by Alex Gerlis
They went from the hospital to the boarding house in Croydon and handed in their notice on their rented house. They remained in Croydon for just two nights before moving to another one in Wembley in north London and then to a rented house in Reading.
Colin was uneasy: it felt as if they’d abducted the boy rather than adopted him. When he mentioned this to Jean she told him not to be so ridiculous, and by the time they’d moved to Reading it felt too late to say anything and he certainly didn’t want to cause trouble.
Although moving to Reading made life more difficult for Colin Summers, he noticed a marked change in his wife. She seemed happier, more content and more comfortable around other people. She no longer acted like an outsider. They had various forms to take to the local registry office and named the boy Neville after Jean’s grandfather.
And so their new life began. Colin only really saw the boy at weekends, when he found him painfully shy and nervous. Jean assured Colin that Neville was better during the week, more confident with just her around.
‘You need to relax more, Colin. Don’t act as if you’re nervous of him!’
But even after a few weeks, matters didn’t improve. Neville was slow to respond to his name, sometimes ignoring it altogether. He seemed to understand most of what was said to him, but spoke little himself.
Colin did suggest they ask him about his previous life – what his name was, who his parents were. But Jean was set against that.
‘No good will come of it,’ she said. ‘His life’s with us – he’s our son now.’
Chapter 5
Ravensbrück concentration camp, north of Berlin
June 1943
Hanne Jakobsen was in the habit of reminding herself each morning who she was, where she was, how long she’d been there for and why she was there.
She did this for a number of reasons. Not least was that the work in the Siemens factory was so mind-numbingly tedious that she needed a series of mental tests to keep her mind occupied. She could spend hours working her way through lists: the names of all the United States; countries in Asia; multiplication tables; as many towns as she could think of in Denmark: the names of all her classmates in different years at school; looking at the serial number on the equipment she was working on and dividing it by two, or three…
After all, it wasn’t as if she could talk to her fellow prisoners. For a start, that was forbidden and even a muttered single word could result in a severe beating if overheard by one of the guards. In any case, it was so noisy in the factory you’d struggle to hear someone talking.
But the main reason for reminding herself each morning was more profound: it was one of the tricks she used to stop herself going mad. She’d seen it happen on an almost daily basis since she’d arrived here at Ravensbrück some four months previously. A prisoner would seem perfectly sane one minute and the next would flip, either screaming or laughing or crying hysterically or going through a full-on psychotic episode. And as soon as that happened, their days were numbered. They’d be carted off and either killed on the spot – she’d seen that happen – or sent somewhere where they’d inevitably end up dead.
So each morning had its routine. They’d be woken up around dawn, given some watery gruel and a piece of stale bread to last until the evening and then marched into the square around which their huts were arranged. There they’d be counted, and counted again, and if all was in order marched the short distance south from the women’s camp to the Siemens factory.
She’d give herself an hour to concentrate on her work: often they’d be allocated to a different section and you needed to get into a routine, to be seen to do the job well enough so as not to draw attention to yourself.
Then she’d start reminding herself.
Who was she? She’d try and suppress a smile at this point. She was Hanne Jakobsen, an officer with the Danish police in Copenhagen. And not just any police officer. She was a vicepolitiinspektor, attached to the Major Robbery Unit at Nørrebro, and she’d allow her mind to wander, to think about some of the more complex and interesting cases she’d worked on. There were even one or two unsolved ones she now thought she’d be able to solve, but no one would be interested.
And where was she? That, unfortunately, was easy enough. She was at Ravensbrück, the Nazis’ concentration camp north of Berlin where the prisoners were mainly women, from all over Europe. She’d been there since the end of January or the beginning of February.
And why was she there? She could write a book about why she was there and frequently used up a few hours doing just that, writing it in her head, organising the chapters, remembering dates and the sequence of events, wondering whether anyone would believe a word of it.
Why was she there? She was there because she’d helped a British spy. He’d arrived in Copenhagen the previous November and without her he wouldn’t have lasted until the December. She’d sorted out a safe house for him and rescued him when he was arrested by the Gestapo and then arranged a new identity for him. He’d become Peter Rasmussen and that was how she now thought of him: Peter Rasmussen. She’d helped organise a clandestine mission for him and another agent to Berlin in the December and had acted as the point of communication with the British intelligence station in Stockholm and, through them, with London. The mission had been a success, so much so that in the January – she had to concentrate around here to get the dates right – he’d been ordered to Germany again, this time to the top-secret rocket facility at Peenemünde.
She’d organised that too.
Then everything had gone wrong.
As far as she could work out there’d been an incident during Peter’s trip to Berlin in December. A young Luftwaffe officer was supplying intelligence to Peter and he’d been killed in a shoot-out with the Gestapo. It had taken the Gestapo some weeks, but it seemed they’d finally worked out who the Luftwaffe officer’s contact was in Berlin, the man who had the contact with Peter and his fellow agent in Copenhagen.
Once they’d broken him, their attention switched to Copenhagen and they arrested the other agent – Agent Horatio. He was a nice enough man called Otto Knudsen, but really he was a businessman, well suited for the world of commerce but not that of espionage. Otto Knudsen poisoned himself soon after his arrest and not long after that they tracked her down.
Through their search for Peter Rasmussen they discovered she’d been the person who’d organised his new identity. She was arrested and ended up in Berlin where she realised the Germans were still looking for Peter Rasmussen. She knew as long as they were doing that, as long as Peter Rasmussen was not in captivity, then her life would be spared because she was the only link the Germans had to Peter. The other three members of the spy ring, as the Gestapo insisted on calling it, were all dead. They needed her alive. She was not stupid: if they caught him they’d play one off against the other, no doubt torturing her as a way of getting him to speak.
She’d spend hours in the Siemens factory imagining what had happened to Peter Rasmussen. Was he still in Germany, still at Peenemünde? Was he even alive? After all, there’d been rumours about the British bombing the site in February. It was a major air raid apparently, many dead. But although he sometimes came across as an innocent, Peter was actually a resourceful and clever man – and a brave one, with nerves of steel. He was only in his mid thirties – her age – but he’d confided in her that he was a senior detective in the police back in England. It was even possible, she imagined in her more optimistic moments, that he’d made it back to Copenhagen.
Once there he’d surely be smart enough to remember to look out for her safety signals. They wouldn’t be there. He’d know to avoid the safe house. She’d think about what he’d do, how he’d try and get himself to safety. Would he be able to make contact with the resistance? Would he try to get to Sweden? She imagined all kinds of ways that he could get there.
She did worry sometimes that she’d be lost in the system, that the Germans would forget about Peter Rasmussen and treat h
er as just another prisoner; someone whose life was cheap and meaningless and who once she showed some sign of weakness or physical incapacity would be dispensed with.
But other times she thought of Peter Rasmussen as having saved her life.
So that’s why she was there.
She was a prisoner in Ravensbrück because she’d helped a British spy and defied the Gestapo.
That’s why she was there.
She’d helped a British spy.
And fallen in love with him.
Chapter 6
London and Cairo
June 1943
It wasn’t unusual for Tom Gilbey to be summoned by Sir Roland Pearson. It happened at least once a week, a telephone call requesting his presence at HQ, as Pearson called it.
But this summons was altogether different. For a start it didn’t come on the telephone. It came at the end of a long briefing in a large basement somewhere under Whitehall, where a very bright young officer from Military Intelligence and an elderly academic with a Middle-European accent had delivered a rather impressive presentation on the progress of the Red Army since its victory at Stalingrad. Their assessment was that the Red Army was unstoppable and likely to reach Berlin first.
Tom Gilbey was behind some RAF top brass in a queue for tea when he felt his elbow being grasped. ‘Be a good chap and get me a cup of tea. I’ll be sitting over there. Three sugars, please, Tom, decent size ones.’
Tom Gilbey looked at Sir Roland Pearson. He’d known him as Roly at school, where Pearson was two years above him. Then he was what one could describe as chubby, hence the Roly. Now he was enormous, quite obese. He walked with difficulty and always seemed to be breathless.
Gilbey set the two cups of tea down on the small table Pearson had commandeered. Despite having known his companion for so long he still regarded him as an enigma. Sir Roland Pearson came across as someone who was fussy, fastidious and not especially suited for the world of intelligence. But Gilbey was aware he was easily underestimated: he’d worked his way into a position of considerable trust and influence in Downing Street. He’d spent the best part of four years carefully cultivating contacts and getting to know everyone in the world of intelligence. The phrase ‘Roly’s got Winston’s ear’ invariably cropped up in any conversation about him. Tom Gilbey had begun to subscribe to the view that Sir Roland Pearson’s manner was a mask for a sharp mind, though from the worried look on his former schoolmate’s face he suspected that opinion was about to be put to the test.
‘Can’t see it happening, Tom.’
‘Can’t see what, Roly?’
‘The Soviets getting to Berlin before we do.’
‘Why not? Those chaps just now seemed to know their stuff.’
‘You mean the boy scout and the Jew? Come on, Tom, the Red Army will have had all the stuffing knocked out of them before they reach Poland, assuming they get that far. Do you know how far the Red Army are from Berlin?’
‘A thousand miles?’
‘Add another two hundred and fifty.’
‘But we’re not even in France yet. They’ve got a head start on us.’
‘Yes, Tom, but once we’re there it should be plain sailing – Calais is only six hundred miles from Berlin. Anyway, I need to see you, it’s somewhat urgent.’
‘We can talk now?’
‘Good Lord, not here. I say, that’s Lister over there, isn’t it? He was in your year.’
‘No, Roly. That’s his younger brother, James, I think. Anthony was in my year – killed at Dunkirk. Shall I come over to Downing Street tomorrow?’
Sir Roland seemed lost in thought for a moment, staring into the distance, distracted by some thought or other.
‘Perhaps not, Tom. Do you know the Two Chairmen in Dartmouth Street?’
‘I’ll find it.’
‘Good. It’s just round the corner from my place. The landlord lets me use a small room behind the bar. Just ask them to show you to Mr Parsons.’
Which is why this summons was altogether different: Sir Roland had a reputation for rarely leaving Downing Street. He told people it was so he could be at the prime minister’s beck and call but Tom Gilbey suspected it was more to do with Sir Roland’s innate laziness. If he was arranging a meeting away from Downing Street then it must indeed be urgent.
* * *
The Two Chairmen was typical of the older pubs in central London, especially those around Westminster, St James’s and Mayfair. They tended to be well kept but quite small at first sight. It was only when inside that different nooks and crannies became apparent: a narrow corridor suddenly revealing a small private room, or a small set of stone steps leading down into a snug with a fire roaring in one corner of it.
Once Tom Gilbey approached the Two Chairmen he remembered he’d been here before. It was early 1939 and a German businessman had let it be known he’d consider being recruited as a British agent if the remuneration was high enough. Tom Gilbey hadn’t liked the sound of the man from the start: he had an innate distrust of people who walked in off the street and started to talk money before they even removed their hat. He’d spent a whole evening in the pub but the German didn’t show up. The landlord – a man far too tall for its low ceiling – had given him a detailed history of the pub: established in 1729, named after the sedan-chair carriers who’d wait in the pub for their fares.
This all seemed rather appropriate for Sir Roland, a man who belonged in another age. He’d have fitted in perfectly in Georgian London, his considerable bulk being carried in a sedan chair around the city by two struggling chairmen.
Sir Roland was in a room in a corridor behind the bar, a ‘Private’ sign on the door. Gilbey entered without knocking. Sir Roland was squeezed behind a table, a large napkin tucked into his collar and an enormous plate of shepherd’s pie in front of him.
‘You’re losing your touch, Roly.’
The older man raised his eyebrows as he moved a large forkful of potato and meat towards his mouth. ‘What do you mean?’
‘In our business we tend not to advertise our meetings by holding them behind a room saying ‘Private’ on the door – and Parsons, too damn close to Pearson.’
‘Thank you so much for your observations, Tom, I shall avoid using the word insolent. I hope you don’t mind me eating, they do a wonderful shepherd’s pie here. Help yourself to wine, it’s a terribly agreeable Château Latour. They keep it in the cellar for me. I’m down to my last dozen.’
They sat in silence while Sir Roland noisily finished his meal before dabbing his mouth with the napkin and then using it to wipe his forehead and blow his nose.
‘We’re in trouble, Tom.’
Sir Roland had a habit of using the plural when there was a problem; he liked to draw others in whenever the prime minister was unhappy with him. When Winston was handing out praise Sir Roland preferred the singular.
‘What kind of trouble, Roly?’
‘Turkey.’
* * *
Turkey had been a nightmare. Sir Roland Pearson had felt out of his depth. Worse than that was the sense he was being played: it was as if his Turkish counterpart was a chess grandmaster and he a rank amateur, someone who’d only recently progressed from draughts.
It had been awful from the beginning. Winston had wanted him to accompany them to Casablanca for the meeting with Roosevelt but he’d managed to get out of that one – ‘…holding the fort here, Winston, someone has to.’
Then he’d been ordered to Cairo, which was the start of the nightmare. Sir Roland considered, not without good reason, he thought, that he was someone unsuited for both air travel and hot climates. It was not so much that he disliked foreigners – though he did believe that was a prerequisite for someone serving one’s country in the field of intelligence – but more that he disliked abroad.
But Winston had wrangled himself a meeting with the Turks and he required the presence of his intelligence chief there. Then there’d been the terrible flight from Cairo to an airfield in T
urkey which he assumed was where he would die, and no sooner had he survived the landing and a whole night and day in Turkey than they’d landed him in it.
‘Winston wants you to sort it out. Roly, the ball’s in your court… we have something very specific in mind which may be best achieved through your kind of channels.’
That was General Mathers, a man who acted as if he outranked Sir Roland, which technically he may well have done, but that was hardly the point. It was the way he spoke to him as if he was ordering a junior officer around.
Having failed to persuade the Turks to switch from being neutral to joining the Allies, the consensus was that at least they should attempt to salvage something from the journey to Turkey. Winston didn’t like to come back empty-handed, especially when the Americans and his own war cabinet had been so sceptical about the trip. Winston wanted a consolation prize and had got General Mathers to do the dirty work for him.
‘Meet Demir while you’re here, Roland. Get pally with him. Make him all kinds of promises. Does he like girls?’
‘I have absolutely no idea, Mathers, I—’
‘…or boys? One hears these stories about the Turks—’
‘For Christ’s sake, Mathers, are you mad? I’d be surprised if they haven’t got the whole place bugged. You want to be careful.’
General Mathers looked momentarily contrite. He leaned in towards Sir Roland, speaking in a low voice. ‘If the Turks are going to insist on staying neutral then at least we can get them to edge a bit closer to us. This stuff they’re exporting to the Germans, Roland, the chromium – get them to stop it, eh?’
So he’d tried to get pally, as Mathers had phrased it, with Mehmet Demir, which was somewhat akin to persuading a Marxist of the merits of religion. There was little common ground.
