Traitor's Gate Read online

  Conrad caught it. ‘Steady now,’ he said.

  The man swung his left, hitting Conrad rather feebly in the side. The bigger man dropped the professor and grasped Conrad’s shoulder.

  ‘Run, Veronica!’ Conrad shouted. She grabbed the hand of the old professor, kicked off her high-heeled shoes and set off barefoot down the street. Conrad thrust his knee between the legs of the smaller man and wriggled free of his larger comrade. The big stormtrooper swung clumsily at Conrad’s head. Conrad ducked and jabbed upwards at the stormtrooper’s nose, which erupted in blood.

  The group of four Brownshirts further down the road had heard the commotion and were running to help. Conrad turned and sprinted.

  He had seen Veronica dash into a narrow side street, and he followed. He spotted her and the professor disappear down some steps leading to a basement. ‘Stay there!’ he shouted as he ran past.

  It was a short street and Conrad had a good lead, so he slowed enough for his pursuers to see him rounding a corner at the far end. They followed, rushing past the basement where Veronica and the professor were hiding.

  Conrad ran on, ducking from left to right down side streets and alleys. He was a fast runner and his followers soon gave up. When he was sure they were no longer on his tail, Conrad waited five minutes and then cautiously jogged back to Veronica’s hiding place.

  He looked over the railings down into the well. Half of the small space was illuminated by a street lamp. In the shadows of the remaining half a cigarette glowed.

  Conrad descended the steps. Veronica was alone. ‘Where’s the Jewish professor?’

  ‘Oh, he’s gone. You know he really was most ungrateful. He said we were stupid to cause so much trouble and all that would happen was that we would get him thrown into a concentration camp.’

  ‘He’s probably right,’ said Conrad.

  ‘Probably. But it was rather fun, wasn’t it?’ Even in the dark Conrad could see Veronica’s cheeks were flushed and her eyes gleaming.

  He couldn’t help returning her smile.

  ‘You were so brave, taking on those two brutes,’ she said.

  ‘Well, thank you.’ Conrad gave a little bow.

  ‘You should have stayed to beat up the rest.’

  ‘There were a few too many of them.’

  ‘Not for you, darling.’ Veronica dropped her cigarette. She was leaning against the wooden door of a basement. There was a strong smell of damp coal dust. Footsteps scurried by on the pavement above. ‘Conrad?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Kiss me.’

  So Conrad kissed her.

  They pulled apart. ‘That was nice,’ said Veronica. ‘Now, let’s get my shoes and you can take me back to my hotel.’

  Confused and angry with himself, Conrad led Veronica up the steps to the side street. As they turned the corner on to the street where they had met the stormtroopers, they saw a bundle crumpled on the pavement.

  Conrad ran. It was the professor, blood seeping from his temple and the corner of his mouth, his face lying in splinters of glass from his smashed monocle. Conrad took off his jacket to make a pillow and shoved it under the professor’s head.

  ‘Oh, God!’ said Veronica.

  The man’s eyelids fluttered and he tried to say something. Conrad bent close to his mouth to hear. The words were in English.

  ‘Tell your wife... tell your wife her own business to watch.’

  Conrad turned to Veronica. ‘Get an ambulance!’ he shouted.

  ‘How do I do that?’

  ‘There’s a telephone box at the end of the street over there. Here’s the money.’ Conrad fished some coins out of his pocket and flung them at her. ‘Krankenwagen. Ask for a Krankenwagen!’

  But the man had died before Veronica had even reached the telephone box.

  9

  Theo hurried along the corridors of the offices on the Tirpitzufer, nodding and saluting as he passed uniformed colleagues on the way. He hadn’t quite told the truth when he had claimed to Conrad that he worked in the War Ministry. The War Ministry was indeed next door, on the Bendlerstrasse, but this particular set of corridors and cubbyholes was the domain of an organization known as the Abwehr. The Abwehr was the German secret service, and it was quite successfully secret: few Germans and even fewer foreigners knew of its existence. And it was the head of the Abwehr, Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, who wanted to see him.

  Canaris’s offices were on the top floor of the building with a view over the Landwehr Canal, in this part of Berlin an elegant stretch of water lined with chestnut trees and ornate residences. The admiral was waiting for him, together with Colonel Hans Oster, the head of Section Z of the Abwehr and Theo’s direct boss. Section Z was responsible for administration and organization. Although this might sound the most bureaucratic of the various departments, it was actually one of the most influential. Oster was the man Canaris turned to when he needed something done, and, increasingly, Oster would turn to Theo.

  Canaris smiled and bade Theo sit down. There was a pleasing informality about the Abwehr, Theo thought. Although staffed solely by military officers, they treated each other courteously and with respect, a culture that had been reinforced when Canaris arrived as the new chief in 1935. The admiral was a small, mild-looking man with white hair and a sallow skin. In the war he had had a lively naval intelligence career in South America and then in Africa, where, in addition to picking up useful skills and languages, he had contracted malaria. Theo thought of his chief not as a high-ranking German officer but rather as a cosmopolitan in a uniform. Canaris was fond of quoting the motto of the founder of the Abwehr, Colonel Nicolai: ‘Secret work must always be the preserve of the gentleman. When this ceases to be the case, all is doomed to failure.’

  Colonel Oster was not quite as subtle as his boss, but was just as intelligent. He was a dashing, good-looking officer who wore the Iron Cross First and Second Class and the Knight’s Cross with Swords, decorations he had won on the Western Front. After the war he had served under General von Hertenberg, which was how he had first come across Theo. On a visit to his former commanding officer’s Pomeranian estate, Oster had been introduced to Theo and immediately recognized his talents. Over a period of nearly a year, Oster had persuaded him to join the Abwehr.

  Oster seemed to know everyone and everything, and he had a knack of inspiring loyalty and trust in his fellow officers, both senior and junior. Theo liked and respected him, and the sentiment seemed to be reciprocated. There had been a scandal several years before when Oster had been stripped of his rank after having an affair with the wife of a senior officer, but Canaris had reinstated him and the two men worked well together.

  ‘Ah, good morning, Hertenberg,’ Canaris began. ‘We have confirmation about Mühlendorf.’ As Canaris spoke, a dachshund trotted over from a basket in the corner and hopped on to his lap. The admiral stroked the dog absently.

  Theo raised his eyebrows. ‘From the Gestapo?’

  ‘No. From Moscow. He was seen speaking to a senior officer in the NKVD a week before he left for Berlin.’

  ‘Just as we thought. And that explains one thing that never quite made sense to me.’

  ‘What is that?’ asked Canaris.

  ‘Why he didn’t talk. I know the Gestapo didn’t get very far in their interrogation, but Mühlendorf knew what he was in for. If he really was just a diplomat purveying gossip he would have given the Gestapo everything they wanted and more right away. He was holding out on them; he had something to hide.’

  ‘Do you think he had heard anything specific?’

  ‘About a plot against Hitler?’

  Canaris nodded.

  ‘No,’ said Theo. ‘And especially not if he was a Soviet spy. He was on a fishing expedition. He told de Lancey to tell me that he had friends who could help. Perhaps he was referring to the Soviets.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ said Canaris. ‘Is there any chance that de Lancey is a Soviet spy also?’

  ‘I would be very surprised,’ said
Theo.

  ‘Tell us about de Lancey,’ said Oster, speaking for the first time. ‘We are really quite interested in that man.’

  So Theo told them.

  The Tiergartenstrasse, as its name suggested, ran along the southern perimeter of the park. Conrad knew he was getting close to number seventeen when he saw a queue snaking along the pavement beside the brand-new pink-stucco Italian Embassy. He followed the line towards a fine eighteenth-century sandstone building and was stopped by a large Yorkshireman in a commissionaire’s uniform, displaying a row of medals from the Great War.

  ‘I’d like to see Captain Foley, please,’ Conrad said in his best English accent. ‘My name’s de Lancey.’

  Conrad waited as the commissionaire disappeared. One of his colleagues was dispensing tea from a trolley to the line of supplicants. They were pinched, desperate-looking people, some well dressed, some in little more than rags. Many of them appeared Jewish to Conrad, although he might have been mistaken. He wasn’t convinced that you could always identify a Jew simply by looking at him, and he didn’t like the Nazi assumption that you could.

  Conrad was tired. He had spent half the night at police headquarters in the Alexanderplatz. Veronica had suggested that they leave the dead professor where he was, but Conrad had insisted on waiting for the police. He was not going to walk away and pretend that nothing had happened, however much trouble that might cause. The grizzled sergeant who had taken down the details of the incident grasped the situation immediately, and explained that since Conrad and Veronica had not actually seen the SA men beat up the professor, it would be impossible to bring charges against them successfully.

  It turned out that the professor wasn’t actually a professor, but a Jewish schoolteacher from Charlottenburg who had been giving a private lesson close by. The police sergeant refused to give Conrad the teacher’s address so he could speak to the man’s family. Although frustrated by the sergeant’s unwillingness to help, Conrad recognized that he was simply trying to keep two foreigners out of trouble. After initially weeping softly to herself on the pavement, Veronica had pulled herself together and sat through the rest of the night in silence, her face cast in a mask of cold haughtiness. She rebuffed Conrad’s gestures of comfort. Conrad knew his wife was in distress, but he also knew she wouldn’t admit it, even to him. It was three o’clock before Conrad deposited her at the door of the Adlon and said goodbye. He had no desire to see any more of her while she was in Berlin.

  The Yorkshire commissionaire reappeared, and at his ‘Follow me, sir’ Conrad crossed a courtyard and climbed some steps into an entrance hall. Inside, it was mayhem; here the queue bunched and heaved and became an insistent mob. Conrad was ushered up the stairs into an inner office on the first floor. Foley was sitting at his desk, in front of which stood a tall, well-dressed businessman.

  Foley leaped to his feet and held out his hand. ‘Ah, good morning, de Lancey. This is Herr Trencholtz.’

  The businessman turned to Conrad. ‘Delighted to meet you,’ he said in perfect unaccented English, holding out his hand. Conrad shook it.

  A spaniel appeared from under the desk and sniffed Conrad’s trousers.

  ‘One moment, de Lancey,’ Foley said, returning to his desk. ‘Have a seat. We won’t be long here.’

  Conrad sat down and fondled the spaniel’s ears. Foley examined the German businessman’s passport and a visa application next to it. He studied the paper and then the man in front of him. He picked up a red pencil and drew a line through the application. ‘I’m sorry, I’m unable to grant you a visa,’ he said to the man, in German.

  The businessman replied in rapid angry English that he had received an invitation from Imperial Chemical Industries and that the British Home Office had granted a permit on his behalf.

  ‘Yes, I have read the permit,’ said Foley, once again in German. ‘It entitles me to grant you a visa, but it doesn’t oblige me to.’

  ‘But why haven’t you?’ protested Herr Trencholtz. ‘There must be a reason.’

  Foley smiled politely. ‘I’m terribly sorry, but I’m afraid we don’t discuss the reasons for our decisions. Matter of policy, you know. Now, good day.’ He ushered the man, still protesting, out of his office. The businessman was nearly a foot taller than him. He returned to his desk and stuck a pipe in his mouth. ‘What did you think of him, then?’

  ‘He seemed perfectly respectable to me,’ said Conrad.

  ‘Too respectable. A spy if ever I saw one,’ said Foley. ‘We don’t need his type in Britain.’ He smiled at the spaniel, which was leaning against Conrad’s trousers, rhythmically thumping his tail. ‘I see Jonny likes you, that’s a good sign. Did you know that Jonny is a good Aryan dog?’

  He put his hand in a small bowl on his desk and the dog pricked up his ears. ‘Come on, Jonny, show the gentleman you are an Aryan. Say “Heil Hitler”.’

  The dog leaped on to its hind legs, lifted up its right paw and gave two sharp barks. ‘Good boy,’ said Foley and tossed him a lump of sugar. ‘Now, what can I do for you?’

  Conrad explained Anneliese’s father’s predicament. Foley listened carefully, pulling on his pipe.

  ‘Dr Werner Rosen, did you say? I remember the case; it was highly publicized at the time. Shocking. And I think your friend is right to be concerned. He’s just the sort of man the Gestapo would throw into protective custody.’

  ‘Can you help him?’

  ‘Did your friend explain how the system works? Does he have enough money for the Capitalist Certificate?’

  Anneliese had explained this to Conrad. In order to be eligible for a visa to Palestine an applicant had to show proof that he had at least a thousand pounds available to him when he arrived there. Even for wealthy Jews this was a problem, since it took months or even years to get the foreign exchange cleared through the Reichsbank. For the likes of Dr Rosen it was an impossibility. The family’s savings were non-existent.

  ‘I’m afraid not. What about Britain? Can you get him a visa for England?’

  Foley shook his head. ‘The British Medical Association have been complaining about the number of Jewish doctors entering the country. They say that British medicine has nothing to gain from new blood and much to lose from foreign dilution.’ Foley’s voice was laced with contempt. ‘They sound almost as bad as the Nazi who complained about the blood transfusion in the first place, don’t they?’

  ‘He wouldn’t have to practise as a doctor—’

  Foley raised his hand to halt Conrad. ‘Believe me, if there was a way I could let even half of those people out there into Britain, I would. But I can’t. I ask for more visas but the Foreign Office doesn’t give me them. And with all the Arab unrest in Palestine in the last couple of years, they are not happy taking in more Jews there, either. I’m in a very difficult position here; we all are. We have to decide who stays and who goes, and we have to be fair to everyone, however impossible that is in reality. Dr Rosen’s case is compelling, but so are all those other cases. I can’t let one applicant through because he has a British friend who will speak up for him. It’s not just.’

  ‘Would it be any different if I had gone along with your request to spy for you?’ asked Conrad.

  ‘Do you have something you want to tell me?’ Foley sat back in his chair, puffing at his pipe in a slow rhythm, and waited.

  Conrad took a deep breath. ‘As you know, I was arrested two weeks ago. By the Gestapo.’

  ‘Go ahead, old man.’

  Foley listened closely as Conrad described the evening in the Kakadu, Joachim’s gossiping, and then his arrest, interrogation and death.

  ‘I’m sorry about your cousin,’ said Foley, when Conrad had finished. ‘I hear so many of these stories and each is terrible in its own way; all the victims have friends, families.’

  Conrad gave a brief nod of acknowledgement.

  ‘Do you think the plot is just a rumour?’ Foley asked.

  ‘I have no way of knowing.’

  ‘What ab
out von Hertenberg? What’s his view?’

  ‘He thinks it’s just gossip.’ Conrad decided not to mention Theo’s theory that Joachim was a spy. It would only encourage Foley’s suspicions of his friend.

  ‘And you don’t believe him?’ Foley was studying Conrad’s face intently through those owl-like glasses.

  ‘Can you do something about Dr Rosen?’ Conrad asked.

  Foley frowned. ‘I’m hoping to get another small batch of visas through from London next week.’

  ‘He’s due to be released next week.’

  ‘I can’t promise anything, de Lancey,’ said Foley with a sigh. ‘I really can’t.’ He studied Conrad. ‘What you’ve told me is very useful. But I would like to find out some more about your friend von Hertenberg.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Conrad. ‘He says he’s a lawyer in the War Ministry. What possible interest could that be to you?’

  ‘I think he’s more than just a lawyer.’

  ‘Well, what is he then?’

  Foley shook his head. ‘I can’t tell you more than that.’

  ‘I’m afraid I’m not inclined to spy on my friend,’ said Conrad. ‘Especially if you won’t tell me why I should.’

  ‘Oh, I can tell you why you should,’ said Foley. ‘The politicians back home may talk until they are blue in the face, but you and I both know that the Nazi regime is evil and the one way that Hitler will be stopped is by war. It might be this year, it might be in five years’ time, but at some point our country will be fighting this one.’

  Conrad was listening.

  ‘God knows, I love Germany,’ Foley went on. ‘I’ve lived here for nearly twenty years, and I hate war. But it’s going to happen. And when it does happen, unless Britain is a damned sight better prepared than she is at the moment, we will lose. That doesn’t just mean that the Germans will win, it means that the Nazis will rule Europe. Whatever our misgivings, it’s up to all of us to do everything we can to stop that happening.’

  Conrad shook his head. ‘Theo is my friend,’ he said, and got up to leave. ‘Please do all you can for Dr Rosen.’