Our Friends in Berlin Read online

  I could have handled that better, he thought, on his way back through Mayfair. His ending of their interview had been too abrupt – graceless. She had looked quite shocked … But he had sensed her interest in him, or at least in the irreducible oddity of his character.

  Shopkeepers were putting up their boards for the night, blinds were being drawn down in readiness. They had had three weeks of heavy raids, not just in London but all over the country – a spring Blitz. You could almost tell from people’s faces, from their hurried movements, that they were in for another night of it. Under the vast encircling dark, the streets, shaken from last night, vibrated with apprehension.

  Back at the hotel room he began to change into his ARP uniform and pulled the blackout curtains closed. He had rather enjoyed staying at the Russell – the impersonal mood of hotel life suited him – though of course it was too expensive to maintain in the long run. He unlocked the desk drawer and took out the memorandum Castle had sent him. As usual there was no heading, no date or signature, no clue as to where it had come from.

  A record has been located of MARITA Pardoe (née Florian) travelling from London to Germany, September 1935. On this occasion accompanied by a Miss AMY STRALLEN: friend or colleague, status uncertain. Duration of stay four weeks. Both resident in Berlin, later travelling to Nuremberg and Munich. At present, STRALLEN working at office in Brook Street, Mayfair – marriage bureau (?). May still be in contact with MARITA.

  He took the flimsy memo into the bathroom and placed it in the sink. He lit a match, held it to the paper’s edge and watched the flame curl around it, browning into black, eating up the white. Flakes of charred nothing floated up. He glanced at himself in the mirror, the embers making an eerie chiaroscuro of his face. It was not unlikely that Miss Strallen had thought him rather sinister today. The flame went out, and the room went black.

  3

  Walking along the seafront Hoste stopped to look at the barbed-wire defences ranged on the shore. He wondered if the Germans would think them as puny as he did. The light in Hastings this morning was the drab white of laundry that had been through the mangle once too often. Seagulls wheeled above him, calling each to each.

  He spotted a pub at the far corner of Warrior Square and went in. The saloon smelt of last night’s lock-in, mingled with the tang of fish and vinegar. He drank a pale ale very quickly and ordered another. He hated these ‘away days’, but he knew that his ring of disloyalists had to be kept in good order. Most were quite manageable, but now and then you got a few unstable ones, talking too loudly in public, making a nuisance of themselves. You had to take that sort in hand if you didn’t want the balloon to go up.

  He finished his second beer and checked the address in his notebook. Outside, he saw a bus pass along the parade, the single bit of traffic he had noticed since his arrival. You could die of the quiet in a place like this. He began walking west up the hill, past a dairy, a bank, a butcher. A woman pushing a pram went by. He reached another terrace of shops, and found the one he was looking for: Norman Antiques Emporium. He pushed open the door, setting off a little bell, and waded into the cavernous resting place of a thousand unconsidered objects. From inside glass domes, stuffed birds – a kingfisher, a puffin, several types of owl – trained their sightless gaze upon him.

  He picked his way through a jumble of gloomy Victorian furniture to the proprietor’s desk. In a wicker-backed chair sat a dumpy, rosy-faced old dear who looked up from her knitting at his approach. She gave him an expectant smile.

  ‘I am here to enquire about a pair of duelling pistols,’ he said with heavy significance.

  ‘Just down those stairs, dear,’ she replied, not bothering to acknowledge the coded phrase by which she should recognise him. (Her reply was supposed to run ‘I’m sorry, they’ve already been sold’). She clearly preferred her knitting to the cloak and dagger.

  He descended the narrow flight of stairs, inhaling the scent of ancient dust and rising damp. A single bulb illuminated the basement passage. Voices rose and fell from behind a wall. Someone must have heard him, for a door at the end cracked open and a shadowed face peeked round.

  ‘Mr Hoste? This way, sir.’

  He followed the summons. The room he entered was a musty old parlour, with a fireplace and cherrywood table redolent of an eighteenth-century coffee house. Brasses and prints, some of actual coffee houses, decorated the limewashed walls. A patterned rug had been worn through by immemorial footprints. At the single window hung a pair of ratty net curtains. The smell of damp persisted. Around the table sat four people he recognised, and one he didn’t. The man who had spoken to him was Ernest Dorling, tall, gaunt, with an ingratiating manner that didn’t match his restless troubled eyes. Having assumed the role of host he began reacquainting him with the assembled. The ferrety man with brilliantined hair and sallow complexion was Gleave, and the slot-mouthed woman in the brown cardigan and spectacles was his wife, Eileen. Next to her was Alfred Herzig, a jowly, stiff-looking man with a moustache that might have done duty on a Prussian cavalry officer. On his right was Franks, a morose young bruiser with pitted skin and a twitch that made Hoste feel sorry for him.

  ‘And I don’t believe you’ve met Mr Scoult,’ said Dorling, gesturing to a heavyset fellow of about forty with a ruddy complexion and wavy grey hair. He stood up and shook hands with Hoste. Scoult radiated a chummy air, as if he’d rather have been meeting in the saloon bar Hoste had just left.

  ‘Heard a great deal about you, sir,’ Scoult said, with a wink. His accent was northern, possibly from Yorkshire. ‘I might have some information that will interest you –’

  ‘We’ll come to that in due course, Mr Scoult,’ Dorling cut in, his tone slightly agitated by the newcomer’s pushiness. ‘First of all, I’d like to present our esteemed guest – if I may address you so, Mr Hoste –’ a nervous tinkle of laughter went round the room – ‘with a report on recent activity in the district of Hastings and St Leonard’s. Mrs Gleave has agreed to keep the minutes of this meeting.’

  Mrs Gleave, poised with pen and paper, returned a nod.

  There had been, said Dorling, a number of tip-and-run raids by German planes in the last month. Some had hit their targets: a church, a library, several local businesses and shops had sustained bomb damage. The most significant was a direct hit on a school clinic, resulting in casualties. Mrs Gleave observed, with a satisfied grin, that a pregnant mother and two young children had been killed – several more had been injured.

  ‘So that information we gave you at our last meeting clearly did the trick. The pilots knew where to bomb.’

  She was still smiling rather proudly. Hoste, staring at her for a moment, gave a slow nod. ‘Intelligence regarding the layout of the town has been very useful. Our friends in Berlin are pleased.’

  Scoult pulled a demurring expression. ‘And yet the raids continue to miss targets more often than they hit them.’

  ‘Many near misses in the last two weeks,’ said Dorling, trying to sound positive, ‘including a narrow squeak for the ARP headquarters. A great pity.’ He asserted that the tip-and-run raids were worthwhile, all the same. ‘For the record, four hundred houses have been made uninhabitable, and over a thousand people in Hastings are now homeless.’

  Murmurs of approval greeted this statistic. Hoste looked around the table, their expectant faces tilted towards him. ‘Unavoidably, night raids are prone to error. Bombing in built-up areas cannot be exact, even when supplied with coordinates. But, as I’ve said before, your willingness to gather intelligence is vital to the Luftwaffe.’

  Discussion then turned to the likelihood of invasion. While debating the relative strengths of the Wehrmacht they put forward theories as to why Hitler had so far refrained from the great thrust – fahren gegen England. Rumours were still abroad that troops would be parachuted into the country wearing disguise, though no one at the table seemed to take this very seriously. Germany would only invade once they had control of the skies, and after the S
pitfire Summer of last year that objective had been shelved. Still, Britain was vulnerable in its coastal defences – South Wales, East Anglia – and the Home Guard, for all their pluck, could not be expected to mount a proper resistance. Gleave, the best informed of the company, wondered if Hitler had turned his sights in a different direction: Russia, for instance.

  Hoste was fascinated by what they knew, and what they didn’t, though he seldom volunteered an opinion of his own. It was his policy to listen, to absorb, to remember. When Herzig asked him if he had received any private assurances regarding the Führer’s plans, he gave a self-deprecating half-smile. ‘You flatter me, Mr Herzig, by suggesting I might be privy to such information. And even if I were, I know you are too much of a professional to believe I would readily disclose it.’

  Herzig laughed, and the others joined in. He had taken the rebuff in exactly the spirit it was intended: we are men of the world, let us not fall out over matters of protocol. Up to this point the mood had been agreeable, albeit what they were agreed upon was the violent overthrow of the British government and the immediate institution of Nazi rule in its place. It was only when the name of Oswald Mosley came up that the atmosphere began to change. Mosley, focal point of British Fascism, had been detained in Brixton Prison for almost a year. His wife, Diana, was imprisoned at Holloway. There was no sign from Whitehall that they were about to end their internment – a cause of outrage to the company. Franks, hitherto almost silent, now spoke up.

  ‘We wouldn’t be in this mess if Mosley had seized his moment. The BU should have stuck it to the Jews before the government and the police got involved. If he’d been a bit more savvy about using force we could have imposed ourselves – could have scared the life out of ’em.’

  There was a pause before Scoult said, ‘I’m afraid you’re talking rot, young man. Mosley did as much as anyone could. Times were against him.’

  Franks’s thin, pockmarked face coloured angrily. ‘What would you know about it? Ever had a battle on the streets with the commies and the Jews? Half of what’s wrong with this country is it doesn’t want to get into a fight.’

  ‘We appear to be in a fight at the moment,’ remarked Gleave drily.

  ‘You know what I’m talking about,’ muttered Franks, whose hatred struck Hoste as virulent even by the standards of this company.

  ‘It’s important that we focus on the long term,’ said Dorling, aiming for a conciliatory tone. ‘We are agreed that the one hope of salvation for this country – and the world, come to that – lies in a National Socialist victory. To this end we must continue to do all we can for Germany.’

  ‘Hear, hear,’ said Mrs Gleave. ‘It won’t be long before the whole of Europe realises that Germany was right – Jewish Bolshevism is the enemy. Even if Hitler is attacked on all sides, the struggle goes on. Isn’t that right, Mr Hoste?’

  Again, Hoste sensed a hush descend whenever he was consulted for a view. It was a taste in miniature, he thought, of what actual power must feel like. There were people out there who not only liked to be ruled; they longed to be. He wondered if there were many of them. Enough to foment a Nazi revolution? Mrs Gleave was still looking at him eagerly.

  ‘The struggle will go on, Mrs Gleave. But in common with Mr Franks I fear the BU has ceased to be a dependable ally. Their members are monitored by the police, and associating with them will only invite suspicion onto us.’

  There followed a long discussion about how best to serve as a fifth column. Hoste rejected the efficacy of leaving lights on in buildings during a raid: they might just as likely be a decoy tactic of the Home Guard tempting German planes to waste their bomb-loads. He advised against other domestic acts of sabotage such as scrambling local radio signals. That kind of meddling might be traced to its source and jeopardise other cells of resistance.

  ‘Caution should be our watchword,’ he said, concluding. ‘Do not draw attention to yourselves, whether in loose talk or disruptive behaviour. The best way you can serve the cause of National Socialism is to keep supplying reliable intelligence. Think of me as a direct conduit to the planning rooms in Berlin.’

  Once the meeting was ended, Mrs Gleave went off to the kitchen to make tea. While they stood and stretched their legs, Scoult took Hoste aside. ‘A useful meeting, I should say,’ he began, appraising Hoste from beneath his brow. ‘May I ask – being a newcomer to this company – is it true that you’re –’

  ‘Gestapo,’ said Hoste, anticipating his question. ‘At present their single agent at large in this country.’

  ‘What happened to the others?’

  ‘They were caught, Mr Scoult. Most are interned, but a few, unwilling to be taken, paid the ultimate price.’

  Scoult nodded gravely. ‘How have you managed to … stay undetected?’

  Hoste, with a shrug, said, ‘One of course depends on luck. I’ve had some close calls in my time. The best safeguard, however, is discretion. You learn to judge who can be trusted, and who cannot. An agent lives or dies by his ability to know.’ He waited a beat for this to reverberate. ‘But tell me, what’s this information you have?’

  Scoult had been filling a pipe as they talked, and now lit it. A whitish-orange glimmered within the bowl, and he shook the match out. ‘Dorling here told me about a certain person you’ve been trying to locate. Marita Pardoe?’

  ‘You know her?’

  ‘From before the war. She and her husband Bernard were at a number of British Union meetings I attended. We got to know each other a little.’

  ‘I see. Are you still in touch?’

  Scoult shook his head. ‘Last I heard he was picked up by the police. I gather he’s at the internment camp in the Isle of Man.’

  ‘And what of her?’

  ‘Not sure. Someone told me she’d left London for Ireland. But it’s also said she got back to Germany.’

  ‘So she managed to escape …’

  ‘Oh, Marita is too clever to get caught. Rather like yourself!’

  ‘Can you describe her?’

  He pulled a doubtful expression. ‘Tall, quite imposing. Well dressed. She’s not really like anyone I’ve ever met. One of those people who seems to look right through you. Articulate, a lot of cunning, knows her own mind. Impatient, I’d say –’

  ‘With him?’

  ‘No, no. I mean with the British Union – she thought they were completely ineffectual. Hopeless. She had quite sophisticated ideas about subversion – not just inside Whitehall but in business, and industry. Infiltrating the top levels and working through the whole structure. A plan for the long term, she said. In the meantime, she wanted to stir up unrest on the streets and get the government on the run. That would be the first step to installing a dictator.’

  Hoste nodded. ‘Ambitious.’

  ‘Aye. Though unlike certain folk –’ he flashed a look across the room at Franks – ‘Marita had thought it through.’

  It sounded like the woman Hoste had been tracking. The more he heard about Marita the more he found his interest piqued – it was the mark of an exceptional agent to have remained elusive for so long. He thanked Scoult and handed him his card.

  ‘If you hear anything more about her – anything at all – do give me a call. I imagine Mrs Pardoe and I would have much to talk about.’

  It was time to leave. Dorling made his usual speech of thanks to him for his visit, and assured him that they would be ‘working night and day’ to accumulate intelligence. They all stood in anticipation of his departure.

  ‘My thanks to you all,’ said Hoste, and raised his arm. ‘Heil Hitler.’

  As he exited the room he felt, not for the first time, like a priest who had just dispensed his blessing.

  The train back from Hastings was slow, delayed by broken signals from the recent raids. Arriving at Charing Cross he walked down to the Embankment and stepped onto a tram. As it halted in the Kingsway tunnel another tram was arriving at the adjacent platform. He stared out at the faces through the glass, pickled
in the dim aquarium light of the car. They seemed to him lost souls, passing one another every day, every night, pressed together by necessity yet utterly alone in their needs, fears, longings. The human face was a window, but it was also a wall. What secrets did they keep locked behind it? And behind the wall of the face, the vault of the heart.

  Picking up his key at the hotel reception, he was informed by a desk clerk that a gentleman was waiting for him. He passed down the corridor into the panelled bar, still hushed at this hour. A few residents – he recognised them by now – were installed. At a table near the window sat Castle, reading The Times.

  ‘Ah. There you are,’ he said, folding up his newspaper and fixing Hoste with a pleasantly sardonic smirk. Castle, at fifty-nine, was the old man of the Section; his face was pouchy and lined, in contrast to his dark sleek head of hair. Hoste wondered if he dyed it. His manner was studiedly calm, and his eyes had a slow droop suggestive of a foreign dignitary involved in a discreet negotiation. He raked his gaze around the room.

  ‘Hotel accommodation … have you come into funds, old boy?’

  ‘It’s temporary,’ replied Hoste. ‘I’ve been looking round for digs.’

  ‘What of your old place – did they recover anything?’

  ‘Not a stick. Got so badly hit they pulled the rest of it down.’

  A waiter approached and took their order. Once he had gone Hoste looked enquiringly at his colleague. ‘To what do I owe the pleasure?’

  ‘Two things. Kilshaw’s story has been verified. Seems that he does indeed have someone on the inside at de Havilland.’

  ‘Good. Though I should warn you – he hopes to be rewarded.’

  ‘Hammond can look after that. In the meantime, make him feel appreciated.’

  Hoste returned an impatient nod. ‘What else?’

  For answer Castle bent down to his briefcase and withdrew a buff-coloured file, which he handed over. Inside, Hoste found a single photograph. It showed a group of four young women, in holiday mood, posing for the camera; they stood in front of a tourist coach, evidently about to board. He studied the picture for a moment. It had been taken some years ago, but he was almost certain that the tall smiling girl in tennis shoes was someone he recognised.