Sir Anthony sat at the end of the table. He had arranged a celebratory Peace Club Munich Agreement dinner in Newcastle with the usual guests. Tim thought him pale and preoccupied as Penny regaled them with her experiences of Kristallnacht, or the Night of Broken Glass in Germany, when Jewish businesses and homes were attacked and windows broken. She applauded the subsequent arrest of tens of thousands of Jewish men for the crime of being Jewish, who were then sent to concentration camps to meet up with their compatriots already in situ there. Some Jewish women were also arrested and sent to local jails; the few properties remaining in Jewish hands were confiscated. She laughed, waving her hands. ‘It’s just like house cleaning really.’
Sir Edgers tapped the table. ‘Here, here,’ he said. His wife clapped.
Tim stared at his food, unable to eat, such was his disgust.
Sir Anthony made no comment, but instead voiced his relief at October’s Munich Agreement and the hopes for peace.
Lady Margaret added, ‘So clever of Herr Hitler.’
They lifted their glasses, even Tim, but he wouldn’t let the wine touch his lips – though what on earth difference that made to the price of fish, he had no idea. Sir Anthony drank as though parched.
Later Tim wrote his report to Potty, including every conversation of interest Tim had with any member of the party. It made interesting reading, he was sure, especially the sections on Sir and Lady Edgers. He asked if Potty had any more information on Heine’s roots, so that when he returned to Berlin, he would have a weapon if Heine ever suspected him of anything.
Tim visited Berlin again in early December, to test the ground and confirm whether Herr Bauer’s initial report to Potty, following the Gerbers’ escape, still remained accurate, and Tim was indeed under no suspicion.
On his arrival in Berlin, he remembered his training, checking reflections in shop windows as he passed. He jumped on and off trams, doubling back on himself. No-one was following him, and when they had the whole of the Sudeten to sort out, why would they bother about the escape of one Jewish couple? Tim relaxed an iota, but remained vigilant.
He still refused to deliver the original of the letter to Millie and Heine, explaining that he was vulnerable, that he needed the security of it. He insisted that he was repaying his obligation to Heine by carrying packages. He said, ‘As long as I am safe, then so are you, Heine. Not only that, but you are now in the SD, and that is only because I am honouring my word and maintaining my promise not to reveal the letter. Take it or leave it, but if you leave it, then there are instructions for the letter to be published. Remember you are guilty by association.’
He sounded much tougher than he felt.
He then presented Heine with yet another package from Sir Anthony and changed for dinner. He had been told that Otto, Bruno and Hans were to be joining them; the three men, like Heine, were all now in the SD, the intelligence branch.
As the coffee and cognac were served, after Millie had left the room, the discussion strayed to a trip the men were taking to Austria the next day. Otto slapped Tim’s arm. ‘It is something that would interest you, young Tim. A trip to see our partner. Something to tell your fascist friends, to reassure them of the importance of the cause.’
Heine’s eyes were cold, but he nodded, and Tim smiled. What else could either of them do in the presence of the other three SD personnel? As he lay sleepless in bed that night, Tim could imagine Potty licking his lips, while his own were dry from nervousness.
The next morning Heine, in the company of Bruno, Hans and Otto, drove him into Austria, along snowy roads, the windscreen wipers swishing relentlessly. All four, he gathered, would be working on collating and ‘obtaining’ information for their department, a department that was never named. They spent a week in Vienna, building up their dossiers, while he strolled the streets, despite the cold, beneath the Nazi flags and banners already hanging from the buildings.
Tim drank morning coffee in cafés, ordering in English but listening with an increasing grasp of German to the talk all around. It was pro-German. He listened over lunch, in different restaurants each day, while waiters swanned and swayed between tables. In the evening the five of them rushed out to clubs, and while the comrades drank and ate, Tim pretended to be watching the leggy blondes in their skimpy uniforms as the men talked business: how many Jews they had listed, how many Freemasons, how many Reds, socialists, Mischlings.
At this, he thought of Avraham, and touched the mezuzah case in his pocket. Potty had said he should leave it behind – after all, if he was found with it he would be in danger. Tim wouldn’t be parted from it because it enhanced his determination. Each evening, back in his hotel room, aware of bugs, he whispered as he looked in the mirror, ‘Britain must have a fighting chance. To do that, we need information, and we need time.’
He would then wash, and pat his face dry. Rituals? They all had them. Did they make a blind bit of difference? Probably not, but they kept him focused. The Nazis might say they were going to ‘expand’ only to the East, but he didn’t believe that for a moment, neither did Potty, though some in power still did.
In the first week of January 1939, Tim expected to carry yet another package from Sir Anthony to Heine, but he delayed his trip after his da telephoned with news of James, who had been in a training crash in his RAF biplane. An anxious week followed, until the news came, via his da, that James had only broken his leg, and would be back in the air in a few months.
Tim hurried out and bought a couple of books to send to the military hospital. He also bought a couple of late Christmas gifts for his mother: soap and bath oil. For Heine he also bought soap. Well, he didn’t want to spend more than he had to on them.
He travelled in the bitter January weather, set firmly on course for the lion’s den, though it was a different address, an apartment closer to the centre of Berlin. Could this be a consequence of Kristallnacht? Would he find evidence of another mezuzah case? Of bloody course he would.
He wondered if they would go to the clubs. Would the SS, the SD and Uncle Tom Cobley and all be humming with escalating excitement? Would he hear more talk from Heine and his cronies about their infernal dossiers, or perhaps even, with luck, their thoughts on what they knew or surmised of the future plans of Herr Hitler, or at the very least, their department?
At the apartment, there was, of course, evidence of a removed mezuzah case on the door frame. Inside there were chandeliers capable of competing with Easterleigh Hall’s. He handed over his presents. His mother opened hers, and her face fell. Tim said, ‘I felt the chocolates were insufficient when I came in early December, but what do you give people who have everything?’ He gestured at the room. His mother smiled. Her hair was still blonde, still done up in that ridiculous plait.
Heine was at a card table, similar to the one in their previous apartment. He had not even opened his present, but was poring over the contents of Sir Anthony’s package, frowning. Tim watched as his mother burbled by his side about the difficulties of managing servants, now she had two.
‘Amala’s still with you, then?’
‘Indeed not. It emerged her son was a Red. Can you imagine? So we have two girls from the Sudeten, but no doubt they’ll find some soldier to marry, even though I chose a couple without good looks.’ Tim barely listened, focusing on Heine as he compared the minutes with some handwritten papers from a dossier.
‘Tim, are you listening to me?’
‘Of course, Mother, but I was thinking of Fanny’s foal. I didn’t tell you she’d had a mare, did I? So we can breed from her.’
Heine looked up. ‘We? So you are all friends?’ He sounded more than curious.
Tim cursed himself, but was able to say, honestly, ‘Do you really think they will be friends ever again with someone who has my politics? It was a wedding party, and Fanny went into labour. For a moment Bridie and I were together at the stall, but then it all fell apart. I don’t care – why would I, when I have Penny, and Sir Anthony, and all the others? They’re my family now.’
At the mention of Sir Anthony, Heine had returned to his task of checking the minutes against the other sheets.
Millie gripped Tim’s wrist. ‘I am your family, not anyone else.’
Heine shouted then, ‘You must remember, you foolish woman, that our family is the Volk, the people. They are more important than those who bore us, who parented us. It is the Volk that deserve our loyalty. This is what we teach our children, to look to the Führer, not their parents. If they can understand it, why can’t you, especially in public, especially—’ He waved his hand around. He must mean listening devices.
He was standing at the card table, and had thrown down Sir Anthony’s minutes. ‘Tim, you know Sir Edgers, I believe?’
Tim was alert, but made his body seem relaxed as he had trained himself to do. ‘Yes, I do, but we’re not exactly friends, Heine.’ He leaned forward, flipping up the lid of the silver cigarette box which had come with his mother from the Gerbers’ apartment. ‘We’ve met at the Peace Club dinners and some of the fascist meetings. But we never acknowledge one another, of course, if we happen to pass. It wouldn’t go down well.’
‘He’s still on the committee for—’ Heine stopped. ‘Never mind. Just— Never mind.’
He was thinking, clearly, tapping the minutes against his thumb. Tim kept his hand steady as he offered the cigarette box to his mother. She took one, as did he, before replacing the box on the table. He tapped his on the back of his hand, then reached for the lighter, also on the table. Heine was watching him. He forced himself to continue. He lit his mother’s cigarette, and then his own, and replaced the lighter.
Heine asked, ‘Where is the cigarette case we gave you?’
‘Forgive me, I had my pocket picked, my wallet went too. I had to walk home, last summer. I didn’t know how to tell you.’
Heine shrugged. ‘You should have. Millie, get that red gold one from the bedroom. I don’t care for it, it’s too heavy.’ He moved to the decanters and poured them all a Scotch. ‘Go, then,’ he ordered Millie, as he put her drink on the table. He sank into one of the leather armchairs. Against the far wall was a large ceramic stove which heated the room, almost too much. Millie sighed, and teetered off on her high heels. Her seams were crooked.
Heine lifted his glass towards Tim. ‘Prost.’
Tim replied, ‘Cheers.’ He needed to keep up the fiction of knowing no German. He sipped.
Heine said, as he took a gulp, ‘You never really drink?’ It was a question.
Tim laughed, as though embarrassed. ‘I did, you might remember, once or twice here in Germany, and too often in Britain. It got me into trouble. It quite put me off.’
Heine looked at him over the top of his glass and gulped almost half the contents, as though that was his comment on the pathetic Britisher’s answer. ‘I, however, like to drink,’ he said. ‘Does Sir Anthony like to drink? Does he have many friends? Who are those friends? Does he get distracted? Is he showing his age?’
The questions were coming like shots, rat-a-tat. Tim played stupid, which wasn’t hard because he hadn’t a clue what to answer, so he tried the truth.
‘Well, yes, he has friends. He’s such a good man, and now he’s celebrating peace, so yes, I suppose he has been, well, celebrating. But he’s always the gentleman, never out of hand.’
‘His friends?’
Tim shook his head, playing for time to get his head in order. ‘Well, I don’t know outside our own circle. Lady Margaret, Penny, Sir and Lady Edgers – and one or two others drink a bit.’ He paused. Ah, the Edgers. What had Potty said, something about him being under suspicion? Yes, that was it. He said now, ‘Mark you, now I think of it, Sir Edgers tipples for England, much more than Sir Anthony, I would have said. His wife, well . . .’ He laughed. ‘He had to take her home from one dinner party. Totally drunk, she was, and he wasn’t too far off it.’
Heine was on his feet again, hurrying to the card table, reading the minutes, checking the handwritten ones. He looked up, as though a problem had been solved, and said, ‘You are correct, drink does terrible things, causes errors and unreliability.’
Millie came back into the room with the cigarette case. ‘This one?’
‘How many have you?’ Tim laughed.
‘He was a jeweller,’ Millie said.
Penny arrived with her mother two days later, and they stayed at a smart hotel. They all met at a restaurant, with Heine in full uniform, and Bruno came too, at Tim’s suggestion, because his wife had died the previous year. The blonde, blue-eyed god cast Tim into the outer darkness within minutes, and took over Penny’s amorous intentions entirely.
His mother consoled him when they arrived back at the apartment. ‘Never mind, Tim. Once she returns to England she’ll forget about him. She’s worth marrying, you know. The family has money, and if we turn towards the West after all, you’ll all be amongst the elite. It’ll be such fun, and we can have Easterleigh Hall for our own. Just imagine, returning there in style. How simply wonderful.’
Heine sighed.
Tim barely listened. Potty had told him that he’d doctored the minutes of a meeting which he had left in Sir Anthony’s path. He clearly hadn’t realised that Sir Edgers had also sent the correct version. At least this time Heine seemed to think that Sir Anthony’s were more reliable, but it only needed another agent of Heine’s to rumble that Sir Edgers barely touched a drop for Tim’s cover to be blown, and Sir Anthony to be put in jeopardy for forwarding misinformation.
He stared up at the chandelier, wondering what progress Potty had made in finding Heine’s father’s details, because they might well need something damning to wield over Heine, possibly sooner rather than later.