by C. J. Sansom
She thought, maybe I’ve been wrong, maybe it’s because of everything that’s happening around us that he’s become so cold and distant. She said, ‘How can people believe such rubbish, that the Jews are a threat to national life?’
‘There’s always been prejudice, and they’ve been stoking it up since 1940. If a government keeps telling people the same simple message year after year, most end up believing it. Goebbels called it the big lie.’ He picked up the duffel coat. ‘Let me get rid of this; take it out to the bin now, I’ll empty the wastepaper baskets on top of it.’
‘There are some potato peelings in the kitchen bin,’ Sarah said wearily, ‘and those chops in the fridge are off. Put them in too, then nobody’ll go poking about in there.’ She surrendered the coat with an odd feeling of reluctance.
David ripped the sleeve of the duffel coat in case some dustman wondered why they were throwing it out. He filled the bin and carried it through the house to the front garden. Their neighbour, a middle-aged man he acknowledged at the station, was taking out his own rubbish. He nodded to David. ‘Cold evening again, isn’t it?’
David answered with forced cheerfulness, ‘Yes, winter’s here by the look of it.’
‘Forecast said there’ll be fog tomorrow.’ The man nodded again and went back into his house, closing the door. Neighbours didn’t talk much in this street; people generally seemed to talk to strangers less and less these days. David stood by the gate, looking across the road. The old air-raid shelter was a ghostly glimmer at the other end of the little park. He thought of Sarah’s courage. When he’d seen her sitting there in the dark he had thought for a second the authorities had found out about him, had been to question her. For a moment he had actually been glad to think all the secrecy and lies were over, and had felt a sudden rush of his old love for her, the feeling he had started to think was twisted and broken beyond repair. But there was no telling her the truth now. Not after today. It was too dangerous.
When they had left Frank’s flat he and Geoff and Natalia had driven round the dark, foggy streets, looking for a telephone box. When they found one Natalia went inside, leaving David and Geoff in the car. They watched as she dropped shilling pieces one after the other into the box. She must have carried them ready in her pockets, like the gun. She was in the box a long time, gesturing with her arms, her face animated. David wondered if she was talking to Jackson but he thought not; she would have been more controlled speaking to him. When she came out and rejoined them in the car she spoke quietly. ‘There’s going to be a meeting tomorrow, some of the top people.’ She paused. ‘I think we’re going to have to move Dr Muncaster. Probably soon.’
David asked, ‘Did you tell them he seemed to trust me?’
‘Yes. We will probably need you again. Perhaps both of you.’
‘I’ll do it. But my wife’s got to be kept safe.’
‘They’ll take care of that,’ Geoff said.
‘What about the Jews?’
‘It’s true,’ Natalia said flatly. ‘They’ve been moved. We didn’t know anything about it, Mosley organized everything from the Home Office.’
They said little on the journey back to London. David’s mind was whirling, going over the meeting with Frank, wondering what the hell exactly was happening to the Jews. Everything was quiet in the cold streets. They drove out to Pinner and dropped Geoff off at his house. Natalia said she would take David on to the bottom of his street. They didn’t speak, but when they arrived he got out and stood beside the car, looking at the rows of mock-Tudor semis, suddenly reluctant to move. She rolled down the window. ‘Are you all right?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’ He took a deep breath. ‘How could the Resistance not know what they were planning for the Jews?’
‘We don’t have anyone in the Home Office or in the higher levels of the police. Not any more.’
‘You did have people?’
‘We had a network. There was a betrayal, three years ago. The man we thought was ours was working for them. A lot of good people died.’
‘You carry a gun in your pocket, don’t you?’ David said. ‘I saw, when that old man came into Frank’s flat.’
‘There are circumstances where we have to defend ourselves. You understand that.’
He asked, ‘Would you ever use the gun on Frank?’
‘Only if he were about to fall into their hands.’ She met his gaze. ‘Then it would be best for him, trust me.’
‘Have you ever killed anybody?’
She nodded slowly. ‘Yes. Not in England, though. I wish it were never necessary. But sometimes it is.’
He sighed. ‘Yes. Yes, I know.’
‘What is it, David?’ she asked quietly. ‘Ever since we saw the old man in the flat you have looked – desperate. It’s more than just seeing your friend in that state.’
He smiled sadly. ‘Perhaps we English aren’t so good at keeping our feelings hidden after all.’ He shrugged. ‘It was hearing about what’s happening to the Jews. It’s upset me.’
She nodded, then gave him a long, searching look. She said, very quietly and carefully, ‘I remember my Jewish friends in Slovakia. I saw how they reacted when things began to get bad.’
David took half a step back, nearly tripped on the kerb. He thought, she’s guessed.
She reached through the window and took his hand, holding it in a tight grip. ‘Who else knows?’ she asked.
‘Nobody.’ David’s heart was throbbing violently. ‘Only my father. It was my mother who was Jewish, an Irish Jew. Her records were destroyed, during the Troubles in Ireland. My father is sure. He’s a lawyer. I’ve lied on my census returns, said my parents were both Catholic.’
‘And he is in New Zealand now?’
‘Yes.’
‘Your wife doesn’t know?’ She sounded surprised.
‘No. How did you guess?’
‘Like I said, I have seen how people react. Some are pleased when the Jews are taken away. Some don’t care, or don’t want to get into trouble. Some hate it. But I think only those who are themselves at risk show the fear, the sorrow I saw on your face today. And –’ she smiled, an unusually hesitant smile – ‘I often watch your face. Your expression.’
He asked, ‘Will you tell them? Jackson, his people?’
‘Our people.’ She hesitated. ‘No, I will not tell them, though I should. You should tell them yourself.’
He looked at her hard. ‘You said you married a German. In your country.’
‘There was more to the story than that.’ Her mouth twitched suddenly. Then she pressed his hand with surprising strength. ‘Be careful.’
‘I’ve been careful for years.’
‘I know.’ Natalia bit her lip, then rolled up the window again and drove slowly away.
Chapter Twenty-Two
GUNTHER CALLED SENATE HOUSE from a telephone box just outside Birmingham, leaving Syme in the car. Gessler had been waiting for the call, and told him to report for a full debriefing immediately when he returned to London. A little over two hours later, Syme dropped him off at the embassy and Gunther went straight up to Gessler’s office. The senior man listened while Gunther gave his impressions of Muncaster, as a man consumed by fear but evasive and secretive. He told him, too, about Muncaster’s other visitors, who had been at the flat before them and, he believed, had searched it.
Gessler frowned, his black eyebrows almost meeting in the middle. He was worried. ‘Were they Resistance?’
‘I think they could be. Why else carry out a search of the flat?’ Gunther laid the photographs he had removed on the table and pointed. ‘If they were university friends, they’re in there.’
‘Damn it!’ Gessler burst out. Gunther was surprised; on Friday he had seemed like a man who kept his emotions in check. He told Gunther to write his report, then go home and return early the following morning. Gessler himself would talk to Berlin overnight.
Gunther sat in the little office he had been given along the corridor and wrote q
uietly and steadily in his small, neat hand. The office was bare apart from the obligatory desk, chairs and filing cabinets, and a wardrobe where he kept his Gestapo uniform. He wore it seldom, thought he looked fat in it, the puffy shapelessness of his face emphasized by the uniform’s clean, hard lines. He resented that Gessler looked trim in his SS uniform, though he was ten years older. There were pictures of Hitler and Himmler on the walls, photographs of his brother and his son on his desk. The window behind the desk had a panoramic view of London, the same as Gessler’s office. After an hour he walked back to the flat, dead tired.
He had something to eat and watched the news, followed by a repeat of Mosley’s broadcast. It was good the British had done this at last, but Gunther wondered why now. Before going to bed he read his son’s letter again. Gunther had been to Krimea to visit Michael last summer, two days on the train clacking through the Belorussian forests and swamps then across the Ukrainian plains, manned concrete guard-posts at every mile on the track. Michael had been happy to see his father again, and they had gone to the beach almost every day. His son was energetic and enthusiastic, blond and athletic. He had Hans’ undisciplined enthusiasm too and, perhaps, the beginnings of his dead twin’s physical grace. Michael had turned eleven in October; all he had been able to do was send a present and a card. He went to bed and slept uneasily, tossing and turning. He had a confused dream of being with his brother again in the forest, the night Heydrich had addressed them by the lake. Hans was looking away from him, over the water, infinite sadness in his handsome face.
He returned to the embassy at eight the next morning. When he entered Gessler’s office the SS man was staring out of his window, down over the city. His eyes were bloodshot and, remarkably for such a neat man, he was unshaven. He must have been up all night. There was a cold, leaden sky again today, a touch of fog in the air. Gessler waved him to a chair. He was frowning, tense with anxiety and excitement, quite different from Friday.
Gunther still felt the flat sadness of the evening before in himself. He didn’t try to fight it; it helped him stay distanced, objective. He noticed that the report he had prepared last night was lying on Gessler’s desk, alongside the photograph of Muncaster’s university group.
To break the silence, he said, ‘The papers this morning are full of the Jews being moved. The government are congratulating themselves on a smooth operation.’
Gessler turned and gave him a nod and a thin smile, like a stern schoolteacher acknowledging a pupil whose work was good. ‘That is your line of business at home, isn’t it? From what I understand the British operation wasn’t entirely without problems. And of course,’ he added contemptuously, ‘some of the preachers are making a fuss, trying to organize protests. If only England were Catholic; the Pope knows the Communists are his real enemy.’
‘But they’ve all been gathered in?’
‘Nearly all. Almost 150,000. I knew it was going to happen, of course, but unfortunately I couldn’t tell you.’ The old self-importance was back in Gessler’s voice. ‘The operation had to be kept very secret for it to succeed.’
‘Of course, sir.’
‘It was part of a larger deal between the governments. Up to now the British have always resisted our pressure. But now –’ he gave a wintry smile – ‘we may be able to get a Jew-free Europe at last. We’re talking with the French, too, about a final clear-up over there.’
Gunther nodded. ‘What’s going to happen to the British Jews now?’
‘They’ll be sent to the Isle of Wight, then out East. Hopefully soon. Arrangements are being made for their reception in Poland. Getting the Auschwitz ovens up to full capacity.’ He smiled again. ‘Beaverbrook’s never been that much of an anti-Semite, but he knows what side his bread’s buttered on.’
‘He’s effete and corrupt. Like Laval, like Quisling. We’ll need better men to build the new Europe.’
Gessler nodded agreement. ‘Yes. General Franco’s the only one with any real spine. He shot all his enemies at the first chance.’ He sighed and scratched the bald crown of his head. Then he said quietly, ‘I spent a lot of time talking to Berlin last night. The Führer is very ill indeed. I was told he could die at any time.’ He leaned forward. ‘I’m authorized to tell you this because when he does die there will be a struggle for control. Those loyal to the SS must be ready.’
Gunther suddenly felt cold. ‘Ready for what, sir?’ he asked.
‘A power struggle between us and the army. Things aren’t good in Russia, and we think the Russian winter offensive this year will be a big one. And there’s been an outbreak of bubonic plague among our troops in the Caucasus. The army want a settlement, the Russians keeping everywhere east of Moscow and north of the Caucasus.’
‘What? With the Communists? Zhukov and Khrushchev?’ Gunther answered bitterly. ‘Because that’s what they are, however they fudge it and talk about their Great Patriotic War.’
‘No. SS Intelligence think the army are already lining up other factions in Russia. The criminal element that’s always existed under the Communist state – some of them have made money now the Russians have brought limited markets back. And some in the Russian Security Police, old NKVD people who made friends in our army during the Nazi-Soviet Pact. It’ll be a criminal state, ruling the old Russian ethnic areas.’
‘We’ll be in eternal danger.’ He thought of his brother Hans. ‘Is that what five million Germans have died for?’
‘That’s why we have to be ready. In case, God forbid, the SS has to fight the army.’
‘What about the Party?’
Gessler shook his head. ‘Divided. Speer is with the army. Reichsführer Goebbels is the biggest Party figure now Göring’s dead and poor Rudolf Hess is in a madhouse: he’s the Führer’s nominated successor. He could make things go one way or the other. He’s strengthening his position. That’s what this deal with Beaverbrook is all about. Strengthening his ties with Britain, giving them economic support we can’t afford in exchange for getting rid of the Jews.’
‘Goebbels has always been totally sound on the Jews.’
‘He’s wobbly on Russia, though. This could be a manoeuvre to link Germany to England and through them to the US. There’s talk that Stevenson might embargo trade relations with Europe; if he does it would hit us hard. Goebbels is loyal to the Führer but with the Führer gone—’
Gunther considered. ‘With the British Jews actually deported, the Americans would have no choice but to accept that reality. They would no longer be a possible bargaining issue for them.’
Gessler said, ‘If there is a battle for control of Germany it could ripple through this embassy.’ He shook his head. ‘After all our victories, I thought, we can’t lose, we’re omnipotent. But now—’
‘We still can be, if we keep our courage,’ Gunther countered. ‘SS power has been growing for twenty years.’
Gessler said, more to himself than Gunther, ‘If there is a struggle and the SS lose, I suppose they can’t shoot all of us. I expect we’ll all be demoted and redeployed.’ His manner softened unexpectedly, became confidential. He took off his pince-nez and rubbed the bridge of his nose. ‘I wonder where. I was in Leningrad in 1942, you know. After the army cut the city off completely and starved them all to death over the winter. The Wehrmacht has never hesitated at what has to be done in Russia, some of them will pretend to scruples if they argue for peace but I’ve seen the army lads in action out there, seen how they deal with the Russians. But more and more of the senior officers have lost the spine for it. Weakness in the face of the enemy.’ He sat still, reflecting. ‘I was with the first SS group into Leningrad, in April, to question some of the few survivors – mostly Communist Party officials, they had what few supplies were left by then, though even they were like walking skeletons. God, the city stank, what our artillery and bombing had left of it. Three million bodies, rotting in that rubble. The corpses could be dangerous, you know, especially if there was a pile of them – they decomposed fast when th
e snow went. The gases would build up inside and they’d explode. You’d hear them banging off, at night. Wolves had come in to forage, and there were rats everywhere. No water, no sewage – we all had to clear out again after a month, the troops were coming down with typhoid – it’s all still cordoned off. At least in Moscow we took the city without a long siege; kicked the population out and put them in camps to starve quietly. The Führer wants to demolish the buildings and build a lake there when we win. But I never want to go east again; it was disgusting.’ He wrinkled his face with distaste, sighed, then focused on Gunther again. ‘I see from your file you’re divorced, Hoth.’
‘Yes, sir. But I have a son in Krimea.’
‘I have a wife, two daughters, in Hanover. I taught physical education in a school there, when I came back from the Great War. Then I joined the Party, then the SS. I did well.’
A little golden peasant, Gunther thought, not wanting hard times back again. ‘We’ll win through, sir,’ he said quietly.
Gessler slammed his hand on the desk, his mood turning in a moment. ‘Of course we will! None of us must doubt it!’ He took a couple of deep breaths, replaced his pince-nez, then spoke calmly again. ‘Don’t repeat anything of what I said to anyone.’
‘Of course not, sir.’
‘Besides, it may be mostly rumours. You know what HQ’s like.’
‘Yes, sir.’ But Gunther still felt cold.
‘Now, these visitors Muncaster had,’ Gessler said, businesslike again. ‘Do you still think they could have been Resistance? After sleeping on it?’
‘Yes, sir. It’s not certain but it is possible.’
‘Why didn’t Dr Wilson tell you other visitors were coming?’
‘I think he didn’t know, sir.’
‘He’ll be phoned this morning.’ Gessler shook his head. ‘If they were Resistance, how would they know about Muncaster?’
