A Question of Betrayal

by Anne Perry

  They were lucky to have kept him there so long. It was a risk, but it was a judgment call. This money, raised to fund the Fatherland Front, directed into the right hands, might even be enough to support Dollfuss and an independent Austria until it had the strength to stand alone. It would definitely change the balance of power between Hitler and Mussolini.

  It was a pity Aiden had to come out of Trieste.

  And by a twenty-eight-year-old, sixteen years younger than Peter, a girl. But twenty-eight was old when compared to the young men who had gone to war. Elena had damn well better be up to the job of getting Aiden Strother out! What the hell did anyone’s vanity, or career, or hurt feelings, or broken heart matter, compared with peace?

  He reached his home and went through the gate. He put his key in the door, turned it, and let himself in. The hall was the same as always, except there was no post on the hall table. Had Pamela already taken it inside? The house was quiet, with no aroma of cooking or, better yet, baking.

  He called out, “Hello!” He wanted her to be home, simply to have someone to demand something from him, to momentarily forget his fears for Elena, and Lucas’s anger, Bradley’s criticism.

  “Pamela.”

  No answer.

  “Pamela!” His voice sounded sharper than he had meant it to.

  He opened the sitting-room door and went in. The glass doors onto the garden were closed. He walked across to them, where he could see the lawn and flowerbed beyond. Pamela was standing near the rosebushes, a woven raffia flower basket in one hand and secateurs in the other, the sun at her back, bright on her hair. She was carefully selecting the bronzes and the reds and laying them side by side, watching the mound of brilliant colors grow.

  She had always had a good eye for putting together surprising blends and mixtures. It was the one thing about her that had startled him with joy. Why did he not share it more often?

  He opened the door and went out.

  She looked up. “You’re early.” She frowned slightly.

  He had no answer that he was prepared to share. It would worry her. She had always been secure in his income, because he worked for the government. Like the families of many MI6 officers, she had only the vaguest idea of what he did. If she had any curiosity, she was far too well versed in expected behavior to ask. Their roles were complementary, but quite separate. He did not tell her how to organize the house or manage the domestic finances; she did it well. Everything worked, always. That was enough.

  “I went in early this morning,” he replied, although she had not asked. “I think I’ll go for a walk over toward the fields. I’ve been sitting all day.”

  “Dinner’s at seven,” she said briefly. She hesitated as if she was going to add something but changed her mind. Then she picked up a yellow rose and put it in her basket. She glowed, as if she had turned a light on inside the petals.

  He went to the telephone and made the usual brief call to Lucas. It was time he faced the issue. Then he walked to the garage and drove his car out. Even that small act gave him a sense of freedom, since he went to work on the train. He could have walked to meet Lucas, but he lacked the energy and he needed to be there soon, as the sun was lowering already, spreading a patina of gold across the land.

  He parked the car in the lane at the edge of the woodland and went on through the gate, closing it behind him. He walked the slightly winding track, which in spring was carpeted with bluebells and where one could hear the calling of new lambs. Now there was silence, except for the wind stirring the leaves far above him, the occasional early yellow one drifting down from its branch. Autumn was on its way, evident from a cooling of the air, the sun reaching the horizon earlier each evening, a swirling of small birds returning home. He was going to the usual place, where he always met Lucas in these woods. He had first found it without conscious thought. Habit was dangerous in his profession. The last thing he should be was predictable, but everyone needed some certainties in life, something to rely on, without having to think first.

  Lucas was waiting for him. Peter had let the peace of the woods wrap around his mind, and he had not thought what he was going to say. Not exactly. And “exactly” mattered.

  The sun shone through a break in the branches and caught Lucas’s face. He had been smiling until he heard Peter’s foot break a tiny twig and he turned. The light made him look older, as if a weariness inside had ceased to be hidden. Was that his anxiety over Elena?

  Peter envied him that. He realized that there was no one he loved so deeply that their absence would leave that type of hole. He knew how great the loss would be if Lucas were absent because he chose to be, and not because he could not help it.

  He reached Lucas and stopped. “Thought you might like some news, even slight,” he said. Why did he begin with banalities? Because it was somehow indecent to begin with the emotion burning inside, like stripping off one’s clothes. You left the other person with no way to retreat.

  Lucas understood. He was the same: understated, subtle, emotionally aware. Very English.

  They walked slowly, side by side, down the path beside the stream. It was almost silent, with too little water in it to rattle on the stones.

  Toby was standing in it up to his chest. He had seen a water rat go down a hole in the bank, and it was obvious he was waiting, watching for it to reappear.

  “I heard from Elena that she’s found Strother,” Peter remarked.

  “Good,” Lucas answered. “That was quite quick.”

  “She didn’t need a lot of training: details rather than principle,” Peter observed.

  “It’s dangerous, though,” Lucas added. He did not turn to look at Peter but rather kept his eyes on his feet to avoid tripping over the big roots that erupted from the soil, breaking the smooth track.

  “Yes, she knows that. But this information is vital.”

  Lucas smiled with a downward twist to his mouth. “And not Strother’s life?”

  “Only to him,” Peter replied. He knew now what he was going to say. A part of him hated it. “The information is unique, I think. We’ll lose agents sometimes, that’s understood. If their lives mattered more than what they can tell us, we wouldn’t send them. You’ve seen enough to know that. They weren’t your grandchildren, like Elena, but that’s hardly relevant. If it is, you’re not fit for the job.”

  “Feelings and thoughts are not the same, Peter, and you know that,” Lucas replied quietly. “What’s more to the point now is that Elena knows it, too. She would hate it if you gave her special treatment.”

  “It wouldn’t be for her, it would be for you,” Peter said honestly. “But I did send her…”

  “And?” Lucas knew there was something more. The heart, perhaps, of what Peter had come to say.

  Peter walked a few steps further. The sunlight and shadows moved on the ground, as the branches overhead were stirred by the wind. A few more amber leaves drifted down.

  “I think there will be an attack on Dollfuss,” he began, trying to find the right words to say, maybe too carefully, although he had not arrived at this thought with any major evidence.

  “What sort of attack?” Lucas asked. “There’ve been all kinds of accusations and—”

  “No. I mean physical,” interrupted Peter. “It could be done in the open, or more likely secretly, and he would simply not appear at a meeting, an event. There would be excuses: he’s ill, injured, whatever seems most believable. In time someone would replace him…”

  “Nazism in Austria, and rooted in Germany?” Lucas asked grimly after another few moments of silence, broken only by Toby still splashing around in the stream. “Toby, come on!” he called. There was more splashing, then Toby came charging along the path, stopping beside Lucas and shaking vigorously, sending water all over the place. Lucas was about to tell him off when Peter started to laugh.

  “What o
n earth is funny?” Lucas demanded.

  “It’s absurd.” Peter controlled himself with an effort, ironing the panic out of his voice. “You are annoyed because the dog you love shook himself and got you wet, at the same time that we are debating whether the Austrian National Socialists are in the pay of Hitler yet. It’s only a matter of when, not whether it will happen or not. It will.”

  “You think so?”

  “Of course. If we prevent this attempt to spread Nazism, there’ll be another, and not only in Austria. All the borders of Germany are at risk, and then the borders of those other countries. The question is whether it’s worth another bloodbath to prevent it. I need to be certain that the only thing worse than another slaughter all over Europe will be to find Hitler’s values in every country, every town. To find Brownshirts, or worse, Gestapo, in the streets of London. But am I right?” He looked at Lucas and waited.

  Lucas remained silent for several moments. At last he spoke…quietly. “Yes, I think you’re right. War decimates a generation, perhaps even two. But as long as we are alive, there will be a third and a fourth…and so on.”

  “For some, but the price is terrible, and we didn’t pay it, you and I. We fought our fight, and our weapons helped win, but we didn’t pay in blood. We didn’t suffer those wounds to the body and the mind that don’t heal, the ones we pretend we don’t see.” He was thinking of the blank-eyed soldiers he had seen for whom the horrors were all inside and would be until they died.

  “Peter?”

  “I know.” He jerked himself out of his thoughts. “We’re in a minority, you know. There are a lot of people who think we’re warmongers because we’re stopping what peace there could be, if only we just swallowed our pride and minded our own business about Germany.”

  “And there are others,” Lucas argued, his voice dropping even lower, “who say we created this with our destructively harsh demands in the treaty after the war. We made another war inevitable.”

  “What should we do?” Peter raised his eyebrows. “Pray for peace, and expect God to bring it? While we prepare for war?” It sounded more bitter than he had intended.

  “Are you preparing for war?” Lucas stared upward at the leaves as they rustled softly in the sunset breeze. The fading light caught the apricot and pink in their dying shapes.

  “No, I’m just trying to see what direction the blow will come from first. I don’t actually fight; I tell other men where to…”

  “Did she say anything else?” Lucas asked.

  “Who?”

  “Did Elena say anything else?”

  “No, and she can’t force him to leave if he won’t. She’s only getting information,” Peter replied.

  “From a spy whose cover is blown, and whose handler may be alive and on the run…or dead. Murdered by whom?”

  Peter raised his head sharply to meet Lucas’s eyes.

  Lucas shook his head. “No, you can’t go and look; you’d only make it worse,” he said sharply, as if reading Peter’s mind. “But you’d better make sure you’ve got good people in Vienna already. And Berlin. Don’t disturb them by sending anyone now. Just wait. And, for God’s sake, don’t go yourself! I’ve learned the hard way. Somebody will send word you’ve gone. If they capture you, they can ask their own price. And torture the hell out of you while they wait. Use a little sense. Leave it alone and wait. It’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do.”

  Peter closed his eyes and felt the faint warmth of the sun on his skin, the whisper of the wind in the leaves, and Toby crashing around in the undergrowth, chasing the scent of a rabbit. “Yes,” he said, not sure if he had said it aloud or not. “I know.”

  CHAPTER

  7

  Margot left home soon after lunchtime and was driven to the airport for the brief flight to Paris. She had flown before, but it was still an amazing experience, like a step outside life into a bird’s-eye view of the patchwork blanket of autumn fields, copses of trees turning color, villages like a child’s toys. She found herself smiling without knowing quite why. It was an absurd sense of freedom, of being almost untouchable by ordinary cares. Of course, one had to come down again!

  Once she was in Paris, she spent a very comfortable night in one of her favorite hotels, near the Luxembourg Gardens, then went to the railway station early and caught an express train to Berlin. It was expensive to travel first-class, but it was very much worth it. She had a considerable amount of luggage, filled with clothing carefully chosen for every likely event. She did not want to have to worry about it. She would arrive safe and rested.

  She found a comfortable seat and opened her book, but was unable to concentrate on the adventures of fictional characters when there was so much drama ahead of her in Berlin. She had not read much about politics, until her sister’s experiences in Berlin—not that Elena had spoken about it so much to Margot or to her parents. What concerned her, and drew her in reluctantly, was the fact that Elena hardly spoke about it at all. That was more powerful than any words would have been.

  Elena had always been the quieter of the sisters, a follower rather than a leader. She tried to follow Margot in style, but Elena’s fashion sense was about as interesting as a kitchen apron! She wore bland colors, ordinary styles, nothing that attracted the eye, and certainly nothing that startled.

  But that had been before Berlin.

  When Elena had returned in a scarlet silk dress that fitted her like a glove, it had drawn the eye…and comments…and she appeared not to care in the least! And her hair, which had always been a bit too long—wavy, which was good, but light brown with a glint in it, as if there were possibilities of glamour never realized—was now a casual, fashionable bob, still with the wave, but pale, Swedish-looking: blond. Enough to catch everyone’s eye: men with admiration, women with envy.

  The scarlet dress was gone now, and no one would explain why, although Margot was certain Josephine knew. It had been replaced by more dresses that fitted very well, with skirts that flared when she moved. They were in gorgeous colors of hyacinth blue, iris purple, pale primrose yellow. And green, lots of green, always leaning a little toward the aquamarine or teal. Plus smart, sophisticated black, which her fair skin and pale blond hair lit up like magic.

  Margot’s first thought was the obvious one: Elena was in love. But no new man had appeared.

  That was all on the surface, just a symptom of what had changed inside. Her ambitions were less easy to read, but possibly deeper. Something had happened to her that week in May that had tested her to her limits and beyond, and she had not found herself wanting. There was now a certainty in her.

  Grandfather Lucas knew what it was, but Margot had realized lately that there was an infinity of things that Lucas knew and never discussed.

  When the train pulled into the station in Berlin, Margot faced the immediate practicalities of making sure she had all her luggage. She had a case of gifts for Winifred Cordell and, of course, for Cecily. She had taken a great deal of care to bring things that would cause pleasure, and show her affection, without drowning them in a sense of gratitude or, worse, inferiority.

  She found a porter to help her get a taxi and ensure the luggage was all packed in. She sat back and stared through the taxi windows at the streets, the traffic, and the people.

  Margot put from her mind the terror for Elena that had crushed out everything else the last time she’d been here. This time, she was here to support a friend, and she was determined to act as if she believed this was the beginning of a happy new life for Cecily.

  Berlin looked better than it had only months earlier. It was early autumn now, a touch of winter in the air. There was more color in the women’s dresses, the occasional bright stands of flowers for sale, a little more in shop windows. But there were also more groups of Brownshirts, young men armed and empowered, with almost no supervision as to how they exercised their will. Twic
e she saw them stop a crowd of startled pedestrians whose faces reminded her of cornered animals.

  Sharp memories came back of her own experience of fear. Roger Cordell had told her that her presence could not help Elena if she drew the attention of the police or even the Brownshirts. It could only endanger Elena even more. Hitler’s grip had grown firmer in these past four months. That much her father knew from his own work in the Foreign Office. He believed that the worst was over, that there was more work for people to do, a change toward stability, even a beginning of prosperity. There were claims that all conflicts were under control, and people began to hope again.

  Could she see it in the streets? Perhaps. Or was it her imagination, because she wanted it to be true?

  The taxi pulled up at the Cordells’ house. Memory flooded back of all the times she had shared events with Cecily. There was a difference in their ages, but it had never mattered. They were both English girls, with fathers in the British embassy, in a strange, exciting, and disturbing city. Of course, Cecily and Margot had found a natural ease, quick laughter, a taste for the same music, fashion, and adventure that Elena did not join in. The ten years between Cecily and Margot did not matter.

  “Oh, yes, thank you,” she said to the driver when he broke her reverie to ask her if this was the right place. He got out to fetch her luggage, leaving Margot to open her own door and climb out onto the footpath.

  “Thank you,” she said again. She fished in her purse for the fare and a generous tip. He set her cases on the path and turned to her. He did not meet her eyes but nodded his thanks, took his fare, and climbed back into the vehicle.

  A moment later, she was alone in the afternoon sun. There was a slight chill in the air here, too, just as there was at home. But then, this had been home, or almost home, years ago.

  The front door flew open and a figure appeared. “Margot! You’re here!” Cecily cried, running down the path so familiar to her that she avoided the broken edges on the steps without thinking about it. She looked wonderful, her dark hair flying, her face flushed.