by Alex Gerlis
‘Sounds like you may have been too?’
‘I think you may want to meet up, as soon as possible.’
***
They met the following morning in St James’s Park. Edgar watched from the bridge spanning the lake as Paget entered the park through the Mall, as instructed, walking round the north-east side of the lake and then along its southern edge as Edgar checked whether the policeman had been followed. Once Edgar was satisfied, he joined Paget as he walked along a path parallel with Birdcage Walk, heading in the direction of Buckingham Palace.
‘You have something Paget?’
They stopped at a bench. When they sat down Paget took a while to settle and light a cigarette, smoking his way through half of it before speaking. Edgar noticed that Paget had wedged a scruffy briefcase between his body and the armrest of the bench.
‘Last month a man called Christopher Vale was killed in a road traffic accident in Nottingham. A few years ago – in 1970 to be precise – Mr Vale had given his solicitor a sealed letter with very strict instructions that it was only to kept, and only opened in the event of his death. There was a cover note to the effect that unless Mr Vale had died of natural causes the solicitor was to pass the sealed letter to the police. As his client did not die of natural causes, the solicitor did just that, as per his instructions. The letter contained allegations of a political nature, so it was passed on to the local Special Branch. As is standard procedure, they sent the original to us and retained a copy. I have the letter for you here, Edgar,’ Paget tapped the briefcase next to him. ‘I’m giving you the original, just in case any of your boffins want to check the typewriter or the paper. I’ve kept a copy. I’ll no doubt get in trouble for that, but hey ho.’
Edgar waited patiently for Paget to continue.
‘Go on Paget, tell me what’s in the letter.’
‘The details were entered into our system, which as you acknowledged the other day, is now quite sophisticated. So when I started looking into the names you gave me, guess what flagged up?’
‘You said: Christopher Vale?’
‘Well, that’s the thing Edgar. I didn’t know about a Christopher Vale, did I? Turns out, Christopher Vale claims his real name is Lothar Meier.’
Chapter 16
Lothar Meier’s Letter
To Whom It May Concern
Nottingham, January 1970
This letter is written in some haste because recently I have had good cause to fear for my life. If the circumstances of my death mean you are now reading this letter, I beg you not to dismiss what I have to say as anything other than the truth, as unlikely as it may seem.
Edgar struggled to read those two sentences. They had been scrawled, evidently in some haste, in pencil on a single sheet of paper and he had to hold the page up to the light to see them. When he turned the page he was relieved to see that the rest of the document was typed.
Although my name now is Christopher Vale, I was in fact born as Lothar Meier in November 1926 in Bremen in northern Germany. My father was a clerk at a finance company and my mother was a housewife. I had a brother, Konrad, who was three years older than me. I do not intend that this should become an autobiography so I will not talk too much about my early childhood. I would say that it was perhaps an average one: I was good at school but not exceptional. My family were not political but my father did join the Nazi Party a year or two before the war began. I joined the Hitler Youth sometime in 1940, as most boys of my age did. My mother died in 1942. I remember that she had been unwell for a few months, but I was not aware she was so seriously ill. Her death came as a terrible shock, but this was war-time and death was much more of a feature of everyday life. My brother had been in the army since 1940. He did not come home when my mother died. I think the last time I must have seen him was when he was home on leave in 1941.
So it was just my father and me at home. I would say that ours was a formal rather than close relationship. By 1943 most of my time out of school was spent with the Hitler Youth. At the end of 1943 my father was conscripted into the Wehrmacht and sent to fight in the East. At the same time, I was recruited into the SS. After training at some local camps, I was sent to a large SS training camp at Klagenfurt in Austria, or at least what had been Austria.
I did well at the camp and was highly regarded and was told I was officer material. On exercises I was very level headed and showed good judgement. By the early spring of 1944 I thought I was about to be transferred to a front line unit, but that was not to be the case.
***
Edgar had kept the envelope that Paget handed to him in the park unopened until he returned home to Dorset that evening. After supper with his wife and a hurried walk with the dog, he retired to his study and retrieved the envelope from the safe. The main part of the document was neatly typed over fifteen pages, with the text on one side of the page. Edgar settled into his club chair and began to read.
The story was almost identical to and corroborated those of Bernhard Krause and Carsten Möller. Meier explained how he had always excelled at English at school, and was given intense tuition in the language while at Klagenfurt, before being transferred to the house at Magdeburg. From Essen he had joined the 2nd Panzer Division of the SS, otherwise known as Das Reich. He told of how his unit fought in the Battle of the Bulge, a desperate and ultimately failed rear-guard action by the Nazis. On New Year’s Eve in 1944 they were trapped near Dinant in Belgium, trying to cross the River Meuse. The following day he and the Sturmbannführer who was looking after him surrendered to the Americans.
Meier went on to explain how he had been brought over to England, as all SS prisoners were. By late February he was moved to a prison camp in Cheshire, but he escaped and made his way to one of the safe houses they’d been told about. The one he went to was in Shepherd’s Bush, in West London. Meier would have been eighteen at the time.
***
I was relieved to have found my destination though I was very aware that my journey had now reached its most dangerous point. I followed the protocol and walked past the house. As far as I could tell, all was in order: no red vase in the upstairs window to warn me not to approach the house.
I used the large brass knocker, as instructed: two loud knocks, a pause of two seconds, and two more knocks. It was a good minute before I heard any sound inside the house, someone moving from a room at the back and then into the hallway, before undoing bolts at the top and bottom of the front door. Once the bolts were undone I heard a woman’s voice from behind the still-closed door. ‘Who is it please?’
A friend of your niece – she said I would be able to stay the night if I needed to. There was a pause before she replied: and which niece is that? Catherine, I replied. Another pause before the door half-opened and I was ushered in.
We stood together in the hallway, which was now half-lit from the kitchen at the back. She seemed elderly to me then, though I now realise that she would have been in her mid-fifties. She was thin, with metal-grey hair which reached down to her shoulders, and dressed in a thick brown cardigan that flowed over a black skirt. The overwhelming first impression I had of the house was the smell. It is hard to describe, but it was a mixture of gas, coal fire, fried food and body odour. As I would find out, hygiene was not a priority in the house.
I followed her into a dark room at the back, next to the kitchen and overlooking a small garden. A tall man was standing in the shadows at the back of the room and as soon as I entered he pulled down the blackout material and then drew the curtains. The woman gestured towards an armchair and I sat down. She turned on a small lamp, which threw some kind of a little light across the room, before silently going into the kitchen and returning with a cup of tea and some bread and jam, placing them on a small table next to where I was sitting. She sat on a sofa opposite me.
The man stood with his back to the window and addressed me in appalling German: it was an honour to meet me; they had been hoping and praying that one of us would turn up; I should not
doubt their commitment to the Reich. His eyes were almost closed but as he spoke they slowly opened, so much so that by the time he had finished they were wide open, unblinking.
His wife cut him short. She called him Ken and reminded him somewhat sharply that German was not to be spoken. It was too dangerous. The woman clasped one of my hands with both of hers, her bony fingers holding me tight. There were tears in her eyes. Her name was Linda, she told me, their surname was Frost. This was such an honour, they had dreamed of meeting someone like me. I could have no idea of what life was like in this country: the Jews controlled everything and we would end up being part of the Soviet Empire. People like me gave them hope. They had no doubt that Germany would triumph. Did I not agree?
I was not sure how to respond. I was assuming now that this was not a trap. This was my safe house and these were my hosts but, even though I was a good member of the SS, I knew that the war was lost.
Although I was committed to my mission, deep down I must have been aware of the futility of it or, at the very least, that its chances of success were limited. Yet these people seemed to be so... strange. I was in a dimly-lit and foul-smelling sitting room in west London, with apparently English Nazis who were quite convinced of Germany’s triumph, and whose sanity seemed to be in doubt. The whole thing felt utterly incongruous. Looking back now it does seem to be almost comical, but I recall feeling deeply uncomfortable at the time.
The woman explained that I would remain in the house for a ‘few weeks’. Under no circumstances was I ever to leave it. There were two bedrooms upstairs and I would have the small one at the back. I was to stay in there as much as possible. If I had to come down during the day I was not to enter the front room or go near the front door. I was never to answer the front door or the telephone. There was a trapdoor in the ceiling of the upstairs landing that led into the attic. They would show me how to get in there. If anyone came to the house I was to go into the attic before they were let in.
She explained they lived alone and rarely had visitors, and would especially avoid having any as long as I was there. Linda said to me that as soon as it was safe to do so, they would contact ‘their people’ (which was how she always referred to them) to let them know where I was. They, in turn, would move me on when the time was right.
By this stage I was exhausted. All I wanted to do was sleep. But it was quite evident that Linda and Ken were so excited at being in the presence of a member of the SS that they were going to take full advantage of it.
Linda was sure that I wanted to know all about them. I would have been more than happy to wait until the next day, but she was having none of it. Both she and Ken had joined the British Union of Fascists – Oswald Mosley’s party – in December 1932, soon after it had been formed. But they soon felt it was not hard-line enough for them. Too soft on the Jews, she said. They had voiced these concerns at meetings and began to feel somewhat on the fringe of the organisation. Sometime in late 1935 or 1936 they had been approached by a man, not long after leaving a party meeting. He completely understood their point of view, he told them. Many people held similar views, but they should understand that the party had to be careful about its public image. He said that if they were prepared to do what he was going to ask them to do then they could help ‘the cause’ – which is how Linda said he described it – in a most effective way. Linda said that they agreed to meet the man at a pub behind Haymarket the following week. Both she and Ken suspected that the man might have some links with Germany. The man explained that he would like them to quietly leave the Fascists and undertake no political activity whatsoever. They were to lead ordinary lives. He would keep in occasional contact with them and at an appropriate point he would approach them and ask for their help. They would meet with him from time to time, perhaps every six months or so. These visits continued even when the war started. They would always meet at a Central London pub, but the ‘confidential’ parts of their discussions took place in the street.
According to Linda, about four months previously the man had unexpectedly turned up at their house. Until then, he had never been there and they had no idea that he knew where they lived. He explained that ‘his people’, as Linda said he put it, may be expecting some ‘visitors’ and he was looking for trustworthy and loyal people who could look after them, maybe for a few days, or perhaps even a few months. It was not without risk, but it would be doing the cause a great service.
Ken then spoke. Up until this point he had sat there silently, nodding occasionally but always staring at me with an unbroken gaze, as if he could not believe what he was seeing. He said that they had begun to suspect the man was working for the Germans, but now they were certain, and they were also certain they wanted to do all they could to help. ‘Long ago,’ he said, they had realised that Britain’s real enemies were Jews and Communism, and the war against Germany was a ‘mistake’. He was certain the British people would soon come to regret fighting on the ‘wrong side,’ as he put it. They had told the man they’d be honoured to help and he explained what they had to do, how to ensure that the house was safe, all the precautions they needed to take, the signals they needed to show.
By then it must have been obvious how tired I was, and they showed me upstairs. My bedroom was small and somewhat stark, but comfortable enough. There was a single bed, a cupboard, a bedside table and a shelf with some books on it. The bathroom was next door, a room which needed a thorough clean and had a distinct smell of damp, which must have been due in large part to a permanently sealed window. It clearly reflected their standards of hygiene: the bar of soap on the sink was filthy and the one on the side of the stained bath just as bad, with hairs embedded in it.
I quickly fell into a routine. I would go downstairs at seven in the morning and have breakfast with them. They both had clerical jobs at nearby Hammersmith Hospital, and when they left for work at around seven thirty I would go back to my room. The front room was always locked – in my time in that house I never once went into it – and their bedroom, another room that I never once went into, was locked during the day.
I was able to go downstairs while they were out, but only to the kitchen and even then I had to be as quiet as possible. I could not go into the sitting room at the back during the day because the curtains were not drawn, so as not to arouse suspicion. So I stayed in my bedroom, reading any book I could find and lying on the bed thinking and day-dreaming.
Naturally, I had far too much time to think. I felt safe enough in the house: no-one ever visited and despite being in a busy part of London, it felt quite isolated. But I did begin to develop a real concern about how safe I was overall, in England, and during my stay I never relaxed.
I hardly slept at night, alert to every sound. During the day I would doze but I never felt rested. When Ken and Linda were in the house, the atmosphere was strained. They were such a strange and secretive couple, with their odd habits. Although they were quite evidently thrilled a member of the SS was staying in their house, they could be very short with me. They did not like being asked questions and if I did something of which they did not approve they would go into a sulk that could last for days.
I should mention the events of 20th April, a few weeks after I arrived. It was a Friday, which I was to learn was the one evening of the week when the Frosts came anywhere close to relaxing. On his way home from work Mr Frost would collect fish and chips and we would sit in the back room, eating them out of newspaper, accompanied by a glass of warm ginger beer. I also ought to add that on Friday nights, after they had gone to bed, the unmistakable sounds of them having sex could be heard through the walls. The noise would either last a very short time or a very long one. Mrs Frost could be heard making sounds either of encouragement or admonishment. They never sounded as if they were enjoying themselves.
On this particular Friday, after the fish and chips were cleared away (I recall Mr Frost wiping his greasy hands down the side of the grey trousers he always wore), they returned to the bac
k room, checked that the blackout and curtains were secure, closed the door and then poured three glasses of sherry. Was I aware what day it was, they asked? I wasn’t, to their dismay. It was the Führer’s birthday: what SS soldier would be unaware of that! Mr Frost then gave a long toast to Hitler in his appalling German, which was so bad that I could not really make out what he was saying, other than something about an everlasting Reich. He then gave an enthusiastic ‘Sieg Heil’ with the Nazi salute. His wife did likewise, as did I. We then toasted the Führer, drinking the small glass of sweet sherry before shaking hands. As this bizarre ceremony ended, I noticed both of them had tears in their eyes
On other evenings we would eat a meal Mrs Frost prepared as soon as she came in from work. The meal would be predictable and plain and the best that could usually be said about it was that it was hot. The three of us would eat sitting in silence around the small dining table in the back room. After supper we would sit on the easy chairs in the same room, listening to the radio, which was a large contraption with poor reception. The highlight of the evening would be the news. Throughout the news, any references to the war were accompanied by remarks from both of them. Bad news was always dismissed as ‘Jewish lies.’ I ought to point out here that by ‘bad news,’ I mean bad news from a German perspective – and there was plenty of that. At the beginning of May there was a news report on the liberation of Dachau, accompanied by much head shaking and comments of ‘lies.’ News of Hitler’s suicide was treated with incredulity, as was the capture of Berlin by the Red Army a day or so later. The next week we heard about the German surrender and not just on the radio – we could hear people coming out onto the street and the sounds of a spontaneous street party. Mrs Frost left the room in tears and went straight to bed. Mr Frost sat still on the sofa, his unblinking eyes staring at the wall, his fists tightly clenched.