Solitaire

by Jane Thynne

  It took an almost inhuman effort to prevent the tears coming to her eyes.

  Quietly she said, ‘It does. How could it not?’

  Schellenberg jumped up from his seat, beaming.

  ‘That was exactly what I wanted to hear.’

  She looked at him dumbfounded. Surely she had betrayed herself. How could this skilled interrogator not observe her blood rising to Churchill’s words like a magnet turning to north?

  Schellenberg was waving his brandy glass with satisfaction.

  ‘You would need to be a stone, a clod, to hear that speech and remain unmoved. It’s a speech designed to make the heart beat faster. Words like that could raise the dead, let alone the English. If you had no reaction to this speech, you would lack all sensitivity to language and that, as it happens, is what I brought you here to talk about.’

  Clara strove to read the twists of his mind. What could he possibly want of her?

  ‘It’s true,’ she conceded. ‘English was my mother tongue. I love the language.’

  ‘Tell me, have you heard of P.G. Wodehouse? Another fine writer, though perhaps not in Churchill’s league.’

  ‘He’s one of my favourite authors.’

  ‘Is he? Well, as it happens, he was recently apprehended by our troops in France and he’s on his way to Berlin, where he’ll be giving some broadcasts under the guidance of Doktor Goebbels. Goebbels wants a few speeches from him about life in Germany to reassure our American friends. The future of Europe under National Socialism. Food in the shops, happy people in the cinemas. That sort of thing. I’m looking forward to meeting Wodehouse, but until he arrives, Fräulein Vine, I was thinking of you.’

  ‘But . . .’

  Was it possible that Schellenberg was asking her to broadcast to Americans, or worse to her fellow Britons? To urge them to lay down arms and accept a Nazi occupation in the interests of peace? It would make perfect sense. What better use for an English actress who had turned her back on the land of her birth and embraced the Fatherland? Clara Vine would be the female Lord Haw Haw, preaching treachery in honeyed tones. Her entire soul revolted at the thought.

  ‘I wouldn’t be the right person to broadcast. I’m barely known outside Germany.’

  Schellenberg frowned quizzically, head on one side.

  ‘That wasn’t what I was thinking. Though now you mention it, I shall bear it in mind. But my first plan revolves around another issue. Correct me if I’m wrong but Herr Wodehouse has an encyclopaedic knowledge of the English ruling classes?’

  ‘I can’t think of anyone who knows the upper classes better.’

  ‘Precisely. And until he arrives, it was in the field of etiquette I wanted your help.’

  Etiquette?

  Clara’s mind filled with Angela’s strictures on addressing bishops, on the difference between signing letters Yours sincerely and Yours faithfully, never Yours truly, of the serried ranks of dinner table cutlery, soup spoons and fruit forks and fish knives, that existed to catch you out. The invisible fault-lines dividing everyday language. Looking glass, never mirror. Napkin, never serviette. Writing paper, never notepaper. Etiquette was a complex theology. A dinner table was a minefield where errors lurked like unexploded ordnance. The words you used and the way you held a teacup were unerring tests of authenticity. But how could all this possibly concern Walter Schellenberg?

  He noted her confusion and smiled.

  ‘Let me explain. It’s no secret that in the event that Churchill does not change his mind, and I think we can guess that he won’t, Germany will soon be advancing operations towards England. Reich Marshal Goering is stepping up air attacks and the invasion should be fairly swift and simple. But before then, a few measures are in place. The Propaganda Ministry has been rewriting the prophecies of Nostradamus to predict that England will fall and getting the pamphlets circulated in Great Britain. Psychological warfare, it’s called. But my own initiative is somewhat more complicated. I’m putting together something of an advance party. Do you understand what I mean by that?’

  ‘You want to put some agents into Britain.’

  ‘Precisely. And the fact is, despite the many similarities between our two nations, there are certain idiosyncrasies about the English that a German can never understand. The language itself, for a start. English is a good language for spies. It takes so much decoding. It’s never simple for us Germans. Apparently innocuous words conceal so many meanings, so many ways to catch one out. Let alone the conventions. Take a tennis match, for example. What do you call the man who sits on the high seat and calls the points?’

  ‘The umpire?’

  ‘Whereas a German might call him a referee. What’s silly mid on?’

  ‘A fielding position in cricket. On the leg side, very near the batsman. My brother taught it to me.’

  Schellenberg reached forward and tapped the manila file with Clara’s name on it.

  ‘This file tells me all that the SD knows about Fräulein Clara Vine. Everything the security service has collected on you for a number of years. Every role you have played. Every apartment, every associate, every handsome officer who has caught your eye. Yet it makes no mention of the most important thing about you. The very essence of your being.’

  ‘And what would you say that was?’

  ‘Your deep knowledge of English life. You know every little detail that makes a man English – how much to tip the taxi driver, how to order a gin and tonic in a tavern . . .’

  ‘A pub.’

  ‘Thank you. How to . . .’

  The door opened a crack and an assistant peered in.

  ‘Herr Schellenberg?’

  He shook a hand, like someone repelling a rabid dog. ‘I’m busy.’

  ‘It’s the Foreign Minister’s office calling from Berlin.’

  ‘They’ll have to wait.’

  His eyes remained fixed on Clara.

  ‘We were talking about psychology earlier and the fact is, different nations do have different psychologies. It’s a racial thing. I may speak French like a native but the psychology of the French is almost incomprehensible to me. The British, perhaps, I feel a little closer to. They are a proud and warlike race. I have had the Goering Institute prepare psychological profiles of enemy nations and I put all my people through courses in race science, biology, the customs of other countries, language, character, geo-politics, and so on. By the time I’ve finished with them they know as much about their target country as if they’d been born there. They think in their new language, they even dream in it. But you, Fräulein Vine, have no need of that. You already understand how the British behave.’

  Clara strove to keep her calm, but relief, compounded with astonishment, was pounding through her. She had survived the interrogation. Her true loyalties had not been found out. Nor, as far as she could tell, was she to be used as a pawn in Germany’s propaganda war by being made to broadcast to Britain. Instead, Germany’s counter-espionage chief wanted her services to train Nazi spies. He was enlisting Clara’s expertise to spy on her own country.

  ‘If you agree to our proposition,’ here a courtesy nod to the hypothetical possibility that she might be able to decline, ‘you will require an extensive briefing. You would work under the guidance of the counter-espionage headquarters in the Berkaerstrasse in Dahlem, and you would make regular reports to . . .’

  The secretary’s head reappeared unwillingly around the door, a flustered bloom on her cheeks.

  ‘My apologies, mein Herr.’

  ‘I said no interruptions, woman.’

  ‘Herr von Ribbentrop says to tell you that it’s urgent.’

  Schellenberg suppressed a sigh and rose.

  ‘We’ll continue this conversation shortly. Wait here. Help yourself to more coffee.’

  Picking up the file with Clara’s name on it, he rammed it in the safe, turned, and stalked wordlessly from the room.

  Clara did as he had ordered and helped herself to coffee then sat again, a single observation thro
bbing through her head. She was possessed of an intense clarity that came to her at moments of extreme tension. Although Schellenberg had shut the door of the safe he had not, as before, spun the dial. Was it possible that the safe was still open? And if it was, might she, without knowing the combination, be able to retrieve her file in Schellenberg’s absence and discover precisely what the SD’s counter-espionage department really thought of her?

  She remained still for a second, glancing upwards at the light fittings for evidence of recording equipment, as though her very thoughts might be detected, before rising and crossing swiftly to the safe. She grasped the dial and, as she had guessed, the door clicked open. It was a small space, less than a foot in width, perhaps a foot and a half in length, and it contained a thick stack of files rammed one on top of the other. Some were worn, others new and a couple tied with ribbon. Her own was right at the top. As Schellenberg had intimated, it contained just two pages of closely typed script. Shakily she read it through.

  Clara Helene Vine, born in London, 1907. Shape of face: oval. Colour of eyes: blue. Colour of hair: brown. Distinguishing features: mole on left shoulder. Her address. A list of all the films she had made. Details and dates of the two separate incidents when she had been arrested and questioned by the Gestapo. Names of various men she had been seen with. The address of her godson, Erich Schmidt. But nothing to suggest that the SD had any suspicion of her as an enemy agent.

  Nothing alarming at all.

  By now the caffeine had entered her veins, spiking her nerves. Emboldened by relief, she returned her own file to the safe and contemplated the remaining stack. What point was there in looking? The comment of Schellenberg’s fiancée, Irene, sneaking a read of his secret reports, rang in her ears.

  Frankly, they’re so full of code letters they look like someone’s fallen backwards on a typewriter.

  Nonetheless, she reached for the next file. It was a long list of names, alphabetized, alongside addresses and itemized payments. Local agents who had been bribed to inform.

  Alberto Estacio, waiter, Rua do Crucifixo. Reports French Jews discussing sabotage of German car.

  Anabela Cruz. Laundress. Monitors English guests at the Hotel Aviz.

  She strained her ears for the sound of approaching footsteps but the air was empty except for the distant clack of typewriters in the secretaries’ office and the insistent trill of a telephone. She ran her fingers over the spines of the remaining files. There must be something more than this.

  Another file. Photographs of various public buildings and private houses. With shaky fingers she shuffled through police mug shots of ill-shaven men. Then Clara recognized the file that Schellenberg had been reading as she came in.

  This one had the same stamp as her own, with the added classification of Top Secret marked in red across the top and alongside, in the dense Gothic font used by the SS, the title:

  Operation Willi

  Inside was a far thicker sheaf of papers than in her own file, some of it in code. Her eyes skimmed through telegrams from the Reich Main Security Office, the Foreign Ministry and the Reich Chancellery itself. It was clear, on a rapid scan of the material, that the subjects of the file were the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. That made sense. Schellenberg had told her he had private business concerning the Duke. One of the papers was a report from a Spanish diplomat who had dined privately with the couple a few days before.

  The Duke is known to be in favour of a peaceful compromise with Germany and is convinced that if he had stayed on the throne things would have been different. He is extremely annoyed at the attentions of the British security service and he does not one bit like the idea of becoming Governor of the Bahamas. He says Britain should beware, Germany will bomb their industrial centres out of existence.

  Another read:

  The Duke is convinced that if he had been King it would never have come to war. He agrees to cooperate at a suitable time in the establishment of peace. He has agreed a code word, on the receiving of which he will immediately come back over.

  More recent was a carbon copy of a letter sent by von Ribbentrop from on board his special train in Fuschl, Austria, detailing a conversation he had had with Adolf Hitler.

  ‘The Führer has ordered that fifty million francs will be deposited in a Swiss bank for the Duke’s personal use if he makes some official gesture dissociating himself from the Royal Family. The Führer’s preference is for him to live in Switzerland, though he could choose another neutral country if it was under the influence of the Reich.’

  It appeared that the Germans had an entire plan for the future of the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. But what say would the couple themselves have in it?

  A clatter in the corridor outside alerted her to advancing steps. She froze, analysing the footfall with the intent precision of a gazelle. They were heels, swift and purposeful, signifying a female secretary coming to check on her perhaps, or to enquire if she needed more coffee. Turning to face the door, Clara pushed the file back and the safe door to. There was no time to sit down. She would be caught red-handed. She could imagine the startled face, the expression of polite enquiry turning to suspicion, and then all the rest that would follow – the furore, the cell, the questions. The heels were almost upon her, clacking on the parquet, each one going through her like a gunshot.

  ‘Hansi!’

  A voice floated along the corridor. The steps halted.

  ‘Where have you put my stamps?’

  ‘They’re in the place they always are.’

  ‘If that’s the case, why can’t I find them?’

  A heartbeat passed and Clara almost heard the slight exasperated sigh that issued from Hansi’s lips before the heels swivelled and retreated, their clicks gradually dying into the distance.

  Come on!

  Steeling herself to continue she retrieved the file and turned to the next page.

  The Führer has asked to be updated daily. The preferred title will be ‘President of the Great British Republic’ and the Duke’s first act should be to make a public statement asking his people to lay down arms for peace. The Führer advises using the Duchess of Windsor to persuade her husband. She has great influence over the Duke.

  Her eyes flicked swiftly down, until they reached the final sentence.

  If the Duke should prove hesitant, the Fuhrer will have no objection to him being brought to the correct decision by coercion, or even force.

  The only other paper was a telegram from the Foreign Ministry, dated that morning. It stated simply:

  The abduction is to take place tomorrow night, on the Führer’s orders.

  So the Duke and Duchess of Windsor were being brought to Germany. Whether they liked it or not.

  By the time Schellenberg re-entered the room, Clara was sitting in her chair, her hands on her knees to prevent them trembling. His eyes flicked to the safe, but only for a microsecond.

  ‘Hmm.’ He eased a finger around his shirt collar. ‘Looks like we’ll have to halt our conversation, I’m afraid. That was urgent business from Wilhelmstrasse. They want a project I’m working on brought forward, so it seems we’ll have to discuss the details of our little plan later.’ He summoned a grin he was clearly not feeling and held out a hand.

  ‘We’ll pick up where we left off in Berlin, I hope? Time is of the essence, you understand. I’ll brief Hanna Reitsch to fly you back to Tempelhof, if that suits you, the day after tomorrow? Jot down here the address of the place you’re staying, and if you call when you’re ready to leave I’ll have my car take you to the airport.’

  Did he trust her? Although his mouth was smiling, his eyes didn’t match. Clara wrote down the address of the pension and hoped that his mind would be too busy with the problem of the Duke of Windsor to worry about her.

  As she rose he seemed to remember something and felt in his pocket.

  ‘Ah! Before you go, I have a little puzzle that you might find entertaining. The Portuguese police came to me the other day with a proble
m. They arrested a young lady, around twenty years old, acting suspiciously. She was hanging around the Palacio casino at Estoril and they assumed she was attempting to pickpocket customers. There’s been a spate of petty criminals targeting the clientele and the Palacio requested firm action. Anyhow, turns out the girl’s from Berlin. At least she says she is. She has no papers with her, she wasn’t even carrying a bag, but she speaks German and hardly a phrase of Portuguese, so I assume she’s a Reich citizen. The trouble is she won’t say another word, despite our most strenuous encouragements. The only thing she has produced is this.’

  From his pocket he withdrew a blue leather pouch and tipped the contents out onto the table.

  ‘Interesting, don’t you think? She seems to think it will protect her. You’re probably wondering why she would have thought that.’

  Clara looked down. It was a brooch set in white gold, sparkling with sixteen exquisitely cut diamonds and a ruby at the heart. Wrought in the shape of a swastika. Schellenberg chuckled.

  ‘Let me solve the puzzle for you. Heinrich Himmler believes that the swastika carries magic powers. Apparently it’s an ancient Sanskrit symbol of light, been around for thousands of years, bringing luck to anyone who carries it, et cetera. But somehow I don’t think it was that kind of magic the girl was counting on. No, it’s something far more basic, I’m afraid. Base, even.’

  Clara reached out to touch the brooch at the spot where its clasp was a little loose. Liable to fall off at any time.

  ‘The reason, my dear, is very simple. This brooch is one that our minister Joseph Goebbels likes to hand out to attractive young women with whom he is . . . shall we say . . . particularly pleased. He gives the same brooch made in exactly the same design. It’s his trademark. Everyone recognizes it. Even his wife has one, poor woman. They’re made by Jaeger’s, his favourite jeweller’s.’