Cook finished the pint, and Dottie pulled him another while he looked around. Cook liked a nice pub, and this felt like it might fit the bill. It was busy, but not too crowded. A buzz of conversation, but nobody having to shout to be heard, and nobody fighting, although it was early for all that. All in all, not the worst place to spend a couple of hours. A few nice pints. Let the boy see his people, then back home.
Not such a bad idea after all.
8
Margaret awoke with a start. An insistent knock, repeated. Polite. Precise.
She’d been reading. Dozed off. Now she was disorientated. She looked around for clues. She was in a farmhouse. Ancient timbers criss-crossed the rough plaster ceiling. A cavernous fireplace reeked of smoke even now in late summer, dried herbs hung in bunches from the mantel. She waited for a hand on her shoulder, a kiss on her cheek. He’d smell of the fields. The earth and the rain. She’d only been with the farmer for a couple of months, but it had felt like coming home. For the briefest period of her life she’d allowed herself to enjoy the small things. Sitting in the kitchen eating a simple meal with their makeshift family. The children, Frankie and Elizabeth, and Cook.
The door opened with a creak. A heavy oak door held on iron hinges, uncared-for. The knocks had been a courtesy but nothing more. Her captor stepped in cautiously, his SS insignia gleaming in the candlelight. Probably polished them before he came to collect her.
She’d been in France two weeks, and they still didn’t know what to make of her. She’d come voluntarily, and she’d brought valuable intelligence they’d since corroborated, but they couldn’t bring themselves to trust her. Quite right. Once a traitor, always a traitor. So they were keeping her away from the front line.
‘Lady Miriam,’ he said. ‘My apologies. Frau Wassenberg requests all guests arrive by five.’
Margaret had arrived in France under false pretences. The U-boat captain who’d brought her had been told to expect an Englishwoman with expertise in radio-waves who’d thrown her lot in with the Nazi party back in ’38. The captain had been given a dated photograph of Miriam at a rally in Munich, to guard against deception. Margaret had known Miriam since birth. They were not related, their physical resemblance was merely a coincidence, but one that was often remarked upon. A coincidence that the brains in military intelligence had taken full advantage of. When Margaret had been offered the mission, she’d been told the ruse might be expected to go undiscovered for a week or so. Long enough for her to make herself useful. But sooner or later she’d be discovered, and at that point she’d be advised to do everything she could to try to escape. Thin odds at best. The most likely outcome was a dark cell. That, or a firing squad. But the mission was vital. Calculated by the men with slide rules to delay the invasion by enough time to potentially make a difference. Margaret hadn’t believed the men with their calculations. She knew how much more complicated the world got once you left the realm of numbers and predictions behind. But she’d said yes. Ours not to reason why, and all that.
The SS guard was waiting for Margaret’s response. She ignored him.HauptsturmführerWerner Schmidt. A grand title for a young man – thirty if he was a day. Younger than her, at the very least. He was intimidated by her, as ridiculous as that sounded, him with his pistol on his hip in its polished leather holster, with his immaculately pressedfeldgrauuniform, with his commission in the elite corps of the most powerful army the world had ever seen.
‘I need a minute,’ Margaret said, eventually. It was already five o’clock. She could have gone as she was but it was an opportunity to needle the SS man. She’d spent a lot of time with the German side of her family and she knew starting times at social functions were not mere suggestions. The later they were, the more anxious he’d get.
Margaret took ten minutes. They’d given her a wardrobe of cast-offs. Most of the generals and their wives were aristocrats. They still kept the old ways, more so now the Nazis had come into power, a reaction against the brashness of Hitler and his deputies. Dressing correctly for dinner was a subtle defiance. Taking Margaret under their wing had been another. She’s one of us, they’d said, without needing to say it.
She waited at the bedroom door and counted out another minute, Schmidt’s impatient footsteps echoing on the stone floor downstairs, wearing out the leather heels on his ceremonial boots. When she finally emerged, clattering down the wooden staircase, he took one look at her and turned his eyes away. Schmidt was blushing, she realised, with a stab of triumph. She wasn’t so naïve she didn’t know the effect she could have on a man, an effect she was happy to use to her advantage.
‘We’ll be late,’ Margaret snapped, giving every sign she’d have been on time if not for the ineptitude of her escort.
‘Shall we?’ she said, as she held the door open for Schmidt. Pushing her luck, as always. One day it would catch up with her, but not today. Not if she had anything to do with it.
It was a short walk from the farmhouse they’d given her as temporary lodgings to the chateau. SS staff cars lined the side of the gravel driveway, like limousines at a film premiere. The chateau was a fairy-tale creation in creamy-white stone like so many of the showpiece estates dotted alongthe Loire Valley. Two ornamental gardens flanked the building. To Margaret’s right, an intricate rose garden, geometric shapes interspersed with neat grass paths. To the left, a wilder parkland. The chateau’s history, she’d been told, was the story of two great women, both queens, their legacies respected and preserved in their respective gardens.
The chateau itself spanned a broad river, eight stone arches supporting a long gallery and rooms above. Margaret scanned the opposite bank of the river as Schmidt led her across the gravel driveway. The riverbank on the far side was a different country – the river itself a newly established border between Nazi-occupied territory and what they were calling Vichy France. Nominally free from Hitler’s oversight, the southern half of France was to be self-governing, an experiment Margaret feared would end in failure.
Dinner was in the great hall. The conversation was thin. The army wives were tired of each other’s company, tired of being kept away from their homes in Bavaria while also being kept away from the front, away from their husbands. It was like they were all being held hostage, even those whose husbands were unimpeachable and trusted deputies of the Führer. None of the wives were trusted with news of how the war was progressing, having to rely on snippets getting through, excitable stories told by delivery drivers, or passed person to person across the country at near-instant speed.
Margaret was seated next to the host – Maria Wassenberg. An old friend of the family. Margaret’s family. Wassenberg was the only one present who knew her real identity, putting herself at considerable risk. It was Maria who’d vouched for Margaret when she’d arrived in France, claiming her and keeping her from an interrogation room in the cellars beneath Niederkirchnerstraße in Berlin, where enemies of the state with far less evidence against themthan Margaret spent their last hours. Margaret tried not to think of what would happen to her old friend when the deception was discovered.
Dinners like this had been a regular part of Margaret’s childhood, whether in England, Switzerland, or India. The same people, the same conversation, even the menu seldom changed. Margaret chewed on the overdone salmon.
‘Have you heard?’ Frau Wassenberg asked, softly. She kept her eyes forward as she spoke, scanning the room. The wives were interspersed with junior officers – men who were dispensable enough not to be needed at the front, men whose loyalty to their bosses was unquestioned. Prison guards dressed up as gentlemen, ostensibly keeping the women safe from the chance a disgruntled French peasant might storm the chateau. Their presence ensured conversation was kept to banalities.
‘Yesterday was the deadline for the invasion, and it’s passed,’ she said quietly to Margaret. ‘Politics, as usual.GeneraloberstHalder says he can absolutely conquer the British Isles if he can land thirteen divisions along the south and east coasts. Admiral Raeder says certainly, Herr Hitler, we can transport your victorious Panzer divisions across the Dover Straits as long as the Luftwaffe can guarantee our safety. The Luftwaffe? Well, we all know aboutReichsmarschallGoering. Leave it to me, he says, give me three days.’
Frau Wassenberg held up her empty wine glass and a serving girl stepped forward. The girl shook as she poured the wine, then crept back to her place, against the stone wall. A banner covered the white stone. Red background, with a black swastika. The serving girl flinched as a breeze rippled the material, pushing it against the back of her neck. Typical of the Nazis, covering a beautiful room with their garish icon, like a dog pissing on every corner of its territory.
‘Have you met Goering?’ Frau Wassenberg asked.
‘A long time ago,’ Margaret replied. ‘He wanted me in his Christmas show.Hansel and GretelI think.’ She kept her eyes on the men. Schmidt had been called away as the main course was being set down, hurrying off urgently. Now he was returning, his heels clicking, a distinct sound above the hubbub of dinner. He was hurrying. Something was up. She’d got to know his sounds, she realised, after two weeks of forced proximity.
Schmidt appeared at the grand entrance to the dining room, his face white with anger. He headed for his place next to Margaret, fixing her with a glare that made her recoil. Something was different. His usual insecurity in her presence had evaporated. Instead of blushing as he looked at her, he allowed his eyes to rove. Margaret felt underdressed, suddenly, and pulled her shawl over her shoulders.
He knows, she thought.
‘Forgive me, ladies,’ he said, as he took his seat. He shovelled a forkload of rubbery salmon into his mouth and washed it down with a glass of wine. Without finishing his mouthful he took his fork and tapped it against the glass – ting ting ting.
Schmidt pushed his chair back with a scrape of oak on the ancient stone floor, planting his right hand on Margaret’s thigh. He squeezed, hard, and Margaret gasped as he levered himself up. She blinked away an unwanted tear, as adrenaline flooded her body, as much fury as pain.
‘Ladies and gentlemen,’ the SS man said, surveying his audience. ‘I have news. Our enemy has crossed the rubicon. For the past year, the Führer has imposed on our Luftwaffe the strictest instructions not to attack civilian targets. This is a war to be fought with honour, as our forefathers have taught us.’
