.

  ‘The one in the red and blue tracksuit? No. He plays table-tennis.’

  ‘Table-tennis?’ Red reflected on the six miles or more of pounding the pavements. ‘It sure must have come a long way since ping-pong. Which part of the building is that?’

  ‘The main hall. Straight ahead.’

  ‘Is there a gallery for spectators?’

  ‘The stairs at the end. Don’t you want to play something yourself?’

  ‘Darling, the only thing I play is my Barbra Streisand tape.’

  The gallery was empty, except for a sleeping man stretched along three seats. There was a good view of the hall, where the table-tennis was concentrated at one end. All four tables were in play, but the red and blue tracksuit was not in sight. Red was unconcerned. He had already decided his man would need a shower. He glanced at the Rauchen Verboten! and at the sleeping man, and slid out his pack of Marlboros.

  22

  On the drive back to Hammersmith, Dick suggested supper at the Italian restaurant in King Street; afterwards, Dick drove to her flat in Brook Green, and Jane asked him in, stressing that the invitation was for coffee and coffee alone.

  It was after eleven. Out of consideration to the other tenants, they crept upstairs in silence, without switching on lights.

  ‘I’m in my usual chaos,’ she said as she pushed open the door and grabbed a handful of underclothes that she had left on the radiator. ‘Bathroom’s through there if you want it. I’ll stuff these in a drawer and put the kettle on. Find yourself a chair, won’t you?’ She went through to her bedroom.

  She was not one of those people who claim to have extrasensory powers, but, strangely, the moment she stepped into the bedroom she felt uneasy. Someone had been in there while she was out. Whether it was the trace of an unfamiliar odour or pure intuition on her part, she didn’t know. It was a sensation she had never experienced before.

  She stowed the undies away and changed into a white cashmere jumper, then sat at her dressing-table trying to ignore the feeling. She put on fresh lipstick and a dab of Miss Dior, raised a smile in the mirror and got up to attend to the coffee. Then she froze. She had proof that someone had been in there.

  On the white table beside her bed were various things she liked to have handy: paper hankies, a couple of books, aspirins, a felt-tip pen, a notebook and a digital alarm clock with a narrow rectangular face. It was the clock that fixed her attention. The digits for hours and minutes glowed red and were separated by two pulsating points. After she had bought the clock, she had found that the reflection on the white surface of the table disturbed her sleep, so she always positioned it facing away from the pillow, at the forward edge. If she wanted to see the time in the night, she had only to wriggle down in the bed a few inches.

  The clock had been moved. Someone had turned it towards the pillow.

  ‘Dick!’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Would you come in here?’

  She told him.

  ‘You’re certain? You couldn’t have moved it yourself as you got up this morning?’

  ‘I know I didn’t.’

  ‘You’d better check that nothing is missing. Your jewellery.’

  Foolish, she thought, to leave it in such an obvious place as the dressing-table. She didn’t possess much, some rings and necklaces and an antique silver brooch, but what she had was precious for all sorts of reasons.

  She opened the left-hand drawer. Everything was in its usual place in the padded ebony box sh
e had bought as a teenager in Paris.

  ‘Nothing gone?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘What else do you have of value? Was there any cash lying around?’

  ‘No. I had it with me.’

  ‘Credit cards?’

  ‘In my bag.’

  ‘Passport?’

  She went through to the living room and checked the filing cabinet. ‘I think it must be missing … I’d better call the police.’

  Dick was looking along the collection of letters, ornaments and photos on the mantelpiece. He picked out the passport and handed it to her. ‘I don’t think we should call them.’

  ‘Why not? Somebody has definitely been here while I was out.’

  ‘Your landlord? I expect he has a key.’

  ‘I’ll phone him.’

  ‘It’s late.’

  ‘He won’t mind. I need to know, Dick. I feel quite creepy.’

  Dick shook his head. ‘Better not use the phone in the flat.’

  She stared at him.

  He said, ‘I’ll ask the people downstairs if they heard anything. Just to be sure.’

  While Dick was gone, she wanted to check things, but she couldn’t. She knew what it meant to be paralysed with fear.

  He came back quickly. ‘You’re right,’ he told her. ‘They heard movements about an hour ago. They assumed it was you.’ He faced her and put his hands on her arms. ‘Did you make any notes at Cedric’s last weekend?’

  She frowned, then understood the drift of his thinking. ‘A few things. In the notebook beside my bed.’ She shivered.

  ‘And the interviews in the week. Did you tape them?’

  ‘They weren’t worth the trouble.’ Jane ran her fingers distractedly through her hair. ‘Dick, who do you think has been here?’

  ‘Someone who got wind of what we’re up to. Some crazy journalist from one of the tabloids wanting to find out more, I wouldn’t be surprised. Or a freelance, or even one of our respectable rivals.’

  ‘They’d break into my flat?’ said Jane in disbelief.

  ‘If they thought we were on to something really big. And we probably are, which is why we can’t tell the police. Do you understand, Jane?’

  She nodded.

  ‘You’re taking it well.’

  ‘I shall probably scream in a moment.’

  He put his arm around her shoulder. ‘Would you like me to make that coffee? Then I think I should check whether my own place has been broken into. Want to come with me?’

  ‘Please.’

  ‘You might like to bring a few things with you and spend the night there.’ Before she could respond, he added, ‘I do have a spare bedroom.’

  Jane thanked him. She couldn’t face the night here, knowing that someone had come and gone with such ease, and not knowing why they had come or whether they might return. It wasn’t like having the place ransacked by thieves. It was sinister. It made her flesh creep.

  When they got to Dick’s place, he checked it minutely and pronounced it exactly as he had left it. So Jane passed the night in the spare bed and lay awake for hours trying to decide whether to call Cedric in the morning and resign from the team.

  23

  Cedric had suggested Inner Temple Gardens as a good spot to meet, but at 12.30 there were so many people eating sandwiches there that he proposed a walk along the Embankment instead. ‘Better than sitting on a park bench with the reek of hard-boiled eggs all around you,’ he told Dick. ‘I never eat lunch unless it’s a business affair, but I have to admit to subversive signals from the inner man at about this time. A spot of exercise would be doubly mortifying to the flesh, and therefore beneficial. I hope you’re not hungry, by the way.’

  Dick shook his head. He had eaten a late breakfast and prolonged it with extra rounds of toast and coffee as he strove to convince Jane that she should stay on the team. Without really carrying the argument, he had persuaded her not to make an immediate decision. He had driven her back to Brook Green and entered the flat with her. Together, they had made a second check of her desk and filing cabinet. Nothing had apparently been removed. After a few minutes, she had thanked him and said she felt in control and there was no need for him to remain there.

  He told Cedric about the break-in. ‘Jane is understandably shaken,’ he added. ‘She’s in two minds about going on with this. We can’t let her drop out now, Cedric. She’s been working flat out making contact with people out of the top drawer who might know something, and the results are starting to show.’

  Cedric side-stepped the point about Jane altogether. ‘The question is, who is on to us?’

  Dick showed with a shrug that it wasn’t his most immediate concern. ‘One of the tabloids?’

  Cedric pondered the possibility as they strolled past the black hull of the Discovery. ‘I can’t see it. All right, the word is probably out that we are launching a new investigation into the Hess affair, and they may know who is involved, but I can’t see them breaking into a fellow-journalist’s flat. Not the Fleet Street boys. It’s not the same game as trespassing at Balmoral with a telephoto lens.’

  ‘Who would you put your money on, then?’

  ‘You say it was a tidy job?’

  ‘Almost immaculate.’

  Cedric nodded. ‘Special Branch or MI5. Probably the latter.’

  How would they know what we’re doing?’

  ‘Come on, Dick. Where were you all last week?’

  ‘The Public Record Office. I didn’t talk to a soul.’

  ‘But you filled in applications for the Hess files.’

  Dick clicked his tongue.

  Cedric asked. ‘Did you check to see if they bugged the flat?’

  ‘It didn’t cross my mind.’

  ‘For Christ’s sake, Dick! Make a point of it, will you? This isn’t party games.’ For a moment, the roar of a courier’s motorcycle reverberated off the stonework of Waterloo Bridge. Cedric waited, then said. ‘We’re in trouble.’

  Dick steered him in what he hoped was a more positive direction. ‘Have you heard from Red?’

  ‘Not a word,’ answered Cedric morosely, ‘but then I wouldn’t expect to. He’s not the type who calls the office for a chat. We’ll walk as far as Hungerford Bridge. I’ll pick up a taxi at Charing Cross.’

  ‘There’s something else?’

  Cedric nodded. ‘I asked our man in Washington to do some digging in the National Archives. He found a copy of the cable that Churchill sent President Roosevelt one week after Hess arrived in Britain. By then, Kirkpatrick from the Foreign Office had conducted three long interviews with Hess, and got the peace terms he was offering. Churchill makes no secret of the offer, but he tells Roosevelt frankly that Hitler refuses to negotiate with the existing British government.’

  ‘Does he say who they expected to negotiate with?’

  Cedric sniffed. ‘Exactly as I told you last weekend. Members of a “peace movement” which would oust the Churchill government. Churchill brushes this aside as an example of the ineptitude of German intelligence. But Roosevelt wasn’t convinced. Do you know the comment he’s reported to have made to his staff? “I wonder what is really behind this story.”’

  They walked on for some way without speaking, past Cleopatra’s Needle, towards the iron railway bridge. A passenger train trundled out to the suburbs.

  ‘We found something else in the Washington Archives,’ Cedric resumed in the same downbeat tone. ‘A memo to Roosevelt from Sumner Welles, who was his Under-Secretary of State. On 22 June 1941, the British Ambassador, Lord Halifax, called on Welles. He was exercised about reports that were circualting in the States. It seems that Herbert Hoover, the former President, was openly saying that Hess had come with specific peace proposals and that leading members of the Conservative Party in England had called on Churchill with a demand that he give serious consideration to them. They were threatening to withdraw their support in the House.’

  Dick whistled his reaction. ‘It went as far as that, did it?
Halifax denied it, of course.’

  ‘In a curiously ambivalent fashion,’ Cedric answered. ‘He said that it was unnecessary for him to state that the reports were entirely untrue.’

  ‘Foxy old devil!’

  ‘And it never came to anything because, on the very day this conversation took place, Germany invaded Russia. Hitler had turned his attention eastwards, so the immediate threat of Britain being over-run was lifted. Churchill could tell the rebel Conservatives to take a running jump, and he probably did.’

  Dick almost crowed his satisfaction. ‘It’s slotting into place, Cedric. What we’ve got is Churchill fighting for his political life in those six weeks after Hess arrived.’

  Cedric was not so sanguine. ‘It’s no bloody use without names. Who were these rebel Conservatives? We’re no nearer to identifying them.’

  They had reached the Embankment underground station. They started up the stairs towards Villiers Street.

  ‘Would you have a word with Jane?’ Dick asked.

  Cedric sighed heavily. ‘Later.’

  They reached the taxi-rank in the forecourt of Charing Cross Station. Once Cedric had climbed into a cab, Dick went down the steps of the underground. He took the District Line to Hammersmith and spent an hour in the library there before going on to Jane’s. At a shop in the Broadway, he bought a new lock for her door.

  She had finished checking the flat. ‘I’m more organized now than ever I was before,’ she announced. ‘I threw out heaps of useless bits of paper I’d accumulated. Clearing things out is a therapeutic exercise.’ No more was said about resigning from the team. She certainly didn’t look in a negative frame of mind. She had put colour on her eyes and she was wearing a green silk tee-shirt that turned every movement she made into a distraction. Dick gave her an approving glance, but each of them knew that their relationship was professional.

  He told her about the meeting with Cedric, and they searched the apartment for hidden bugs and found none.