The Diplomat's Wife

by Michael Ridpath

  A small blonde girl walked down the aisle and sat in a chair near the front of the hall. It looked just like Heike. It was Heike.

  Phil’s heart beat fast.

  ‘Grams? Will you excuse me a sec?’

  Phil walked as coolly and casually as he could down the aisle. ‘Heike?’

  She turned and then smiled her brilliant smile, her blue eyes sparkling. ‘Phil! I’m so pleased to see you.’

  ‘May I join you?’

  ‘Of course.’ She shuffled along to the next chair to make room for him.

  ‘What are you doing in Berlin?’

  ‘I was going to travel south from Paris to Avignon. But then I decided to see a bit of my own country. I came to Berlin with my parents as a kid, but I decided to take another look. So here I am. What have you been up to? Did you get to that lake?’

  ‘We did.’

  ‘How was it?’

  Phil desperately wanted to tell Heike all about it, but he was aware of his grandmother a few rows behind, no doubt watching them closely.

  ‘It was disappointing,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry to hear that. What do you think of Berlin?’

  ‘Fascinating. We saw the Wall this morning. It’s seriously weird.’

  ‘I know. It’s even weirder if you’re German. Knowing that the people on the other side of it are just like you, but are only there because of an accident of geography. And of history, I suppose. Whether they were liberated by the Russians, or the British and Americans.’

  Phil thought the use of the word ‘liberated’ was interesting. The Germans had lost the war: weren’t they ‘occupied’?

  ‘Let me introduce you to my grandmother. Just don’t tell her I said anything to you about her or why we’re here.’

  ‘Have you figured out why you’re here?’

  Phil shook his head. ‘Not really. I’m getting a few more clues, but it’s still a mystery.’

  He led Heike back and introduced her to Emma. Fortunately, his grandmother didn’t act weird, but gave Heike one of her charming smiles.

  ‘What a coincidence!’ she said.

  ‘Yes, it is,’ said Heike. ‘Extraordinary.’

  Emma raised her eyebrows.

  Heike noticed, and blushed. She glanced at Phil. ‘OK. I admit it. I was rather hoping I would bump into your grandson.’

  ‘Is that why you came to Berlin?’ Phil blurted, astonished.

  Heike looked sheepish. ‘I enjoyed your company. After that arsehole of a boyfriend. Oh! Pardon my language, Frau . . . I’m sorry, I don’t know your name.’

  Emma grinned. ‘It’s Meeke. But please call me Emma. I think your interest in my grandson shows extreme good taste.’

  Heike smiled with shame and relief. ‘Yes. Well. I’m really embarrassed, now. My plan was to play it cool.’

  Emma laughed. ‘I too tend to embarrass easily. Embarrass other people, that is. It’s one of my sins, don’t you agree, Philip?’

  ‘I do agree.’

  ‘We’re just on our way to the travel agent to get Philip his flight back to London. Would you join us for a cup of coffee?’

  ‘I’d love to,’ said Heike.

  They dropped into a café on Tauentzienstrasse, one of the streets leading from the Hollow-Tooth Church. Heike did an excellent job of charming Emma, and put up with Emma’s interrogation of her about Brunswick and her engineering course at Bonn University. Phil was not at all surprised by how much Emma knew about civil engineering, but it delighted Heike.

  Phil arranged to meet Heike at seven that evening, in front of the Hollow-Tooth church.

  ‘What a charming girl,’ said Emma as they parted from Heike. ‘And she’s very pretty.’

  ‘I know,’ said Phil, grinning with pleasure. ‘I can’t understand what she sees in me.’

  ‘No,’ said Emma, frowning.

  Jesus! thought Phil. Sometimes his grandmother could be so blunt. But he could handle it. He was just looking forward to seeing Heike that evening.

  ‘You haven’t told Heike anything about why we are here, have you, Philip?’

  ‘Oh, no, Grams. Certainly not.’

  Phil felt slightly guilty as he said this. He was no doubt misleading his grandmother, but compared to the wholesale deceit she was describing to him, it was nothing.

  And besides, what threat could a twenty-year-old engineering student pose?

  Chapter 43

  They bought Phil’s one-way British Airways ticket back to London and returned to the Bristol. Emma had a word with the concierge about finding a way to get the TR6 back to England, now Phil wouldn’t be around to drive it. The concierge seemed undaunted by the task, and promised to work on it.

  There was a message in reception that someone was waiting for them in the bar.

  Phil was almost expecting to see Dick, but the man who climbed to his feet when he saw Emma entering the room was much larger. His thinning grey hair was brushed back above a fleshy face and impressive jowls. A three-piece suit fitted snugly over a large stomach, a gold watch chain adorning the waistcoat and a patterned pink silk handkerchief brightening up the jacket. Two pink spots flashed on the man’s cheeks as he grinned.

  ‘Emma!’

  ‘Well, Freddie. What a surprise!’

  ‘A nice one, I trust?’

  ‘Oh, a very nice one. This is my grandson, Philip.’

  The large man ordered gin and tonics for Phil and himself. Emma stuck to sparkling water.

  ‘Since I found myself in Berlin, I thought I’d drop in on you.’

  ‘Found yourself?’ said Emma. ‘You don’t expect me to believe this is a coincidence?’

  Freddie laughed. He had a deep, fruity voice, with just a hint of Irish about it.

  ‘I would travel the length and breadth of Europe for you, Emma.’

  ‘I’m flattered. How are you finding the opposition benches? What is it, a month now?’

  ‘I can’t stand that bloody woman,’ muttered Freddie. ‘I do hope you didn’t vote for her.’

  ‘Of course not. But I fear Philip did.’

  Freddie looked at Phil. ‘I can’t understand the young people of today. What happened to the hippies and free love? What was wrong with that? Sounded fun to me. Now look at you – short hair and thin ties, and you all vote for Margaret Thatcher.’

  Phil quite enjoyed being teased by an MP. ‘Someone’s got to drag our country out of the mess it’s in. I’m comfortable to stand by my vote.’

  ‘Leave my grandson alone,’ said Emma. ‘If he wants to vote like a moron, I’ll fight to the death for his right to do it.’

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ said Freddie, raising his glass. He examined Phil. ‘I say. He does look rather a lot like Hugh, doesn’t he? A good-looking lad too.’

  ‘Yes, he does,’ said Emma, with a small smile of affection. ‘I’m glad you see it as well.’

  ‘I never knew Hugh existed, that I had a great-uncle at all,’ said Phil, ignoring the attached compliment. ‘Grams has been telling me about him; I think I would have liked him. You were friends at school?’

  ‘Yes. We were rebels together. School was quite barbaric in those days. Beating and buggery. We tried to inject a bit of civilization. It’s all changed now, thank God. Where did you go?’

  ‘The local grammar school,’ said Phil.

  This seemed to temporarily nonplus Freddie. ‘Ah. Jolly good too. Anyway, Hugh and I published a little magazine. Complaining about the patriotic teaching of history, compulsory Officer Training Corps, precocious criticism of modern poetry and art. It was banned eventually, much to our joy. Then we both went up to Cambridge together: he went to King’s, I went to Trinity.’

  ‘And you both became communists?’

  Freddie glanced at Emma.

  ‘It was a long time ago,’ she said. ‘He needed to know. I needed to tell him.’

  Freddie hesitated, but decided to answer Phil’s question. ‘Yes, we did. There was a lot of it about then. And it made some sense. Capi
talism had failed the working classes. As far as I am concerned, it still has. I joined the party, and Hugh chose not to. As a matter of fact, it looked as if he was drifting away from communism altogether just before he died.’

  It was interesting to Phil to see how Freddie was corroborating Emma’s story.

  ‘It’s always a tragedy when a young person dies,’ Freddie went on. ‘But it was a damn shame about Hugh. He was a brilliant man. He could have been a great leader of something. Business, maybe, or even politics. He was applying for the Foreign Office, but he was always a man of independent thought, not someone else’s mouthpiece like a diplomat has to be.’

  He caught Emma’s eye. ‘Here’s to Hugh.’

  ‘To Hugh,’ she said, sipping her water, and Phil raised his glass.

  ‘We saw Dick in Paris,’ said Emma. ‘I hadn’t seen him for years.’

  ‘I bump into him occasionally,’ said Freddie. ‘Or I did when I was a minister in the MOD. Dick does a lot of work for defence contractors all around the world. He’s well thought of: he’s rather good at the management consultancy, which surprises me a little. He was always a clever chap, but I thought writing was more his thing.’

  Emma winced. ‘Did you ever read his novel?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Freddie with a grin. ‘Enough said.’ He sipped his gin. ‘And you saw Cyril?’

  ‘Yes. I wanted to show Philip the embassy. You have been checking up on me.’ Emma hesitated. ‘Did you know Cyril? Back then?’

  ‘Oh, you mean because he and I are confirmed bachelors? Or he was then.’

  ‘Yes. I rather thought you all knew each other.’

  ‘We did bump into each other once or twice,’ Freddie admitted. ‘Cyril was a good-looking young man. Always elegant.’

  ‘Did you hear about his indiscretions in Paris?’

  ‘Darling, we all have indiscretions in Paris. That’s what Paris is for. Berlin too, in the good old days before the Nazis.’

  ‘These were spectacularly indiscreet indiscretions.’

  ‘Blackmail?’

  ‘I’m afraid so.’

  ‘The Russians?’

  ‘The Germans.’

  Freddie winced. ‘I’m surprised Cyril recovered from that.’

  ‘I believe he redeemed himself during the war,’ said Emma.

  ‘Good for him,’ said Freddie. ‘We all do our best to redeem ourselves. I know I have.’ He looked at Emma closely. ‘Is that what you are trying to do now? Redeem yourself?’

  ‘How do you mean?’ asked Emma.

  Freddie didn’t answer the question. ‘I heard about Kurt Lohmüller,’ he said.

  ‘Kurt?’ Emma was watchful.

  ‘He died,’ said Freddie. ‘In Annecy. After you came to see me in London to talk about old times before the war. And after you set off to Europe with young Philip here.’

  ‘Have you been sent here to ask me about him?’

  ‘I have.’

  ‘By whom? MI6? C?’

  Freddie grimaced, glancing at Phil. Emma was clearly talking secret stuff Phil wasn’t supposed to be hearing. Freddie decided to ignore her question.

  ‘The French police don’t know about you. Yet.’

  ‘Will they find out?’

  ‘That depends. Lohmüller was found shot. With a KGB agent, also killed. Were you there? An Englishwoman and a young Englishman were seen the day before, asking about him.’

  ‘We did go and see him. We asked him where we could find Kay Lesser in East Berlin.’

  ‘Did he tell you?’

  ‘He was going to. But he never got the chance.’

  ‘Because he was shot?’

  Emma didn’t answer.

  ‘Did you see him the day he was killed? You know he was killed?’

  ‘I can’t talk about it.’

  ‘Why not?’ said Freddie.

  ‘Because it’s not wise.’

  ‘What about you?’ Freddie asked Phil.

  ‘Same here,’ said Phil.

  ‘I see.’ Freddie sipped his drink. ‘You realize you may have to tell me? Or someone from MI6? Or the French police?’

  ‘No,’ said Emma. ‘We don’t. We won’t.’

  Freddie raised his eyebrows at Phil.

  ‘And neither will I,’ he said, surprised at his own conviction.

  Freddie considered this information, but decided not to push them further. ‘Next stop East Berlin to look for Kay Lesser?’

  ‘For me,’ said Emma. ‘Philip is flying back tomorrow.’

  ‘Is East Berlin safe?’

  ‘Probably not. That’s why Philip is leaving me.’

  ‘You are a brave woman,’ said Freddie. ‘You always were.’

  Emma went up to her room to rest. Phil opened War and Peace in his own bedroom, but he found it impossible to concentrate on the doings of Pierre, Prince Andrei and Natasha.

  He had questions for his grandmother.

  He gave her an hour and then walked down the hotel corridor to Emma’s room, and knocked. She let him in.

  Phil sat in one of two armchairs in the room; Emma took the other. Outside, traffic on the Kurfürstendamm rumbled.

  ‘Thank you for backing me up with Freddie,’ she said. ‘It was good of you not to tell him what you know.’

  Phil smiled. ‘If you can be stubborn, I can be stubborn too.’

  ‘You are my grandson.’ There was a note of pride in Emma’s voice, which Phil rather liked.

  ‘Was Freddie a spy for the Russians like you?’ he asked. ‘And how come he is an MP?’

  ‘I don’t think he ever was a spy,’ said Emma. ‘Although I can’t be certain. The NKVD made sure that their spies didn’t know of each other’s existence. We never met each other, at least not knowingly. Kay broke all the rules when she told me about Kurt.’

  ‘So he could have been a spy?’

  ‘I do know Freddie was a friend of Guy Burgess. And he knew Kim Philby a bit too, at Cambridge; they were both Apostles as well. When Burgess and Maclean fled to Russia, Freddie helped MI5. I think he helped them with Philby. Redeemed himself, as he put it.’

  ‘I get confused,’ Phil said. ‘What’s the difference between MI5 and MI6?’

  ‘MI6 is abroad – they do the spying. MI5 is domestic – they find enemies’ spies.’

  ‘And when the enemy’s spies turn out to be your spies?’

  ‘Turf war,’ said Emma. ‘It was because I knew that Freddie was so well plugged into the intelligence services that I spoke to him earlier this year.’

  ‘About Lothar?’

  ‘About my time in Paris and Berlin. He wasn’t particularly helpful.’

  ‘Who’s “C”?’ Phil asked. ‘The head of MI6? Or MI5?’ It sounded rather like a cross between Ian Fleming’s ‘M’ and John le Carré’s ‘Control’.

  ‘MI6. I got the definite impression that Freddie had been talking to C. Which surprises me, a little.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I don’t understand why MI6 would care so much what I was up to.’

  So it was Freddie who had tipped off Swann! That was why Swann had approached Phil. Freddie had known what Emma was up to all along.

  Phil knew why MI6 cared.

  ‘You’re definitely going to East Berlin tomorrow, Grams?’

  ‘Yes. I just got a message from Herr Pöpel; Kay Ortmann lives in Prenzlauer Berg. I’ve got her address.’

  ‘And you’re sure I can’t come with you? I’m worried about you.’

  ‘Quite sure, Philip.’

  Phil took a deep breath. No point in arguing.

  ‘There’s a chance I might not see you again, Grams. After tomorrow. What with one thing and another.’ Like you either might die of a brain tumour or the KGB might blow your brains out.

  Emma reached out for his hand. ‘Yes, I know, darling. It’s been wonderful travelling with you this last week. I don’t know how I can thank you. Actually, I did have a little idea. I’ve written a letter to my lawyer telling him that I want you to have th
e TR6 when I’m gone.’

  Phil grinned. The thought made him sad, but happy at the same time. He wanted Emma to see his happiness.

  ‘Dad won’t like that,’ he said.

  Emma laughed. ‘I know.’

  ‘Grams. I know you want to be careful about what you tell me, and I understand why. But you have to finish your story. There’s so much I don’t know, stuff that someone needs to know once you’re gone. Like did you continue spying for the Russians? What happened between you and Grandpa?’ And why we are looking for Kay, he wanted to add, but didn’t. He understood now she wasn’t going to tell him that.

  And besides. He had a little plan.

  Emma studied her grandson for a moment. ‘All right,’ she said. ‘I’ll finish the story. But promise me you won’t tell anyone else about it. And certainly not your friend Heike.’

  ‘I promise,’ said Phil.

  Chapter 44

  June 1939, Berlin

  I GOT TO the restaurant first. It was the Taverne, a perpetually crowded Italian restaurant in Kurfürstenstrasse, near the Memorial Church. Ostensibly Italian, but actually it was run by a large German man and his small Belgian wife. It was late, nearly ten o’clock, and I recognized a couple of the American journalists who used to gather there after they had filed their copy to gossip. Gossip in which I had occasionally joined.

  I had told Roland where I was going, and whom I was meeting. But I hadn’t told my husband what I was going to say.

  ‘I’m sorry I’m late,’ said Dick. ‘My train just got in half an hour ago. They are not always as punctual as they claim, these Germans, are they?’

  ‘The economy is at full war production, and troops are shuttling around everywhere,’ I said. ‘Even the famous Deutsche Reichsbahn is stretched.’

  We ordered veal, and a bottle of Italian wine.

  ‘How was your pastor?’ I asked.

  ‘Wary about any direct questions to do with present-day Germany. But fascinating about his book: The Cost of Discipleship. You should read it. I only just caught him – turns out he is on his way to America next week.’

  Dick talked animatedly about Dietrich Bonhoeffer and the article he was going to write about him.