The Diplomat's Wife

by Michael Ridpath

  I avoided my mother. She stopped coming to Paris. We never wrote to each other, apart from once when I informed her she was to become a grandmother. She never replied. Roland and I briefly visited Chaddington for a day in August on a week’s home leave, but she had been detained in London, so we missed her.

  I wrote to my father frequently, and he replied. I felt so sorry for him. Not just because of my mother’s betrayal of him, but also because it was clear he missed his son terribly. He never stated this directly, but Hugh was mentioned in every letter. He clearly hoped that my child would be a boy.

  At that time, my father was fifty-one, but since Hugh’s death he had aged ten years. He had become an old man.

  In September, Dick went back to England, having written most of his novel. Now all he had to do was find a publisher. I spent some time with him over that summer, and also with Cyril Ashcott, whom I now saw as something of a kindred spirit.

  And I saw a lot of Lothar. I provided him with some more documents I had photographed from Roland’s briefcase, and also with diplomatic gossip I heard, or overheard, at the various parties I attended. In the past, Roland and I had discussed politics at some length, and I passed on what he had told me then. But an unfortunate consequence of my treatment of Roland was that those conversations ceased. So, as the summer progressed, I began to talk to him again, mostly about his work, under the guise of my unquenchable curiosity.

  Relieved, he talked to me. I relayed it all to Lothar.

  That summer, General Franco led a military revolt against the republican Spanish government. The countries of Europe had to decide which side to choose in the coming civil war. I was able to give Lothar important details about the thinking of the different factions within the British government and diplomatic service about whether to support Franco or remain neutral. This was a topic of heated debate between the British and French governments. Léon Blum, the new French prime minister, was inclined to support the republicans. Roland was intimately involved in the discussions and knew all the details of what was going on. He was happy to discuss them with me.

  I knew who was in the right – the Spanish pro-republican workers – and Russia was supporting them. By ensuring the Russians knew what the British government was planning, I was supporting them too.

  I was doing my bit. It felt good.

  And in December, two days after Christmas, Caroline was born.

  Chapter 27

  June 1979, Paris

  They left the Voltigeur and walked back across the river towards the Ritz. Emma said she was getting tired, and she had started to sway a little, so she grabbed Phil’s arm. A reminder of that growth in her brain interfering with her balance. Phil left her at the door of the hotel and doubled back to have another look at the impressionist paintings in the Jeu de Paume.

  He wanted to see them again. He also wanted to think about what he had just heard.

  His grandmother had spied for the Russians. To some extent, he understood why. He understood that her brother had been a communist; he understood why she hated her husband. But the Russians were the bad guys. There was a war on – it might be a cold war, but it was still a war. Marx and Lenin had spoken about international communism taking over the world, and as far as Phil could tell, that was what the Soviet Union was still trying to do. There were tanks massed on the borders of East Germany; there were nuclear missiles pointed at London and Washington.

  And it wasn’t as if things had been much better in the thirties. Phil had studied Lenin and Stalin in A-level history, he knew about the gulags where hundreds of thousands were locked up and the unnecessary famines where millions died.

  Emma had spied for Russia against Britain.

  He remembered the conversation with the enigmatic Mr Swann in the Three Castles back home. Phil wondered how much of Emma’s activities Mr Swann knew about already. Did he know about her spying? Her treachery.

  Probably.

  No wonder he didn’t want Phil to tell her about their conversation.

  Now Lothar had made his appearance in Emma’s story. From what Emma had said, it was quite plausible that Lothar had also run an agent in the 1930s who was still undercover – Swann’s mole.

  Is that what Phil and Emma were doing now? Looking for this Lothar?

  But her story wasn’t over. Phil should hold his tongue and listen to it until the end, wherever that would take them.

  He spent most of the afternoon in the museum, letting the fabulous paintings imprint themselves on his consciousness, lingering in front of each one. Then he headed back to the hotel.

  He met Emma in the lobby at a quarter to six. They had a mysterious appointment to keep before Phil returned to the bar at Place Saint-Michel to meet Heike, something he was anticipating with a mixture of nervousness and excitement. Emma looked much fresher than she had at lunchtime, and her eyes were bright.

  ‘Come on, Philip,’ she said. ‘It’s not far.’

  She set off at a surprisingly fast pace back towards the Place de la Concorde, and turned into the entrance of a large, grand building of pale yellow stone whose facade was lined with columns. The Hôtel de Crillon.

  As they entered the lobby, the crash and roar of petrol engine and metal died behind them. They went through to the bar, where the only sounds were the low murmur of voices, the occasional clink of crystal glass, and a man in a white dinner jacket behind a grand piano softly playing tunes from Simon and Garfunkel. Emma scanned the room and then headed towards a tall man in his sixties, sitting at a low table, reading the International Herald Tribune, a pipe and a glass of whisky at his side.

  ‘Dick!’ Emma cried as she approached him.

  The man stood up and grinned broadly, kissing her on the cheek. She introduced him to Phil. As Phil shook his hand, he could see what Emma had meant when she said his blue eyes, set in a tanned face, were kindly.

  Phil liked him immediately.

  Dick summoned a waiter and ordered a glass of champagne for Emma and, after a few moments of hesitation as Phil tried to decide what he should be seen to be drinking, a gin and tonic for him.

  ‘Did you fly in this morning?’ Emma asked.

  ‘Yes. From Washington. I’ve got a meeting with a client here. I’m very glad you could coordinate your holiday with my trip.’

  ‘So am I,’ said Emma. ‘What sort of client?’

  ‘It’s a subsidiary of one of the big American multinationals. I’m advising them on reorganizing themselves. They are never happy unless they are reorganizing themselves.’

  ‘I never understood how you got into that line of work,’ Emma said.

  ‘You remember I was working for the Ministry of Information during the war? It was stuffed full of poets and novelists, most of them a lot better than me. I ended up writing stuff for some big businesses. Then when the scriptwriting didn’t work, I looked up some of my old wartime contacts. And I became a management consultant. I’m surprisingly good at it.’

  Phil had vaguely heard of the term ‘management consultant’, but he had no real idea of what they did. His dad would know.

  ‘Shame I never saw any of your films,’ Emma said.

  ‘Probably for the best,’ said Dick. ‘B-movie westerns. More like C-movie, really. Turned out scriptwriting wasn’t really my thing.’

  ‘I’ve told Philip a little about you, or at least about you in Paris.’

  ‘Grams is feeding me the story bit by bit,’ said Phil. ‘We’ve just got to the part where you came to France.’

  Dick winced. ‘Painful,’ he said to Emma.

  ‘Yes,’ said Emma. ‘But it’s good for me to remember. And Philip is my accomplice on this little trip. I was sorry to hear about Frances.’

  ‘It will be two years in September. It doesn’t really get any easier, does it?’

  Phil assumed Dick was referring to Roland, but Emma didn’t answer. He wondered whether that was the same Frances as the American student Emma had mentioned at Shakespeare and Company. That would
explain Dick’s move to America.

  Dick puffed at his pipe.

  ‘That’s a familiar smell,’ said Emma. ‘Your tobacco. It reminds me of the Île Saint-Louis.’

  Dick grinned. ‘What have you been up to, Emma?’

  Emma replied in generalities. Phil got the impression she didn’t want to say too much in front of either him or Dick, he didn’t know which.

  They finished their drinks, and Dick ordered refills.

  Emma sipped her champagne and looked coolly at her old friend. ‘Tell me about Kurt.’

  Kurt? That must be Kurt Lohmüller, the German diplomat.

  ‘I met him in Crete, last year. I went for a week’s vacation there last September. We were staying in the same hotel. He recognized me; I suppose I haven’t changed that much. I didn’t recognize him at all. The moustache has gone, his hair is grey, and he’s put on some weight. But he was very friendly. I remember that about him.’

  ‘He was always friendly,’ said Emma. ‘A natural diplomat.’

  ‘Anyway, we spoke about Paris and Berlin. And you, naturally. A lot about you. I think he rather liked you.’

  ‘I rather liked him,’ said Emma. ‘In your postcard you mentioned he had seen Kay?’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Yes, you did.’ Emma was looking at Dick intently.

  ‘Yes, perhaps I did.’ Dick glanced at Phil.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Emma. ‘You can talk in front of Philip.’

  ‘Kurt said he was still a diplomat, but I wondered if he was a spook. A retired spook.’

  ‘For whom?’

  ‘For West Germany, I assume. I didn’t ask. You don’t think he could be working for the East Germans, do you?’

  ‘I have no idea,’ said Emma. ‘It’s possible. So how did he see Kay?’ She drew a postcard out of her bag: a picture of a ruined tower standing next to an unnaturally blue sea. She flipped it over. ‘You say here: Kurt told me he had seen Kay.’

  ‘Yeah, he did say that. Let me think,’ said Dick, drawing his brows together in concentration. ‘I asked him something like, “And have you seen Kay?” and he said, “Yes. She’s living in East Berlin now.” But he didn’t say how or when he had seen her. I thought it wasn’t surprising she ended up there. Or Moscow.’

  ‘So you don’t know whether Kurt spoke to her?’

  Dick shook his head. ‘No. Sorry.’

  ‘What about Lothar? Did Kurt mention a man called Lothar by any chance?’

  ‘Who is Lothar?’ said Dick.

  ‘A friend of Kay’s,’ said Emma. ‘From before the war. You probably didn’t know him.’

  ‘Well, no, he didn’t mention that name.’

  Emma glanced down at the card. ‘Have you got Kurt’s address?’

  Dick shook his head. ‘Sorry. But he did tell me where he lives. He’s retired from the German government, and lives in France now. In a village overlooking a lake. He says it’s beautiful. His wife was with him in Crete. She’s French; Martine, I recall her name was.’

  ‘I remember Martine. He didn’t say which lake?’

  ‘I’m afraid not. If I had realized you were so keen to see him, I would have asked for his address. Do you have something specific you want to ask him?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Emma. ‘Yes, I do. There are still one or two loose ends from that time before the war.’

  ‘I see,’ said Dick. ‘Speaking of which, have you seen anything of Freddie? I saw he resigned as a minister last year. Presumably he’s still an MP?’

  Phil’s ears pricked up. He hadn’t realized that Freddie had become that important. But then the name Frederick Pelham-Walsh did sound vaguely familiar.

  ‘Yes, a backbencher.’ Emma turned to Phil. ‘After the war Freddie became a Labour MP. He was a junior defence minister for a couple of years in Wilson’s government but, as Dick said, he resigned. Had second thoughts about nuclear deterrence, apparently.’

  ‘But I thought you said Freddie was a communist?’ Phil said.

  ‘We all were, then,’ Dick said with a grin. ‘Although Freddie was more hard line than most of us. But not as hard line as Denis.’

  ‘Denis Healey?’ Phil asked. ‘The bloke who was Chancellor of the Exchequer?’

  ‘And a good friend of Freddie’s,’ said Emma. ‘Then and now.’

  ‘So how is Freddie?’ Dick asked.

  ‘Fat,’ said Emma.

  ‘Married?’ Dick asked, with a wry grin.

  ‘No. Unlike Cyril. Do you remember him?’

  ‘Yes, I think I do. That third secretary from the embassy here?’

  ‘Who is now Her Majesty’s ambassador to France. With a glamorous ambassadress. We saw him yesterday.’

  ‘You really are revisiting old times.’ Dick smiled again. ‘I’m glad you included me.’

  ‘And I’m glad you got to Paris to meet me.’

  Their eyes met.

  Phil thought he should be somewhere else. He checked his watch. It was nearly eight o’clock. ‘I’m afraid I have to go,’ he said, getting to his feet. ‘It was nice to meet you, Mr Loxton.’

  ‘You too.’

  ‘Don’t get too drunk tonight, Philip,’ said his grandmother. ‘You’ll be driving tomorrow.’

  ‘Really? Where are we going?’

  ‘I’m not sure. We’re going to visit a lake. I haven’t worked out which one yet. I’ll let you know at breakfast.’

  Chapter 28

  It was a warm evening, and the Place Saint-Michel was buzzing. Phil found the bar and ordered himself a Stella Artois. Nowhere to sit this time. He was dead on time, but he couldn’t see Heike. She was late; he should have expected that.

  It had been interesting to meet Dick, a character from Emma’s story come to life. It was becoming clear that this trip wasn’t just about seeing places from Emma’s past. It was about seeing people.

  Which was probably why she had the gun in her suitcase.

  That thought troubled Phil.

  ‘Hi. You made it.’

  Phil turned to see Heike coming towards him. Her blue eyes were shining, and she seemed much happier than the evening before. God, she was attractive. What the hell did she see in him?

  He had to put that thought out of his mind. He needed to be self-confident if he was going to impress her.

  ‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  She asked for a Southern Comfort and Coke, which he bought her. They found an empty patch of floor.

  ‘Has your boyfriend cleared out?’ Phil asked.

  ‘Yes. He was gone when I got back last night. Man, was I drunk.’

  ‘We both were,’ said Phil. ‘But it was fun.’

  ‘Yeah.’ She smiled – simply, not slyly. ‘I’m glad I bumped into you. And I’m glad I’ve got rid of that scumbag.’

  ‘How long had you been together?’

  ‘Not long. Only a couple of months. But shagging my best friend? Unforgivable. On both their parts.’

  ‘I’m sorry.’

  ‘Don’t be. I’m better off without him. And without her, for that matter. I have a whole life ahead of me to enjoy.’ She smiled up at him.

  ‘What are you going to do now?’ Phil asked.

  ‘I don’t know. Explore Paris. Maybe see a bit more of France by myself. Or I might just go home and try another trip in a few weeks with a friend. Where are you off to next? What does your grandmother have in store for you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’m pretty sure we’ll go to Berlin. But we may be going to a lake in France first.’

  ‘Which lake?’

  ‘No idea. She said she’d tell me at breakfast. But I do know we’re leaving tomorrow morning.’

  ‘Oh,’ she said. Just ‘Oh’. But it seemed to Phil to signal disappointment.

  ‘Shall we go somewhere else?’ he said. ‘It’s getting crowded here. My guidebook says that there are clubs around here called caves, which are a good place to go. Lively, you know.’ The Hitch-Hiker’s Guide had actually implied they were go
od places to meet people of the opposite sex, but Phil was planning on bringing his own.

  ‘Yeah, I went to one with Jürgen a couple of nights ago. That’s a good idea – let’s just make sure it’s a different joint.’

  So they left the bar, and walked along a narrow street thronged with students. Unlike the previous night, Phil felt part of the crowd, not a schoolboy looking on from the outside.

  He started telling Heike all about the Hitch-Hiker’s Guide. She listened with mild amusement at his enthusiasm. ‘Does it say anything about my home town – Braunschweig?’

  ‘I don’t know, I’ll check. Don’t you have a duke there? We call it “Brunswick”.’

  ‘I know you do. We were big allies of the British. Soldiers from Braunschweig fought for your Duke of Wellington at Waterloo. Unlike more recent times.’

  Phil grinned. ‘I’m definitely in favour of more friendly relations.’ The moment the words were out of his mouth he worried that they might seem creepy, but Heike seemed not to take offence.

  They found a likely place: dark, smoke-filled, with low, arched ceilings. Phil shelled out twenty francs each to get in, and was grateful when Heike shoved a note into his hand to pay for her half. They were near the back and could only just see the tiny stage, on which a black woman with an amazingly sultry voice sang blues in English.

  They drank slowly – the drinks were expensive – listened to the music and chatted. Phil found Heike easy to talk to, and soon relaxed. The conversation was in German, but he managed very well, and if he got stuck over a word, Heike patiently guided him to the correct choice. They ordered food: chicken and pommes frites, the cheapest thing on the menu.

  ‘Is your grandmother enjoying your trip?’ Heike asked.

  ‘I think so,’ Phil said. ‘It’s bringing back memories, not all of them good.’

  ‘What kind of memories?’

  ‘She was a diplomat’s wife before the war. And a communist.’

  ‘A communist? She sounds like an interesting lady. Tell me more about her.’

  So Phil did. He told Heike about her marriage to Roland and about how Roland had cheated on her with her mother. Heike looked suitably horrified. Then he told her about Kay and how Kay had asked Emma to spy for Russia.