The Game of Treachery

by Christopher Nicole

  ‘Good girl. It is even more top secret now. Because it is going to happen.’

  ‘You said it would happen this month.’

  ‘We have been delayed by this business down in the Balkans. But we are at last ready. It will happen in June. The final orders have been given.’

  ‘Oh, my God! You will not be involved?’

  He poured two glasses of schnapps and sat beside her, giving her one. ‘You know I have wanted a field command ever since the war with France. As soon as we had someone to fight.’

  She put down her glass, untouched. ‘Freddie! You can’t! You’re on the Führer’s personal staff.’

  ‘You mean I am a glorified office boy. My darling —’ he held her hands — ‘I have explained this to you before. Do you wish me to spend the rest of my life as a colonel, without any honours? I do not even have an Iron Cross. Yet. Advancement in armies only comes about quickly through war. Success in war. After this war is over, there will be no more wars, because we will rule all Europe. If I am going to make general under the age of forty it must be done now.’

  ‘But the danger! The Russians! Don’t they have millions of men under arms?’

  ‘Well, we have a few million ourselves, you know. Our equipment is far superior. As for our command … Stalin shot all his best commanders back in 1937. I mean, even the Finns beat the hell out of them last year. Believe me, the Russian armies are just an accumulation of men waiting to be slaughtered.’

  ‘Slaughtered!’

  ‘Well, hopefully they will have the sense to surrender.’

  ‘Oh, Freddie! I don’t want you to go.’

  ‘And I have explained that I must. But that is not all my news.’ Her eyes became watchful. ‘Your parents are to be released from prison.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘It is simply that that incompetent lout Kluck has realized that there is absolutely no evidence against them, and that parents cannot be held responsible for the misdeeds of their children. I imagine Franz Hoeppner had something to do with it. He is a good fellow, Franz.’ He frowned at her. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘I … I am overwhelmed. Where are they to be sent? My parents.’

  ‘Back to their home outside Paulliac.’

  ‘Oh, thank God! They will be so happy.’

  ‘I should think so. Would you like to see them?’

  Madeleine stared at him. Throughout the six months since the bomb outrage and the arrest of her parents, she had begged to be allowed to see them, just as she had begged him to intervene. He had declined to allow either, explaining that it could be disastrous for his career, and that in view of the crimes committed by her siblings it was safest for her to keep a very low profile regarding them. She had accepted his advice, which had almost been an order, both because he was her husband and because she had been terrified. Now it was all a little too much to cope with. ‘You mean … here?’

  ‘Yes. They could come here before leaving for France.’

  Madeleine looked left and right. Her mother and father had spent several months in a concentration camp. No one except the inner core of the party knew what really went on in such camps, and one was discouraged from believing the rumours of summary executions, of public floggings, of starvation, that occured there. But even if all those were terrible lies circulated by enemies of the regime, the camps were definitely prisons, where there were no servants, no comforts, no proper facilities, and above all, no privacy. What effect such conditions might have had on two elderly people who had lived their lives in the lap of wealth and luxury she could not imagine. And to have them here, to see the luxury in which she was living, and had lived in all the time they had been behind bars … ‘I don’t think that would be a good idea,’ she said. ‘Perhaps, when, well, they have got used to the idea of being free … Perhaps I could go to Paulliac and visit them.’

  ‘Perhaps. We’ll talk about it,’ he said, and she knew he would forbid it.

  *

  As usual, Frederick left the house early, and Madeleine breakfasted alone. But she only toyed with her toast, and drank several cups of coffee instead. She had hardly slept, although she had had to conceal that from her husband. But there were so many things to be concealed from her husband. At the lowest level there was the telephone call from Joanna, announcing that she was back in Berlin and intended to visit her that morning. Frederick did not like Joanna any more than Joanna liked Frederick; there had been no point in upsetting him.

  But at the moment, her principal secret she did not wish to be a secret. The fact that she was pregnant should have them both jumping for joy. She had meant to greet him with the news, and instead had been overtaken by his news. Because of those other secrets. If she had always admired him, she had always hated his utter belief in the doctrines of his Führer. She could not blame him for the destruction of France, because he was a soldier who obeyed orders, but she could blame herself for having married him, an act of betrayal of everything she believed in, not to mention her country.

  There had been no love then. If she had loved anyone, it had been that so appealingly gauche English officer, James Barron, who had so strangely entered her life, for so brief a period. Now she did not know if he was alive or dead. Of only one thing had she been certain: she would never see him again. His replacement by an entirely different, and, one would have to say, superior man, certainly in terms of sophistication and position, had been one factor in her willingness to accept Frederick’s proposal. But there had also been the gratitude factor. Frederick had saved Amalie from the Gestapo. And Frederick had shown his willingness to help the entire de Gruchy family survive the war and continue to prosper. It was not his fault that Liane had turned into a wanted criminal, that Amalie had drowned herself, that Pierre had entirely disappeared. In fact, he was entitled to feel desperately betrayed at such behaviour from people he had only wanted to help. But apart from a single outburst when he had heard the news of the attack on the railway, he had uttered not a word of reproach.

  Instead, she had betrayed that confidence he had shared with her last year, and betrayed him again by lying to him. She did not know if she had actually done any damage. She had reacted in a very immature way to the news of what Liane had done and was doing, had been overtaken by a surge of irresistible guilt, had lashed out blindly to the only person she still knew who could possibly help, who could use the information to upset Hitler’s plans without in any way being able to harm the regime itself, or more especially, Frederick. And then Madeleine had sat back in horror at what she had done. But it did not appear as if she had done anything. Joanna was a journalist, who with her Swedish-American dual nationality and passports had free access to any country in Europe. That she apparently liked Germany, and more especially, Berlin, best, was not surprising. Right now, Berlin was the centre of the world, certainly as regards news and fun, and Joanna was a great one for having fun. But she did not appear to have used the information at all. Or more likely, her American editor had dismissed the idea of Hitler going to war with Stalin, after the hoo-ha and the success of the alliance signed in August 1939, as nonsense. Anyway, if Joanna was coming to see her this morning, having apparently just returned from a visit to her father in Stockholm, she would be able to ask her about it and beg her not to use it, at least for another month.

  She finished her coffee, sat in the lounge with a magazine, without actually reading it. As always when expecting Joanna, she felt curiously breathless. It was not merely that Joanna would bring her news of the outside world which would not be common knowledge in Germany; it was her outrageous personality that could embrace everyone in a room, and when there was only one other person in the room …

  And then there was her beauty and her sexuality. It was not something to which she had succumbed personally, but she knew that was almost certainly because Joanna had never directed it at her. To Joanna, Madeleine had always been the little sister, just as Amalie had always been the baby. Joanna’s special friend
had been Liane, who was her own age. They had been at finishing school in Switzerland together, and had been expelled together — for being found in bed together! Such concepts, such aberrations, had been beyond the scope of Madeleine’s imagination. She had been only twelve when it had happened, had not then known what had happened. It had been Liane herself who had told her, several years later. She had found it difficult to believe, even then. Because then she had been on a visit to her sister in Paris, staying in Liane’s flat, unwillingly and yet fascinatingly drawn into her lifestyle, forced to accept that her glamorous sister was an utter hedonist, who accepted male or female lovers as it crossed her mind to do so. And protected as she had been by her parents’ social prestige as much as by their wealth, she had known no check, had accepted no obstacle, in her quest for pleasure.

  Madeleine had been left both shocked and envious. If she had known that she could never live like that, she still wished that she could. And being a practising Roman Catholic, she had always known that it had to end in disaster. It had never occurred to her that the disaster, when it came, would involve all of France, turn Liane, lovely, sophisticated, apparently delicate Liane, firstly into a victim, then into a murderess and now an outlaw.

  So what did Joanna think of it all? Joanna, big, beautiful and boisterous. She had been with Liane when they were captured by the German deserters in that abandoned village north of Paris, had suffered the same dreadful fate — Madeleine, who had only ever had sex with her husband, could not imagine what it must be like to be raped — and yet seemed to have shrugged it off, and resumed living her own careless life. But she certainly knew what had happened to Liane since then, because Madeleine had told her. And now she was here. Hilda stood in the doorway. ‘Fräulein Jonsson, Frau von Helsingen.’

  Joanna Jonsson was only an inch under six feet tall, and possessed a strong, voluptuous body which matched her equally strong, sensuous face. The whole was framed in long, straight golden hair, and emboldened by the glittering pale blue eyes. Her dress was dark blue and she wore three expensive rings as well as a gold bangle. ‘Madeleine!’ she said, embracing her. ‘You’re looking well.’

  ‘As are you,’ Madeleine said. ‘Coffee?’

  ‘I’d prefer a drink. Do you have any brandy?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Cognac, believe it or not. How was Stockholm?’

  ‘Still cold, I imagine. I’ve actually been in the States. Felt I had to see Mom.’

  ‘You mean you crossed the Atlantic? Twice?’

  ‘Don’t remind me. I was scared shitless.’ She took the glass from Hilda’s tray and gave Madeleine a meaningful look.

  ‘Thank you, Hilda,’ Madeleine said.

  Hilda, a small, dark woman, gave a brief bow and left, closing the door behind her. Joanna immediately got up and opened it again. Madeleine watched her with her mouth open. ‘All servants listen at doors,’ Joanna explained. ‘Now come and sit beside me on the settee. That way we can keep our voices down. And stick to English.’ She knew that Madeleine, like her sisters, educated at Benenden, spoke the language fluently.

  Madeleine obeyed. ‘What is this all about?’

  ‘Lots of things. First, what is the news on Liane?’

  ‘There is no news of Liane. No one has seen her or heard of her since the train outrage last year.’

  ‘Shit! But if she was dead or been captured you’d know, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘If she’d been captured, yes. But if she’s just died … I don’t suppose the people she was with would publicize it.’

  ‘Shit,’ Joanna commented again. ‘OK, now tell me about that bum steer you gave me last year.’

  They were speaking in little more than whispers, but Madeleine cast an anxious glance at the open door. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’

  ‘You told me that the invasion of Russia would start mid-May. That was yesterday.’

  ‘Is that important?’

  ‘You bet it is. My editor is hopping mad. Don’t worry; I didn’t let you down. I never told him my source, and I made him promise not to use it until just before the date. So he has his headline all set up to print, and nothing shows any sign of happening.’

  ‘Oh, well, it was top secret. Let’s forget about it.’

  ‘Madeleine, darling,’ Joanna said softly, ‘you can’t back off now. I want an update.’

  ‘I said I don’t want to talk about it anymore.’

  ‘But I do. Have you any idea what Freddie would do if he found out you had given me classified information?’

  ‘I thought you were my friend. Liane’s friend. All of our friend.’

  ‘Sure I am. And friends should stick together.’

  ‘You are threatening me.’

  ‘I need to know the situation regarding a war with Russia. Is it on, or is it off?’

  Madeleine sighed. ‘It was just put back a month, that’s all, because of the business in Greece and Yugoslavia.’

  ‘A month,’ Joanna said thoughtfully. ‘Great. Now tell me what else is new.’

  ‘I am not going to tell you anything,’ Madeleine said. ‘I wish you’d leave. And I don’t wish you to come back.’

  ‘Who’s getting all uptight? You can’t get rid of me, Madeleine. I’m your friend, remember? Now think. Freddie must still be telling you things.’

  ‘The only thing Freddie has told me recently is that Mummy and Daddy are to be released from prison.’ Joanna frowned. ‘He told you that? People don’t get released from Dachau.’

  ‘Well, they are going to be.’

  ‘You should be over the moon. You don’t look it.’

  ‘Well, they’ve spent six months in there. I know that what some people say about concentration camps is quite untrue —’ she shot Joanna a glance — ‘but I don’t know what they’ll be like.’

  ‘When are you going to see them?’

  ‘Well … not for a while. Then I’ll be visiting them.’

  ‘Visiting them where?’

  ‘At Paulliac, of course. That’s where they’re going. Home.’

  ‘Your parents are being released from Dachau, and being sent home, just like that, with no strings attached?’

  ‘Yes. Which just goes to show how wrong you are about the regime. They made a mistake about Mummy and Daddy’s involvement in the destruction of that train, and they’re honest enough to admit it.’

  Joanna regarded her for several moments, then she said, ‘Holy shitting cows!’

  ‘What’s the matter now?’

  ‘It’s a trap, don’t you see? They, whoever is pulling the strings, are reckoning that if your parents go home, Liane will try to see them, or at least get in touch with them.’

  ‘I don’t believe that. You’re just determined to prove that whatever the government does has to be evil.’

  ‘Everything this government does is evil.’

  ‘Look, please leave. And please don’t come back. I don’t want to see you again.’

  Joanna stood up. ‘You don’t care what happens to your sister?’

  Madeleine also stood. ‘Nothing is going to happen to my sister that hasn’t already, except in your diseased imagination. Now get out.’

  Joanna closed the door and went down the stairs. She wasn’t angry with Madeleine, who was simply a poor mixed-up kid, but she was definitely agitated. She had spent the past six months thinking of Liane, brave, determined, resourceful Liane, out there on her own … James had seen her last October, and he had been with her on that tremendous raid on the railway line. He had said that she was fine, and surrounded by a band of loyal friends and followers, including Amalie. But that had been six months ago. Now …

  The thought of Liane in the hands of the Gestapo made her skin crawl. While the success of that raid, and in avoiding capture afterwards, might just make her think she was invulnerable, and thus encourage her to walk into the Gestapo trap! Liane had always felt she was invulnerable.

  Joanna reached the ground floor, nodded to the doorman, stepped on to t
he pavement, and checked. There was a man on the far side of the street, leaning against a shop wall, and reading a newspaper. Having been trained by British intelligence, Joanna knew immediately what he was, but she realized she would have known anyway; he had detective written all over him. For a moment she felt quite cold: however often she worried about Liane falling into the hands of the Gestapo, it had never really occurred to her that it could happen to her. Then she remembered that it couldn’t happen to her. Not really. They could arrest her, but a simple telephone call to either the American or the Swedish ambassador would free her. And if there was a little rough stuff before then, well, that wouldn’t be the first time in her life. The worst that could happen would be for her to be deported, which would mean the end of her career as a spy.

  She felt almost tempted to cross the street and chat him up, let him know she was on to him. Then she suddenly realized that he need not be watching her at all. She had not been aware of being followed when she had left her hotel. And there was no reason for it. If the Germans had the least suspicion of who and what she really was, they would have arrested her at Hamburg, or prevented her entering the country at all. So he was actually watching the Helsingen’s flat, or that of someone else in the building. But it seemed most likely that the Gestapo would be interested in the sister of a known terrorist, especially now that they were laying such an elaborate trap for that terrorist.

  Should she go back up and warn her? She decided against it. Madeleine had made her own bed and seemed determined to lie on it, come hell or high water. She would have to take her chances with the people she now called friends.

  Joanna hurried back to her hotel, avoiding the bomb craters which were starting to accumulate in Berlin despite Goering’s erstwhile boast that it could never happen, went up to her room, and began telephoning. It took some time, as, like everything else, what she wanted required various permits, but in her case it was a matter of hours instead of days, and by late afternoon she had her seat on a train leaving Berlin for Lubeck the next morning, and a berth on a steamer for Stockholm the following night. Once she was there she could safely contact James and tell him to warn Liane of her danger.