The Diplomat's Wife

by Michael Ridpath

‘I didn’t get a chance to tell you, because you had already left,’ I said. ‘Roland warned me you should be careful. Bonhoeffer is on the Gestapo’s naughty list.’

  ‘I didn’t see any signs of trouble,’ said Dick. ‘As I say, he was very circumspect. Looks like I made it out safely. My train to the Hook of Holland is tomorrow morning.’

  I sipped my red wine. It was good. The journalists’ Stammtisch was filling up, and the noise levels were rising. I recognized Sigrid Schulz from the Chicago Tribune, Bill Shirer from CBS and Selkirk Panton from the Daily Express, as well as one of the editors of a German newspaper. Sigrid caught my eye and gave me a quick smile. I liked her; ordinarily I would have introduced Dick to the journalists, people were always coming and going at their table eager to share gossip, but I wanted him to myself that evening.

  I glanced over my shoulder, the classic deutsche Blick, checking for others overhearing us. The tables were crammed close together, but the noise level was high. I knew the Gestapo employed lip-readers, presumably even lip-readers who spoke English, but I doubted they would be bothered to go to that effort for Dick and me. There was something I had to tell him.

  ‘You know Kay told me Hugh was a Russian spy?’

  ‘In Paris? I remember. I found it hard to believe,’ Dick said.

  ‘It turns out you were right. Or half right.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Dick leaned forward, interested. I paused for the waiter to serve us our veal.

  ‘Hugh did agree to spy for the Russians, just like Kay said. Or the Comintern. That was why he applied for the Foreign Office. And that was why he told everyone he had changed his mind about communism. He didn’t want to arouse suspicions.’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘But the thing is, Hugh really did change his mind. Just before he died. And Kay thinks you and your Ukrainian tutor persuaded him.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Kay and Hugh had a big fight about it. Hugh wanted to stop working for the Comintern, and he wanted her to give up as well.’

  ‘But she wouldn’t?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘And then Hugh died?’

  ‘Yes.’

  Dick’s food lay untouched in front of him. He attacked it as he considered what I had been saying. He looked irritated. ‘I told you I never thought he could be a Russian spy.’

  ‘And I thought he was,’ I said. And became one myself, I wanted to add, but didn’t. ‘It’s awful. I thought I knew Hugh so well, but even now I’m struggling to discover who he really was. Especially around the time he died.’

  ‘I know what you mean,’ said Dick. ‘It’s very frustrating. If what you say is true, we were both wrong. The poor chap must have been so confused. I wish he had confided in me. Or you.’

  ‘He confided in Kay,’ I said.

  ‘How do you know all this?’

  ‘I saw Kay recently. She’s moved to Berlin.’

  ‘I say,’ Dick said. ‘You never took her up on her offer, did you?’

  ‘To work for the Russians? Oh no, of course not. Although I did consider it back in Paris when I was so angry.’ I had no intention of telling Dick the truth: that I was working for the Russians and had been for three years. He didn’t need to know that; no one did.

  And I didn’t want to lose him as a friend. If he hadn’t approved of Hugh becoming a spy, he certainly wouldn’t approve of me doing so too.

  ‘But you still see her?’

  ‘I like her,’ I said. ‘I was unsure of her at first, as you may remember. But in some ways she is a bit like me. And we both loved Hugh.’

  ‘Does she still think Hugh was killed by the British secret service?’

  ‘She does.’

  ‘Couldn’t it have been the Russians? I mean, if he changed his mind about spying for them . . .’

  ‘I know. I asked about that. But she insisted they didn’t.’

  ‘And you believe her?’

  ‘I think so. She was very frank with me about everything else. I think she would have told me.’

  The alternative was too horrible to contemplate. Not only that both Kay and Lothar had lied to me. Not only that I had spent three years spying for Russia on the assumption that my brother had too.

  But that I had spied for the man who had killed him.

  A man who was now dead. Shot by the people he worked for.

  I wanted to believe Kay. But how could I be certain she was telling me the truth this time?

  ‘Do you think it was just an accident after all?’ Dick said.

  ‘Maybe it was. I suppose I’ll never know for sure.’

  Dick shook his head. ‘This is all very messy. Poor Hugh.’

  ‘It is. I wish he were here so we could talk to him about it.’

  Dick nodded. ‘So do I.’

  ‘Where are you staying?’ I asked after Dick had paid the bill.

  ‘A little hotel in Augsburger Strasse. I think it’s quite close.’

  ‘It is,’ I said. ‘Walking distance. I could walk with you. I’ve got a favour to ask.’

  ‘Certainly.’

  Dick had come to the Taverne straight from the station, so he retrieved his small suitcase from the cloakroom and we headed out into the night. It was spitting lightly, but the cool air felt good after the crowded restaurant.

  He lit his pipe. ‘What’s your favour?’

  ‘I have a message I would like you to deliver. To a man named Heaton-Smith. This is his number.’

  I reeled off the Sloane telephone number Heaton-Smith had given me in Paris, which I still remembered three years on.

  ‘Can you memorize that?’ I said. ‘Don’t write it down.’

  He repeated it a couple of times. In those days phone numbers were just the exchange plus four digits.

  ‘Make sure you speak to him face to face,’ I said.

  ‘And what do I tell him?’

  ‘Give him this.’ I handed Dick a sealed envelope.

  Dick looked at it. It was unaddressed.

  ‘Are you sure this is a good idea? I mean, I might be searched.’

  ‘When?’

  ‘At the Dutch border. They didn’t search me coming into the country, but you never know. They may well know I spoke to Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Perhaps you should just tell me what’s in it, and I can tell this Heaton-Smith?’

  I felt such an idiot. It was basic tradecraft. Three years of meeting with Lothar and now Kay should have made me more careful.

  ‘Of course. You’re right. Give me that back.’ Dick handed the envelope back to me and I stuffed it in my handbag.

  We were on a side street not far from Augsburger Strasse. ‘Slow down,’ I said. ‘And I’ll tell you. It’s about Russia. And Germany.’

  I repeated what Kurt had told me. I didn’t give Dick Kurt’s name, but I did tell him to let Heaton-Smith know my information came from the same source as Paris. Heaton-Smith would realize that meant Kurt.

  Dick listened closely, taking it all in. At the end, I asked him to repeat the telephone number, which he did correctly.

  ‘Why don’t you tell your husband?’ he asked. ‘Surely this is something he would be very interested in.’

  ‘Because he would have to tell the ambassador,’ I replied. ‘And Henderson will want to either suppress the information or pooh-pooh it, and Roland will have to follow his ambassador’s instructions. Whereas Heaton-Smith will know who will actually do something. He has proved himself before.’

  We arrived at Dick’s hotel.

  I didn’t want to let him go. I was leading a ridiculous life with a husband whom I didn’t love and who had betrayed me horribly. I was betraying my own country for a group of people whom I had trusted and shouldn’t have.

  I still didn’t know what had happened to Hugh and why.

  There was no one I could trust. Kay perhaps, but who was to say that Kay wasn’t lying to me now?

  Just the tall man with the kind blue eyes standing in front of me now.

  I threw myself into hi
s arms. He pulled me close and squeezed. It was immensely comforting.

  I looked up into his face, which was full of concern for me.

  I wanted to kiss him. But what if he rejected me? I couldn’t bear that. My life was too complicated as it was.

  So I pushed myself away from him, turned and walked rapidly up the street.

  It had felt so good, those few seconds when I had been enveloped in his arms. It was years since anyone had held me like that, and that had been Roland.

  I shuddered.

  Why should I let my marriage to Roland stop me from having the comfort I craved? Even the love I craved?

  Dick might reject me. But I would take the risk. I had to take the risk.

  I took several deep breaths and turned back towards the hotel.

  Three men in raincoats were walking purposefully into the building. I had been in Berlin long enough to know who they were.

  Gestapo.

  I stepped away from the yellow glow of the lamppost into the shadow of a doorway, and watched.

  A couple of minutes later, the three men appeared. One was carrying a suitcase, the other two leading someone between them. I couldn’t see clearly, but I could tell from his height and build and the shape of his hat who the man they were escorting was.

  Dick.

  Chapter 45

  I WAVED DOWN a passing taxi and went straight home. Roland had gone to bed, but I woke him.

  ‘Emma! What’s the matter?’

  ‘It’s Dick. He’s been arrested.’

  ‘By the Gestapo?’

  ‘Looked like it. Men in raincoats.’

  ‘Did he see Bonhoeffer?’

  ‘Yes, he did.’

  Roland swung his legs out of bed and quickly flung on some clothes. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I’ll sort it out.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse. Gestapo headquarters.’

  I changed into my pyjamas, but I couldn’t go to sleep. Usually it was the consul’s job to spring errant Englishmen from jail, not the first secretary’s, but I knew Roland was formidable with bureaucrats, even Nazi ones.

  But why had Dick been arrested? Presumably it had been because of his interview with the clergyman. Was there any way that the Gestapo could have suspected what I had told him about Kurt and the German talks with Russia? Were they on to Kurt too?

  If they had somehow got wind of that, then they would beat it out of Dick, or at least try to. I was confident Dick would keep quiet, at least for a while. Although the Gestapo’s interrogation methods were notorious in Germany, Dick was a British citizen, and Roland would be there to protect him.

  I was so glad that Dick had refused to accept the envelope I had thrust in his hands. Whatever reason the Gestapo had for arresting him, they would have been sure to read any correspondence on his person and to have been very interested in the contents. Not only that, but it would also have immediately condemned Dick as a spy. And me, for that matter.

  It had been about midnight when I returned home and woke Roland. It was four fifteen when the telephone rang.

  ‘It’s me,’ said Roland. He sounded exhausted.

  ‘How is he?’ I asked.

  ‘He’s all right. They haven’t touched him. I think they just wanted to put the wind up him for meeting Bonhoeffer. To discourage other English journalists from coming here and trying similar tricks. They didn’t expect anyone from the embassy to turn up so quickly.’

  ‘Have they released him?’

  ‘They will. I’m waiting for him now. Don’t worry – I won’t leave here without him. I’ve negotiated that we go straight to Zoo Station from here. I’ll put him on the train to the Hook of Holland.’

  ‘Thank God for that.’

  Three days later, I received a telegram from Dick from London: FLOWERS DELIVERED SAFELY. PLS THK ROLAND. DICK.

  I thanked Roland.

  Two months after that, on 23 August, the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed. Initially it seemed that the pact simply pledged that the Soviet Union and Germany would not attack each other. On 1 September, Germany invaded Poland. On 3 September, Britain and France declared war on Germany. On 4 September, Roland, Caroline, I and the rest of the embassy staff left Berlin by train to the Hague, and from there we were packed on to a boat to Gravesend and another train to Victoria.

  On 17 September, as anticipated in a secret protocol of the pact, the Soviet Union invaded eastern Poland and grabbed a large chunk of their territory. On 30 November Russia attacked Finland, and in June 1940 she invaded Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania.

  As Kurt had warned me, the Soviet Union had teamed up with the Nazis to carve up north-eastern Europe, and everything I had done for them over the last three years was betrayed.

  Chapter 46

  September 1939, London

  ROLAND, CAROLINE AND I took up residence in my family’s town house in Mayfair; Mama had scarpered to Devon. A heady mixture of fear, panic and excitement overcame London. The population was diligent in taping up windows, digging up parks, carrying around gas masks and preparing for the hail of bombs that never came. Children were carried off to the countryside and soldiers were transported in aimless circles around the country. Newspapers were read from cover to cover and every story was discussed at breakfast tables, St James’s clubs and pubs. The blackout was imposed and London’s first casualties of the war were sustained: cars pranged into lampposts and pedestrians flattened.

  Kay had given me instructions to meet a new handler in London involving park benches in Regent’s Park, but I had no intention of following them, and Kay knew it. She said that the London branch of the Comintern was a shambles since all its controllers had been recalled to Moscow to be liquidated. I had continued to give Kay snippets of embassy gossip in Berlin, mostly relating to Britain’s pointless negotiations with Russia. We agreed it was best for the long-term health of both of us if Moscow continued to see me providing Kay with information, and Kay passing it on.

  Kay was in real danger of being recalled to Moscow and suffering Lothar’s fate. Since meeting Lothar in the Bois de Boulogne, I had been very aware of the danger to myself from the British secret service and even the French and German authorities. To them was now added the Comintern, or rather the NKVD, the very people for whom I was doing all this.

  After what I had learned about Hugh and Lothar, and following the signature of the Molotov–Ribbentrop pact, I was finished with spying for Russia. I knew it and Kay knew it, but neither of us said anything about it. War was coming, and with it, my time in Berlin would come to a natural end. What Kay would do, I didn’t know and we didn’t discuss.

  I was looking forward to returning to England for many reasons. It was only when I arrived in London that I realized which was the most pressing. To see Dick again.

  We had corresponded after his return, but only a few times, and our letters were friendly but more restrained than I would have liked. Dick had attempted to join the RAF but failed, due to some minor problem with his eyes. His next stop was the army, but he had received a summons from the new Ministry of Information, where a clique of his friends was gathering. He wrote to me that he was in two minds about accepting it. On the one hand, he wanted to fight for his country against the Nazis. On the other, he thought of himself as a pacifist who believed war was wrong. Fighting with words was a compromise. I could tell he wasn’t really happy about it, though.

  I read and reread his letters to me in Berlin, until I knew every word by heart. They were full of friendship and affection.

  By now I knew I wanted more.

  The day after we arrived at the house in Hill Street, I sent him a note asking him to telephone me. This he did. We arranged to have dinner the following week at Simpson’s in Piccadilly.

  I didn’t tell Roland.

  Dick seemed pleased to see me, and in good spirits all around. He described how he had passed my message on to the mysterious Mr Heaton-Smith at a pub in Pimlico. Heaton-Smi
th had been duly grateful, but we agreed it didn’t seem to have made a blind bit of difference to Britain’s diplomacy. It probably hadn’t been believed. After subtle probing on my part, Roland had revealed that the Foreign Office hadn’t received any warning as early as the end of June when Dick had met the MI6 officer. I wondered whether I should have told Roland myself; perhaps he could have found a way around the ambassador after all. But then Kurt had made me promise I wouldn’t, and, strangely, I trusted that German diplomat more than the British.

  Dick and I agreed that the Soviet Union had proved herself utterly untrustworthy.

  Dick regaled me with stories of the hapless Ministry of Information, which was based at the University of London in Bloomsbury. He mentioned a number of names I had heard of, writers whose books I had read or whom I had seen reviewed. But I could tell there was something wrong.

  ‘You would like to be fighting, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Dick. ‘Maybe. I am jealous of all those other fellows who are putting on uniforms and square bashing. Oh, I know war isn’t glorious. But this time, we are truly fighting against evil. Or they are. I’m coming up with slogans about potatoes.’

  ‘Can you leave?’

  ‘Not right away. I’ll give it a couple of months and see.’

  Simpson’s was crowded, and the menu was still pretty good. We had both ordered partridge: it was shooting season in the fields and copses of the country’s estates, estates like Chaddington, even if it wasn’t in France. Yet.

  ‘It’s good to see you,’ Dick said.

  The time had come to say what I was going to say. I assumed lots of women, married women perhaps especially, would know exactly how to proposition a young man. I was sure that my mother, for example, was an expert at it. But if there were such things as ‘feminine wiles’, I didn’t have any.

  ‘Dick?’ I said.

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Do you think we could find a hotel after dinner?’

  I had expected one of two reactions. A smile of happiness, perhaps a complicit good-humoured laugh, and then an equally good-humoured discussion of the practicalities. That’s what I had hoped for, and what over the previous week I had persuaded myself I was most likely to receive. But I also knew there was a chance of a kind, gentle but firm rejection. If that happened, I would accept it, and Dick and I would remain good friends.