He frowned and shook his head, as if he’d failed to explain something simple to a class of children. Indeed, it occurred to Max that Von Hoesch had something professorial about him, explaining clearly and concisely what must have been obvious to him and yet was so obscure to the students, or, as in this case, the British government.
“So,” Von Hoesch said, “he wants people in place who will… facilitate? Yes, facilitate a convivial relationship with Britain. Von Ribbentrop will be appointed with that mandate. But, he has, what is it you say? A card in his sleeve.”
“An ace up his sleeve,” Max said.
“Yes. He has some sort of information, secret information. I learned this about four months ago. In the embassy we have… intelligence personnel. I think that would be a good description?” Here he looked at Lindsey, who nodded once.
“Gestapo?” Max said.
“I believe so,” Von Hoesch said. “They’re Nazis, of course, rabid and ruthless. Probably Gestapo, or something like them. They took over a department in my embassy and have direct access to their superiors in Berlin. I don’t know who those superiors are, but I know they have access to Hitler, via Himmler. I’m afraid I know very little of their operation. I was…”
“Frozen out, old boy,” Lindsey said.
“Yes. An odd term. I never quite understand some of your phrases. Anyway, never mind. I doubt I shall get the chance now to understand. It won’t be long before they realise that someone inside the embassy has been helping British intelligence. After that…” He held his hands wide, and let them drop to his side.
“You can get asylum, though,” Martha said. “Can’t he, Tony? Max?”
“Of course,” Max said.
Lindsey said nothing. But it wasn’t necessary, because Von Hoesch said, “No, young lady. It won’t happen. If I’m given asylum, it will be an admission of treason. For myself, I do not care. But for my family…”
“You mean—” Martha said.
“Yes. They won’t want to make it plain, of course. It won’t look like murder. It would be…” Again, he let the sentence slide off into space, probably not wanting to contemplate what it might be.
Lindsey said, “So, His Excellency passed a message to MI5, and they asked our mob to look into a few things abroad.”
“Linz,” Max said suddenly. “Lindsey, you were in Linz last week. Skiing, you said.”
Lindsey watched Max evenly and without a flicker of emotion, much as a man in a poker game might watch the player opposite, especially if that player were deciding whether to call a bluff.
“I don’t understand,” Martha said.
“Hitler,” Max said.
“What does Hitler have to do with skiing?”
“Linz is a town in Austria,” Max explained. “Oh, they have skiing there, and lots of tourists from Britain and other places, but it also happens to be the place where Hitler grew up.”
“Was it?” Lindsey said casually.
“Tony?” Martha said.
Lindsey ran his tongue over his lips. “Can’t confirm or deny, of course. But if one were to attempt to uncover Hitler’s past, his nature, his beliefs, one might try in his home town, one might speak to those who knew him, casually, of course, and on purely friendly terms.”
“I can tell you his beliefs,” Max said. “Total domination, the suppression of resistance to his will, ruthless dogmatic faith in his own and the Aryan people’s right to control others.”
There was a brief silence following this statement. It was true, of course, which, perhaps, was why it was treated with silence.
“There’s more,” Lindsey said after a moment. “Recent events have tied in with something His Excellency has discovered. Herr von Hoesch was able to intercept part of a message. Sir?”
“Mr Lindsey is correct. It was a message sent in three parts, each with a separate courier who carried the message among… uh… valid diplomatic documents. The messages were coded, but would have been one complete message to the chief security officer at the embassy, a man who calls himself Gerhard Sommer, which I believe is false. Most likely, the message would have been an order, or series of orders. In this case, I was unable to learn of the content of the first two parts of the message. But the third part, when decoded, contained only two words – ‘töte ihn’: ‘Kill him.’”
“My God,” Martha said.
“Kill who?” Max said, immediately realising the stupidity of that question.
“We don’t know,” Lindsey said. “Seems to be an assassination order. That’s why it’s imperative that we find out. It was why we left Hart in place. Why we couldn’t step in to help you two.”
“Is that why the papers have been quiet? The Chronicle, for instance,” Max said.
Lindsey nodded. “We put a D-notice on the whole thing. Had to. We have to know what Crawford was on to. Who is the target?”
Von Hoesch looked at Max and Martha. He said, “I’m unable to help. There are always eyes on me at the embassy.”
“Max?” Lindsey said. “Martha? Can you help us?”
Max and Martha looked at each other. “We can only try to work out what’s going on,” Max said. “Much as we have done so far.”
“Like Nick and Nora Charles,” Martha added.
“If you can give us anything, anything at all, it might help.”
Max and Martha were quiet for a while, both trying to dredge up some useful information. In the end, Max shrugged and said, “We’ve been trying to work it all out ourselves. There are details missing. Don’t you have any information on what Crawford was up to?”
“No. As I said, he was Branch, meeting one of his informants. It was routine until he disappeared.”
Martha turned to Lindsey, her brow scrunched up. “You said Crawford telephoned from Cheshunt.”
“Yes.”
“So why was his body disposed of in Enfield Lock?”
Lindsey didn’t have an answer for that. Martha said, “Klopfer was German, wasn’t he? And the English man, the fat one—”
“Arthur Boyd,” Lindsey said.
“Yes, Boyd. He was from Newcastle. They wouldn’t know the local area, so why would they know that they could dispose of Crawford in Enfield Lock?”
“Assuming they did,” Max said. “We don’t know that for sure.”
“But it’s logical, based on evidence,” Martha said.
Meanwhile, Lindsey had been listening and wondering. He suddenly looked at Martha and Max and said, “My God. The Small Arms Factory. Enfield. It’s right there, by the lock.”
“Sabotage,” Max said.
“Yes, and more. Assassination.”
“How so?”
“Easy. They rig the place with explosives, then wait for a royal visit or some such.”
“Goodness,” Martha said.
“And somewhere like the Small Arms Factory, well, there are lots of important visitors – government, military, royalty. Then there are the engineers, the clever bods designing weapons.”
Lindsey stood and strode from the room. The others could hear his voice, and that of the tall man, conferring urgently. Then Lindsey came back into the room and said, “I have to meet some people, arrange protection, so on. Not going to be able to help you, I’m afraid. Can’t spare the men. Understand?”
“I have a gun,” Max said.
“Good.”
“Is it really that serious, Tony?” Martha said.
“Yes, old girl. Now, I’ll take you two back home. Herr von Hoesch, Murray will take you to Euston Station, where you can catch a cab.”
“Of course,” Von Hoesch said. “And good luck, Mr Lindsey. Good luck to all of you.”
When they were back in the car, Lindsey became quiet and thoughtful. Max and Martha, sensing his distance, didn’t speak.
They were taking a diffe
rent route back. It was a slower and more circuitous journey, as if the car’s engine were a mirror of Lindsey’s mind: urgent on the way out, pensive on the way back.
The car skimmed past the back of a double-decker as it weaved through the bustling traffic of the Hammersmith Road. Then they turned off and headed south towards the Thames, cruising past tall red-brick Edwardian mansion flats, and then through the rows of Georgian townhouses, plane trees lining the pavement. Further and further south they went, and into the more crowded streets of Fulham, heading towards Sands End, where the terraced houses were a single unbroken line and the brickwork had been blackened by soot.
The sky was a milky grey colour and had seeped low so that the greyness veiled the chimneys of the power station in the distance and made them spectral.
Martha watched the people moving around in their daily routines, unaffected by the politics of foreign powers. She watched two girls playing five stones on the pavement, utterly absorbed in the game, unaware of her or anything. She saw a couple of elderly women standing outside the corner shop, one with a full basket cradled before her, the other with an empty basket. The women exchanged gossip and kept an eye on the rent man, who was moving gradually up the road.
The car turned on to Townmead Road, where the large brick blocks of factories and the heavy industry of the dock area made Martha feel oppressed, stifled. As the car slowed for a moment, she saw a small boy with huge eyes and a grime-smeared face. The boy was sitting on the kerb, his feet in the road. He was playing with something in his hands, ignoring everything else around him. He looked up and saw Martha and stared at her, open-mouthed, until the car moved on and away for ever.
The silence was broken when Lindsey said, “Listen, you two. Shouldn’t be telling you this, but I trust you. Besides, after what you’ve been through, I think it’s only fair. Old Von Hoesch has been gathering information regarding the German rearmament, Nazi dispositions, that sort of thing. And he’s been passing it to a fellow at the FO, chap called Ralph Wigram. He’s been giving it to Churchill.”
“Why?” Max said. “I mean, why isn’t the information going to MI6?”
“Oh, it is. Eventually. Trouble is, we’re subordinate to the Foreign Office and they’re not keen on stirring up trouble. They tend to ignore it, or keep it quiet, at least.”
“Whereas Churchill is free to shout as loud as he wants,” Martha said.
“Precisely. Now, you might want to have a word with this Wigram chap. He might have some ideas. I don’t know. It might be worth it. I can’t do it, of course. And Von Hoesch has to be careful at the moment. If we can find out who precisely is the target…”
Lindsey had become quiet again.
Chapter Forty-Four
A slim young woman opened the door and looked up at Max and Martha. She had a pleasant face, smiling eyes and a serene, almost modest, manner, but Martha sensed that the fragility she saw wasn’t characteristic per se, but, rather, the result of some stress or pain, much as if a delicate flower were being bent to breaking point by a bitter and pitiless wind.
“Mrs Wigram?” Max said. “I telephoned earlier. I believe your husband is expecting us.”
“Oh, yes.” She opened the door wide to admit Max and Martha. Then she pointed down the hall and said, “He’s in his study.”
Max and Martha waited for her to lead them through the hallway, but she turned away from them and started up the stairs, stopping on the fourth step. “It’s my son,” she said. “He’s not very well at the moment. Would you mind showing yourselves in?”
Then she continued up the stairs. Max shrugged to Martha and led them down the hall. He knocked on a closed door and heard a voice call out, “Yes?”
They entered the study and found themselves standing before an old walnut desk in front of the window. Almost all of the walls were filled with bookshelves, many of which were neatly lined with leather-bound volumes, tooled beautifully and gilded.
The man behind the desk had risen and walked around it, holding out his hand. Like his wife, Ralph Wigram was slight, not tall and not with any weight to him. His eyes were intense and dark, and seemed more so because of his very white skin. What Martha had detected with Mrs Wigram, both now saw in her husband.
“Mr Dalton,” Wigram said, shaking Max’s hand. “Would you believe I have one of your volumes?”
“I’m honoured,” Max said. “I rarely meet anyone who’s read one of my books, and never anyone so… uh…”
“So established?” Wigram said.
“So important.”
“Ah. Anyway, it’s I who should feel honoured. I found it exceptionally well written, although I’m not sure I entirely agree with your conclusions. As I recall, you were rather critical of Ney and Murat. Still, we should probably leave that conversation for another time.”
Max introduced Martha, who said, “What a lovely room.”
Wigram, shaking her hand, said, “Thank you. Yes, it’s my sanctum.”
They took seats, and Wigram tidied away some papers, putting them into a green binder.
“Now then,” he said, “would either of you care for some tea?”
“Well—” Max said.
“That would be lovely,” Martha said. “Now, I noticed that your wife was rather busy, so would you allow me to go and make it? I’d love to see your kitchen.”
This statement baffled Max, who secretly believed that Martha had a phobia of working areas. Martha didn’t wait for a reply, hurrying from the room before either man had a chance to stand. She closed the door behind her.
“I spoke briefly with Tony Lindsey. He seems to think there’s a possibility that the Germans are going to assassinate someone,” said Wigram.
“Yes,” Max said. “But he doesn’t know who.”
“I don’t know how I can help.”
“You’ve seen a lot of information from the embassy; it might tie up with something I’ve learned.”
“In that case, you’d better tell me what you’ve learned.”
Max related to Wigram the events of the last few days, beginning with the Friday evening he met Burton. As Max was talking, Wigram stood and went to a cabinet from which he removed a tantalus. He poured a glass of brandy from one of the decanters, offering it to Max, who shook his head.
Wigram returned with the glass to his desk.
Max finished by explaining what had happened with Hart hours earlier.
“My God,” Wigram said.
There was a long silence.
“I wasn’t there,” Wigram said finally. “I mean the Western Front. Or any front.”
“I’m glad,” Max said.
“I should’ve been.”
Max didn’t know what to say to that. He wasn’t even sure whether Wigram was speaking to him.
Wigram was silent for a long time, and Max, allowing him the space to think, remained still and quiet. Then Wigram spoke, in a faraway voice. “We’re heading for war,” he said.
“We’re not just heading for war,” Max said. “We’re running towards it with our arms outstretched.”
“It wasn’t supposed to happen again. Never again. It wasn’t supposed to be like that. Don’t you see?”
“Yes,” Max said.
Wigram had a sip of his brandy, took his time about it.
Max waited, seeing the pain in the man, wanting to help him, feeling that he knew him intimately, even though they were so very different.
“It’s not what was supposed to happen,” Wigram said, gazing into space, apparently unaware of Max’s presence. “You’re born into a good family. Your father is a functionary, helping the empire tick along. He puts you through school – one of the good schools, one of those that makes men who believe in it all, but nothing gauche like Marlborough or Charterhouse, nothing that needs to shout ‘look at me’, just something… proper. Then you go up to
Oxford and study History or the Classics. And then you leave and get a job in the City or in the diplomatic corps or something, and you join a club in London, but not the Athenaeum…”
He paused for a moment and had another sip of brandy, gently cradling the glass in his hand as if it were a treasured possession. He smiled at some private joke and Max, who had become mesmerised by Wigram’s tone and demeanour, felt as though he were watching an old man passing judgement on his failures, as if his words were a valediction.
Wigram looked up and smiled again, but briefly and with more sadness than joy.
“And you join a club,” he said again. “Nice and proper and English. And you marry a nice smart woman and she bears you a son whom you raise to be like you, squeezing him through the system so that he can become something in the City or the diplomatic corps or whatever. And after you’ve done your forty years you retire with your knighthood for services and wait out your time pruning roses in Hampshire and visiting the MCC to watch England lose again to Australia. That’s how it’s supposed to be. It was always like that. It was always supposed to be like that. It was written in stone, the words carved into a tablet and handed to Moses: thou shalt be British. Thou shalt be decent. Thou shalt do thy duty. Thou shalt not kick up a fuss.”
He was quiet again, watching the smoke from his cigarette coil and drift and diminish. “But it wasn’t, was it? It wasn’t like that. You see, I can’t blame the system. I can’t blame anyone or anything, except myself.”
He turned to Max. “You do understand, don’t you? I mean, you know what it is, what it feels like.”
And for the first time, Max found that someone had voiced the vague feeling he’d had for so many years. He said, “I don’t know much about my parents. But I know they were poor and ordinary and ignorant. I didn’t know it then, but I came to understand it when I was adopted by richer people, and I became ashamed of them, my parents. So I denied them, like Judas denying Christ. I wanted to be more than them, to be beyond them, all of them. Now… now I want to be just like they were. But it’s too late.”
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