Angel in Red

by Christopher Nicole

  ANGEL IN RED

  Christopher Nicole

  © Christopher Nicole 2006

  Christopher Nicole has asserted his rights under the Copyright, Design and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work.

  First published in 2006 by Severn House.

  This edition published in 2018 by Endeavour Media Ltd.

  This is a novel. The characters are invented and, unless they can be historically identified, are not intended to depict real persons, living or dead.

  ‘Oh, wherefore come ye forth in triumph from the north,

  With your hands, and your feet, and your raiment all red?’

  Lord Macaulay

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Chapter One – Memories

  Chapter Two – The Boutique

  Chapter Three – Incident in Prague

  Chapter Four – A Necessary Tragedy

  Chapter Five – Moscow

  Chapter Six – The Party

  Chapter Seven – The Betrayal

  Chapter Eight – The Plot

  Chapter Nine – The Lubianka

  Chapter Ten – Knights Without Armour

  Epilogue

  Prologue

  Visiting the Countess always induced in me mixed feelings of apprehension and anticipation. It was difficult not to be apprehensive of a woman who had rubbed shoulders with many of the most famous, and infamous, people of her time; who had cut her way through them and lived to tell the tale, while nearly all of them were dead. She had told me that her survival had been due largely to her speed of thought and decision, comparable perhaps to that of a great batsman at cricket, who has the ability to determine the length and direction of the ball, and thus the stroke to be played, a split second faster than ordinary mortals.

  At the same time it was impossible not to anticipate being in the intimate presence of a woman known for her numerous love affairs who, when well into her eighties, retained sufficient evidence of her former beauty to quicken the blood. I had searched for this woman, or any trace of her, for some forty years. I had always believed that she was still alive, and at last I had found her and been granted an interview. That had been the most thrilling experience of my life. And now I had been invited back again!

  The villa was several hundred feet up the mountain known as Montgo, overlooking the Jalon Valley on the Spanish Costa Blanca. The narrow road twisted its way up the hillside until one reached the villa’s wrought-iron gates. A wire fence extended to either side, and indeed round the entire property. There was no evidence of any serious deterrent to intruders besides the locked gates, but as the Countess had illustrated to me on my previous visit, she was not only capable of protecting herself, but was also prepared to go out in a blaze of glory, taking as many of her surviving enemies with her as she could. She had always been prepared to do that. I got out of the car and rang the bell.

  ‘Si?’ asked the familiar voice of the Spanish maid.

  I preferred to stick to English, which I knew she understood. ‘It is Mr Nicole, Encarna.’

  ‘Ah! Señor Nicole! The Countess is expecting you.’

  The electrically controlled gates swung open and I drove up the hill to park behind the house. Encarna was waiting for me. She was a plumply pretty young woman. I had no idea if she knew anything of her mistress’s background.

  ‘The Countess is on the naya,’ she said, and led me through the house to the glass double doors that led on to the veranda.

  Anna Fehrbach sat in her favourite cane armchair looking down at the swimming pool below, one hand resting on the glass-topped table beside her. Even sitting her height was obvious. She remained slim – perhaps too slim for her age – but the swell of her loose shirt hinted that little had changed since the days when she had turned heads in every drawing room in Europe. Her bone structure was perfection, providing her face with the most flawless features, even if the suntanned flesh was perhaps a little thin. She had long since cut the magnificent straight golden hair I had admired in her early photographs, and now wore it just below her ears; it was quite white.

  Her exposed earrings were tiny gold bars dangling from a gold setting, and she wore a single ring on the third finger of her right hand; the size of the ruby solitaire suggested that it could well pay for the entire villa. A solitary indication of her essentially innocent Catholic girlhood was the gold crucifix on a chain round her neck. I could not stop myself from looking to see if I could spot the automatic pistol she apparently always kept handy and could produce with such startling rapidity. But to me it was invisible.

  ‘Mr Nicole. I have decided to call you Christopher, since you have returned to see me again.’ Her voice, low but still resonant, retained just a hint of the Irish brogue she had inherited from her mother.

  ‘After what you told me the last time, no human power could have kept me away,’ I replied.

  ‘Then you must call me Anna. Sit down. Encarna!’

  Encarna hurried forward with the tray on which rested an ice bucket containing an open bottle of Bollinger and two flutes. Anna now raised hers.

  ‘Here is to . . . story-telling. So, now you know one of my secrets, or perhaps two. Have you told anyone what I said the last time?’

  ‘I have it on my computer, ready for publication when you give your permission. I shall, of course, submit it to you first for your approval.’

  ‘Thank you. And what do you think of Anna Fehrbach, Countess von Widerstand, the Honourable Mrs Ballantine Bordman? What a mouthful. And that was all before I was twenty!’

  ‘As I said when last we met, Anna, the biggest regret of my life is that I wasn’t around to meet you then.’

  She gave one of her entrancing smiles. ‘But then you would not be sitting here now. It is always better to be alive than dead.’

  ‘Do you glory in the number of people you have killed? You have confessed to seven . . . ah . . .’

  ‘Murders?’ she asked gently. ‘And those too were by the time I had celebrated my twentieth birthday. But only two were actually murders. Or, as my employers would have it, “executions”. The other five were in self-defence. As were most of the others,’ she added reminiscently.

  ‘Were there very many others?’

  Another smile. ‘That is what you are here to find out, isn’t it? But is that all you wish to know of me?’

  ‘I wish to know everything about you. I know you were forced to do what you did. Will you tell me about your family, and about the hold Himmler and Heydrich had on you?’

  Now the smile faded. ‘It was a very sad period of my life. Where would you like me to begin?’

  ‘After you escaped England, in May 1940, you returned to Germany as a double agent. Were you welcomed?’

  ‘Oh, indeed, thanks to the British press trumpeting about the beautiful German spy who had escaped capture. My Nazi masters were very pleased with me.’

  ‘And they allowed you to see your parents.’

  ‘After a while. Heydrich decided to take a month to debrief me.’ Her mouth twisted. ‘You may take that literally if you wish.’

  ‘That must have made it difficult for MI6 to contact you.’

  ‘It did.’

  ‘And then Russia,’ I mused. ‘Is it true that you are the only person ever to escape the Lubianka? How did you manage that?’

  Anna Fehrbach smiled.

  Chapter One – Memories

  The Mercedes Tourer proceeded slowly through the trees. The road was hardly more than a track and very uneven. Tall pines clustered to either side and turned the bright June morning gloomy. Captain Wilhelm Evers glanced at the woman seated beside him. He was a slim young man, handsome in the black uniform of the SS and, unusually for an officer in that elit
e corps, he was nervous. When the woman returned his glance, he gulped anxiously.

  He had been told that Anna Fehrbach was not yet twenty-one. Certainly her face, shaded by a huge picture hat with its blue ribbon fluttering in the faint breeze, suggested the most utter innocence. But, from what he had been told, her beauty alone would have affected any man. Her slightly aquiline features were flawlessly carved and enhanced by the shroud of her long, straight, pale-golden hair. She was several inches taller than himself, and the calf-length blue dress she was wearing indicated that her figure would almost certainly match her beautiful face.

  She looked utterly calm, even relaxed, her blue eyes hidden behind her dark glasses. But, according to Colonel Glauber, she was the most treasured agent of the SD – the Sicherheitsdienst, the most secret of the German secret services. And today he was to be her minder. He licked his lips. ‘You do understand, Fraulein, that there are certain things you may not say?’

  ‘I understand.’ Her voice was low, soft, caressing.

  ‘And I am to allow you only half an hour in there.’

  ‘Half an hour. After two years. It is not very long.’

  ‘The visit has been arranged at your request, Fraulein. Not theirs. It is for your reassurance. We have arrived.’

  *

  Before them stood a pair of large wooden gates. To each side an equally high barbed-wire fence extended out of sight. There could be no doubt that they were entering a prison. A guardhouse stood immediately within the gates and from this two uniformed men now emerged.

  ‘Herr Captain!’ shouted one of the men. ‘This is a restricted area.’

  Evers took a folded sheet of stiff paper from his breast pocket. ‘The order is signed by General Heydrich.’ He passed it through the bars.

  The sergeant read it and then saluted. ‘Heil Hitler!’ He signalled to the private, who opened the gates. Evers got back into the car and drove through. By this time the two soldiers had noticed his companion, and now three more men emerged from the hut to stare at the young woman. Perhaps, Anna thought, they are hoping I am a new inmate, with the promise of future unimaginable pleasures. She smiled at them, and the car drove on.

  Within seconds the tall gates and barbed-wire fence were out of sight as they rounded a bend. Several rustic buildings with thatched roofs came into view. The setting was idyllic, save for the armed guards standing outside the largest of the buildings – and the two Alsatian dogs that now advanced, fur bristling and teeth bared.

  An officer emerged from the building. ‘Do not get out,’ he called. ‘I will have the dogs chained.’

  Anna Fehrbach ignored him, released her door catch, and stepped down.

  ‘My God, no!’ Evers shouted.

  The dogs emitted low growls and ran at her. Anna stood absolutely still and, taking off her glasses, stared at them. They halted within a few feet of her, returning her stare for a few seconds before sitting down, clearly uncertain as to what to do next.

  ‘Holy shit!’ the officer exclaimed, coming up beside her. ‘They are trained to kill!’

  ‘So am I,’ Anna said, as softly as ever.

  *

  The officer looked at Evers. ‘Fraulein Fehrbach is here by order of the SD,’ Evers explained.

  ‘To . . .’ The officer now looked at Anna, and swallowed.

  ‘To see my parents, Herr Major,’ Anna said. ‘And my sister.’

  ‘Ah.’ The major nodded. ‘Of course. Please come inside, Fraulein.’

  Anna walked past him to the open door. The two dogs padded along behind her. The three guards stood to attention, clearly petrified. Anna heard the major giving instructions and a moment later he joined her.

  ‘In here, Fraulein,’ he invited, opening an inner door.

  ‘I am to see them alone,’ Anna reminded him.

  He looked at Evers who had followed them into the office. ‘General Heydrich has agreed to this?’

  Evers nodded. ‘The Fraulein understands where her duty lies.’

  The door was opened and Anna stepped into what seemed like a large games room. There were straight chairs arranged around the walls and a ping-pong table in the centre of the floor. Her practised eye immediately picked out wall fittings that might contain microphones or hidden cameras. The door behind her closed. She took off her hat and walked slowly across the room, her high heels clicking on the wood. She faced another door, which now opened to allow two women to enter the room.

  ‘Annaliese?’ cried the older of the pair, taking a couple of steps forward. ‘Is it really you?’

  Anna placed her hat and glasses on the table. ‘Mama!’

  They hugged each other tightly for a long time, and then Jane Fehrbach held her daughter at arms’ length.

  ‘How well you look, Anna.’ She spoke English, her mother tongue, as she had always spoken English to her daughters.

  ‘And you, Mama,’ Anna replied in turn, although she had no doubt that at least one of the listening Germans would be able to understand English, and she knew that she could neither risk any confidences nor change her pre-determined plan.

  Anna’s reply was not as truthful as she would have liked. No one could have had any doubt that they were mother and daughter. Jane Fehrbach was in her early fifties. She was tall, with the same golden hair as her daughter, hers worn short and now streaked with grey, and the same chiselled features, but these were lined with stress and worry. Her figure was somewhat fuller, but she moved gracefully enough.

  Many people had been astonished when in 1919 Jane Haggerty, correspondent for a top English newspaper, after being sent on assignment to Vienna, had elected to remain there and marry a Viennese journalist. As far as Anna knew, it had been a genuine love match, resulting in her appearance a year later. She had been raised in a liberal background which had, inevitably, taught her to oppose Fascism and the dictators it spawned. Johann Fehrbach had been constantly in trouble with the Dollfuss government, but the real crisis had arisen when, following the dictator’s assassination and the relatively relaxed rule of Schusnigg, Hitler had decided to quell further opposition by making Austria part of the Reich.

  Anna now recalled the day, just over two years ago, when the Wehrmacht had triumphantly marched into Vienna. Johann and his entire family had been arrested. Anna had not known at the time why she had been separated from her parents and sister. She had been handed over to the SS because, with her beauty and intelligence, she was obviously too valuable to be merely brutalised and then thrown aside.

  From the start it had been made clear that if she worked with and for her captors then her family would remain unharmed, albeit in confinement. Should she decide to defy them, she was left in no doubt that her parents would die in a concentration camp while she would be sent to a brothel. And so she had submitted to them, learning how to seduce men when commanded to do so – and to kill them when commanded to do so. Her quick thinking and sharp concentration, regardless of the possible consequences, had made her what she was today: the most valuable agent in the SD.

  That she hated them and all they stood for – for their treatment of her as much as for what they had required her to do – was her secret. That she was fighting them in her own quiet way was shared with half a dozen men, but was an even more deadly secret. None of which could possibly be revealed even to her mother, even if she did not know that their conversation was being taped. And so now, jolting herself out of her reverie, she peered at the tormented face in front of her.

  ‘You are all right, aren’t you, Mama?’

  ‘We are in a prison. But we have a cottage of our own, and your father is given certain writing tasks.’ Jane’s mouth twisted. ‘It is simply that he must write what he is told to write, and that we are not allowed to leave this place.’

  ‘But you are adequately fed? And you are not ill treated?’

  ‘No.’

  Anna turned to the girl beside her. Katherine was eighteen and was in many ways a younger version of her sister, but the slight coarsen
ess of her features, and the thickness of her body, indicated that she would never match Anna for looks. Now she in turn came forward for an embrace.

  ‘And Papa?’ Anna asked.

  Jane sighed, and sat down. ‘He would not come. He believes what the guards tell us, that you are working for the Nazis.’ She gazed at Anna. ‘Will you reassure me so that I can reassure him? He is very distressed.’

  Anna returned her mother’s gaze for some seconds. Then she drew a deep breath. ‘I am doing what I have to do, Mama, for all of our sakes.’

  Slowly a frown gathered between Jane’s eyes. She looked Anna up and down, as if for the first time, taking in the obviously expensive frock, the silk stockings, the court shoes, and the many items of valuable jewellery. ‘My God! Your father is right. You have become a German whore!’

  Even before the interview had been arranged, Anna had realized this was the easiest, and safest, conclusion for her mother to draw, and so had dressed the part. ‘As I said, Mama, I do what I have to do to survive. We all need to survive.’

  ‘You unutterable wretch!’ Jane stood up. ‘I despise you.’

  Would you rather be dead? Anna thought. But that was not something she could risk saying to the listening Germans. ‘I am sorry, Mama. It will all come right one day, I promise.’

  ‘Not for you,’ Jane snapped. ‘Not for any of us.’ She went to the door, opened it and left the room.

  The sisters looked at each other. ‘Do you feel the same way?’ Anna asked.

  ‘It . . . it’s all so confusing,’ Katherine said. ‘Major Luther tells me that if I cooperate I could leave this place. He says that I could become like you.’ Her eyes were enormous.

  ‘Would you like to become like me?’ Anna asked.

  ‘That dress, that ring . . . Would I have things like that to wear?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘And would I have to sleep with men?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Anna repeated. ‘But it can be a difficult life, and it would destroy Mama and Papa. It would be better for you to remain here for the time being.’