‘You mean you know why she did this thing?’ Meissenbach demanded.
‘Well . . . Marlene had a lover. Or at least, she was in love. But the person she loved did not respond. Could not respond.’
‘You mean he was a married man? Someone here in the Embassy?’
‘It was not a man.’
The two men stared at her.
‘Marlene was in love with me,’ Anna said.
‘What?’
‘I feel so bad about it,’ Anna said. ‘But . . .’ She gazed at Meissenbach. ‘I am not . . . well . . . when she made advances, I rejected her. Perhaps I was too brutal about it. I told her that if she ever attempted to come to my bed again I would inform General Heydrich and have her recalled to Berlin. She was in any event on probation. She failed her training course, and was due to be degraded. But because her mother and I had been friends I interceded for her, and begged for her to be given a second chance. But she knew that if she was returned from here in disgrace she would be dismissed from the service and sent to an SS brothel. In view of her . . . well, sexual interests, this would have been a virtual death sentence. I did not mean it, of course; I was just very angry at the time. But she must have taken me seriously. I feel so very unhappy about it. I mean, I may as well have shot her myself.’
The two men exchanged glances. ‘Well,’ Meissenbach said, ‘I must compliment you on your frankness, Countess. No doubt you will inform your superiors of what has happened.’
*
‘Would you stop by my office, Herr Meissenbach?’ Groener requested.
‘Certainly.’ Meissenbach accompanied the policeman to the Gestapo office. ‘Are you not satisfied?’
‘Have a seat.’ Groener sat behind his desk. ‘May I ask how long you have known this so-called Countess?’
‘Not very long. I met her for the first time last July.’
‘But you know something of her background?’
‘I’m afraid I know nothing of her background. I was merely told that she was to accompany me to Moscow as my aide.’
‘You did not find her absurd name suspicious? Countess of Resistance?’
‘Well, yes I did. And I was told that it was not my business to ask questions. That the Countess was being sent to Moscow to carry out a mission for the Reich, and her position as my aide was to provide her with a cover.’
‘Hmm. You were not informed that she was a Government assassin?’
‘What?’ Meissenbach cried, as convincingly as he could. ‘A twenty-year-old girl? How do you know this?’
‘I was informed . . . by Fraulein Gehrig.’
This time Meissenbach’s consternation was genuine. ‘And you believed her? Who is she supposed to assassinate? Or, indeed, who has she assassinated?’ Groener stared at him, and he gulped. ‘You cannot be serious. I mean . . .’
‘Oh, it was a totally professional job, and we will never be able to prove that it was not a suicide. But that is what I would expect from a professional killer.’
‘But, if Gehrig made advances . . . I can tell you that the Countess is not a lesbian.’
Groener raised his eyebrows, and Meissenbach flushed. ‘Well, I have been fairly close to her for several months.’ Then he frowned as he recalled the loving way Anna had kissed Gabriella Hosek just before beginning to torture her – and just before Hosek had bitten the cyanide capsule. But he felt it might be unwise to confide any of the events in Prague to this man. Groener was regarding him with interest, and he hurried on. ‘What I mean is, even if they were lovers who had quarrelled, that was surely no reason for her to murder the girl.’
‘It is my opinion,’ Groener said, ‘that Fehrbach – you know her real name is Anna Fehrbach?’
Meissenbach nodded.
‘Well, Gehrig became suspicious of her activities, and confided her suspicions to me. She was convinced that Fehrbach was seeing somebody else in addition to Chalyapov when on her midnight jaunts. I’m afraid I was sceptical about the importance of this, but I gave her permission to see what she could find out. I also gave her that pistol to use in case she needed it; if she had been able to shoot Fehrbach it would have solved all of our problems. However, as I was saying, I believe Fehrbach found out about her suspicions and killed her. Sadly, she does not appear to have been able to use the weapon.’
‘My God! What are we to do?’
‘As I have said, Herr Meissenbach, there is nothing we can do. This woman is a creature of the SD, and they will not permit anything to happen to her, certainly not until she has completed her mission. I just wished you to understand the situation, so that, if the opportunity arises, we can work together.’
‘Of course. But we must inform the Ambassador.’
‘That is what we must not do. He has been sufficiently shocked at the news that Gehrig killed herself. He is an old-fashioned Junker, whose gods are honour and duty. If he knew we suspected Fehrbach of murder he would feel compelled to take the matter to the highest level, which could well bring the SD into our midst in force, and God knows what would happen then.’
Meissenbach considered, then nodded. ‘I understand. But to think that we have a cold-blooded murderess right here in the Embassy . . .’
‘Patience, Herr Meissenbach. Patience is a policeman’s most effective weapon. All criminals make a mistake, eventually. Fehrbach may be a cold-blooded killer, but she is still only a girl of twenty. She will make a mistake, sooner rather than later. And then we will have her. I –’ he added with thoughtful anticipation – ‘will have her. But you may watch, Herr Meissenbach.’
*
‘I hope you are glad to be home,’ Baxter commented.
‘No, I am not,’ Clive said. ‘I hate leaving unfinished business.’
‘Well, I’m sure Belinda is pleased to have you back in one piece.’
‘I’m not too sure about that either. She seems to feel that I was away unnecessarily long.’
‘An opinion with which I entirely concur. However, I’m sure you’ll be interested to hear the latest despatch from Sprague.’
‘I’m not sure that I will be.’
‘You mean you don’t want to know about his cavortings with your beautiful protégée? Well, I can put your mind at rest in that direction. Sprague has seen neither hair nor hide of the young lady since your departure.’
‘Good Lord! She did say that he wasn’t her type . . .’
‘Clive, we are running a secret service department, not a knocking shop. I find her reluctance to communicate with Sprague both annoying and disturbing. However, there may just be a logical if not excusable reason. I presume you are aware that there was a murder in the Hotel Berlin the night before you left?’
‘Oh, yes. There was the devil of a flap. Someone mugged the night porter.’
‘As you say, someone mugged the night porter. Sprague has been able to get some detail on the crime. Time of death 0230.’
Clive frowned.
‘Quite. I assume, as it was your last night in Moscow, you had company between the sheets?’
‘Well . . .’
‘And what time did the lady leave you?’
‘Jesus,’ Clive muttered. ‘But that can’t be right. Why on earth should Anna kill the night porter? The time has to be a coincidence.’
‘If it’s a coincidence, she must certainly have seen the killer. But it wasn’t a coincidence.’
‘You mean she’s been arrested? Oh, Christ!’
‘Relax. The Moscow police have no idea who the assassin was, although they apparently feel fairly sure that it was a man. Apparently the porter had a reputation as a lady killer, and they are working on the theory that the crime was committed by an outraged husband or boyfriend. There was absolutely no one around at the time. Only we know differently.’
‘Oh, come now, Billy. Simply because Anna may have passed through the lobby at about the time the murder was committed? Isn’t it most likely that she saw two men together, perhaps quarrelling, perhaps even fighting, and deci
ded to get out of there before the noise attracted attention?’
‘That would be a valid point, except for one thing: the reason the police are certain it was a man. The porter died as a result of two acts of supreme power and violence.’
‘Eh?’
‘He was laid out by a karate blow to the neck, and then was killed by having his head twisted until his vertebrae snapped. According to the police, only a man would – or indeed could – have done something like that. But again, we know better, don’t we?’
Clive stared at him. ‘Hannah Gehrig died like that!’
‘Go to the head of the class.’
‘But why?’
‘I would say that he found out about Anna’s midnight trysts with you and decided to capitalize on it, by requesting either money or favours as the price of keeping his mouth shut. The world is full of sex-hungry men who believe that innocent-looking, pretty young girls are there for the taking. Sadly, in most cases, they are absolutely right. This unfortunate character, exactly like poor Reiffel, had no idea he was snuggling up to a hungry lioness who was also engaged in secret and highly dangerous business.’
Clive sighed. ‘That poor girl.’
Baxter raised his eyebrows.
‘All right,’ Clive conceded. ‘So she reacts violently when she considers herself in danger. You know that. What you don’t know is how vulnerable she is.’
Baxter snorted.
‘How desperately lonely,’ Clive went on. ‘And she was upset at my leaving.’
‘You’ll have me crying my eyes out in a minute. What you are saying is we should be grateful that Moscow is still standing.’
‘Anyway,’ Clive said. ‘Let’s look on the bright side. The only person in the world who can possibly relate Anna to that murder, apart from you and me, is Anna herself.’
‘I haven’t finished reading Sprague’s despatch.’
‘Oh my God! What now?’
‘There has been a suicide at the German Embassy.’
Clive stared at him. ‘No,’ he muttered. ‘No!’ he shouted. ‘It cannot be!’
‘Simmer down. It’s not Anna.’
‘Then . . .’
‘It was a young woman. However, she is listed as being secretary to the Countess von Widerstand. And this suicide apparently took place on the same night the porter was murdered. You’ll never guess what the girl’s name was. Marlene Gehrig.’
Once again Clive stared at him.
‘As I recall,’ Baxter said, ‘Hannah Gehrig was in her forties when Anna broke her neck. This girl is reported as being in her late teens. I would suppose she must have been a daughter. I mean, it would be too much of a coincidence to suppose that Anna would employ as a secretary someone with the same name as her old enemy who was not actually a relative.’
‘But would she employ a relative of the woman she killed?’
‘She never mentioned this girl to you?’
‘No, she did not.’
‘Hmm. She certainly does like to keep her secrets. The point is that she seems to be discovering too many people who appear to be finding out, or are on the verge of finding out, too much about her. Which leads us to the question: is she becoming too vulnerable for us to continue employing her?’
‘You think that again, and my resignation will be on your desk in one hour,’ Clive told him. ‘And when I retire I am going to write my memoirs – fuck the Official Secrets Act. We have just touched the tip of the iceberg as to what this girl can deliver. Don’t we now know that Germany intends to invade Russia? Probably as soon as the thaw sets in. I presume you have passed this information on?’
‘It went to the Boss, and thence to the War Cabinet, and thence to the PM himself.’
‘Who no doubt chose to disbelieve it.’
‘He did believe it, Clive. He took it very seriously, and conveyed it to Marshal Stalin in a personal letter. Unfortunately, Stalin did not believe it. Or at least, he chose not to do so. We shall just have to wait and see what evolves.’
‘But it was Anna who gave us that information, and who will give us a great deal more. Obviously right now she’s lying low because of what happened at the Berlin Hotel and what happened to that girl. Are you supposing that she killed her as well?’
‘It would seem logical. The girl was apparently found drowned in her bath, the bath having been taken in the middle of the night. Do young girls normally take baths in the middle of the night? In mid-winter? I know that my daughter doesn’t.’
‘I should get back there.’
‘Forget that. The last thing we want is for one of our people to get involved in whatever shenanigans are taking place in the German Embassy. I’ll go along – at least for the time being – with the idea that she’ll surface when she feels it’s safe to do so.’
‘If only,’ Clive mused, ‘we could have some idea of just what she’s doing now.’
*
‘Tea,’ Josef Stalin remarked, beaming through his moustache. ‘It is the greatest of drinks, the ultimate solace of mankind. And womankind, of course. Do you not agree, Countess?’
‘Absolutely,’ Anna purred.
‘But it should never be adulterated with such things as milk, or lemon, or sugar, as they do in the West.’
‘I couldn’t agree with you more, Your Excellency.’
‘You are a woman of taste. So you know, here, in the privacy of this office, I would like to call you Anna. May I call you Anna?’
‘Of course, Your Excellency.’
‘And you must call me Josef, when we are in this office. Anna is a good old Russian name. We had an empress once named Anna. She was very successful.’
‘Were not the tsars, and the tsarinas, terrible people?’ Anna asked, at her most innocent.
‘Of course. But rulers need to be terrible. One of our tsars rejoiced in being known as the Terrible.’
As you are terrible, Anna thought. She knew that this charming old man had ruthlessly executed everyone he distrusted during the past ten years. But then, had she not done the same in a much shorter time?
‘The tsars,’ Stalin went on, ‘were a necessary part of Russian history. They created the nation. They declined, of course, as time went by, and became corrupt and had to be eliminated, but without them none of us would be here. But you know, I did not invite you here to talk politics. You have now experienced a Russian winter. And you are about to experience a Russian spring. Already the ice is breaking. In a week or two there will be green shoots everywhere, and soon after that the entire country will erupt in colour and song. A Russian spring is the greatest natural event in the world. It truly fulfills the criteria of the old gods, that in winter the earth dies, but in spring it is reborn again.’
And it may be the last you will ever see, Anna thought. And it may be my last too. She had received no further communication from Heydrich. Not even a comment on the death of Marlene. She had been cast entirely adrift, by both her employers.
Her position in the Embassy was more equivocal than ever. All pretence of finding her something to do had been dropped; Marlene had not been replaced as an assistant, and the senior staff did their best to pretend that she wasn’t there. Whether they suspected that she might have been involved in Marlene’s death she had no idea, but even Meissenbach never came near her, and she was no longer invited to any dinners or cocktails parties. This was no longer important, as she remained Chalyapov’s mistress, but the only company she enjoyed inside the Embassy was Birgit, and enjoyed was hardly an appropriate word in this context. Birgit seemed more terrified of her than ever, and she also clearly mourned Marlene, and also clearly kept worrying if she had, inadvertently, by word or deed, contributed to her lover’s decision to take her own life.
That left Chalyapov, who remained as enthusiastic as ever. But now she was embarking upon the plan she had agreed with Clive – that of becoming an increasingly demanding, querulous and generally irritating little woman, in the hopes that he would decide to drop her so that she coul
d be returned to Germany . . .
There was a knock on the door, which then opened.
Stalin did not turn his head, but he said quietly, ‘I gave instructions that I was not to be interrupted when I was entertaining the Countess von Widerstand.’
‘Comrade Molotov said that you would wish to be informed immediately, Comrade Stalin. He has received an urgent despatch from our minister in Belgrade.’
‘What can be happening in Belgrade that is so urgent?’
‘It is under attack, Comrade.’
‘What?’ Now Stalin did turn, while Anna put down her tea cup with a clatter. ‘Attack by whom?’
The secretary gave Anna an anxious glance ‘It is being bombed by the Luftwaffe, and it is reported that an army corps of the Wehrmacht has crossed the frontier and is advancing on the city.’
‘What steps is Comrade Molotov taking?’
‘He has summoned Count von Schulenberg to a meeting and will ask for an explanation.’
‘Very good. Thank Comrade Molotov for informing me so promptly, and tell him that I would like to see him at the conclusion of his meeting with the ambassador.’
The secretary withdrew, and Stalin looked at Anna. ‘You did not know of this?’
‘Me? I do not think anyone at the Embassy can have known of it. It does not make sense. Prince Paul, the regent for the boy king, is a supporter of the Reich.’
‘So I have always understood. Well, clearly he has either changed his point of view, or more likely, he has been replaced as regent.’
‘But why? And why should the Fuehrer wish to invade Yugoslavia? They have never been our enemies.’
He regarded her for some seconds, but he could have no doubt that she was as bemused by what had happened as anyone. ‘And the country has little of value,’ he remarked at last. ‘Except . . .’ He got up and went to the huge map of Europe pinned to the wall, studied it. ‘It provides the only practical route for a large armed force to take through the Balkan mountains to the Aegean Sea. To Greece, in fact. I think we will find that your Fuehrer will say that he wishes to send an army to help his friend Mussolini beat the Greeks, which they are not doing, especially now that there is a British army fighting on the Greek side.’
Angel in Red_The thrilling sequel to Angel From Hell Page 18
