Michael Ridpath - Shadows of War

‘If Hitler beats the British and the French, then Germany will rule Europe and there really might be a thousand-year Reich. And that would be a disaster for the human race. For the Germans as well as all the other peoples we will have subjugated.’

‘You’re right. It would.’

‘Someone needs to investigate Charles Bedaux, Conrad.’

‘All right,’ said Conrad. ‘I will tell the secret service when I get back to England.’

‘Not your secret service,’ said Theo. ‘Someone else. You.’

‘Me?’ Conrad shook his head. ‘Don’t be ridiculous. I’m an officer in the British Army. A real soldier, not some spy. What’s wrong with the secret service? It’s not entirely compromised, is it? I thought it was just The Hague?’

‘No, it’s not that. It’s something else. You have to trust me on this.’

‘Why?’

‘Because if someone doesn’t do something pretty soon, you are going to lose this war.’

‘What? How?’

‘Check out Bedaux and you will find out.’

‘Theo, stop playing games! Tell me what’s going on here.’

‘No!’ Theo’s vehemence startled Conrad. ‘I’m not playing games. If I tell you all of what I know, then you will have to tell the authorities in Britain and I will be betraying my country. Instead of that I would prefer to point you in the right direction and leave you to discover what you are going to discover.’

Conrad was tempted to ask Theo if that wasn’t betraying his country anyway, but he kept quiet. Theo had carefully drawn a line for himself beyond which he would not go. Conrad didn’t want him to change his mind and redraw that line.

‘It’s going to be difficult for me as a serving officer,’ said Conrad.

‘You’ll work out a way,’ said Theo. ‘I know you.’

Conrad frowned. How would he clear it with Van? How could he persuade Van, or even himself, that the best thing wasn’t just to tell Major McCaigue and let the secret service get on with it?

Theo seemed to read his mind. ‘You have to trust me on this, Conrad. Investigate Bedaux yourself. Find out what he is up to. And stop him.’

Conrad sat on the bench by the ‘Singel’ for twenty minutes, while Theo went wherever Theo was going.

Conrad had obtained clear answers to Van’s questions. He was booked on a flight back to London at noon the following day. All he had to do was kill time until then. He had left his small suitcase at the station luggage office, postponing the decision about where he stayed the night.

But what about Charles Bedaux?

Conrad and Theo had been through a lot together. Theo had a cool head and sound judgement. If he said Bedaux should be investigated, he should be investigated. In theory this could be some clever Abwehr stratagem to waste the British secret service’s time. Perhaps feed them dud information. Mislead them. Yet Theo had insisted that Conrad look into Bedaux himself, and not tell the secret service.

It could be a fiendishly clever bluff or double bluff. Conrad knew enough about Admiral Canaris to know he was capable of all sorts of devious tricks.

But Conrad knew Theo wasn’t bluffing him. In fact, Conrad was pretty sure that the Abwehr wouldn’t approve of what Theo had just told him.

So he had to trust Theo. Then what?

Conrad stood up and made his way out of the Botanical Gardens, through the Academy’s iron gates, and out into the street. He crossed a little bridge over the canal and wandered through a maze of old back alleys and red-brick courtyards.

The more he thought about it, the more sure he became that he had to find out about Charles Bedaux. And he had to do it soon, because once he returned to London, he would be sent back to his battalion. There would be little he could do stuck in Tidworth.

Where to start? Conrad checked his watch. It was just after four o’clock. Conrad had spent several years researching obscure historical subjects in libraries in Oxford, London, Berlin and Copenhagen. He needed a library.

He doubled back to the Rapenburg, and a building he had spotted earlier, on the other side of the canal from the Academy. Sure enough, it was the university library, and fortunately it was open on Saturday, but only until five o’clock.

He found a friendly librarian who spoke German and just had time to locate a couple of Dutch business directories. There was an Internationale Bedaux NV listed at Spuistraat 210 in Amsterdam. The business was marked ‘Management Consulting’.

Conrad headed back to the station to catch a train to Amsterdam.

Scheveningen, Holland, 12 November

The breeze skipped in from the North Sea, plucking at Constance and Millie’s dresses as they walked along the Promenade. There were a few hardy Dutch couples taking some fresh air on a Sunday afternoon, but not many. The Kurhaus, the grand hotel overlooking the beach and pier where the two women were staying, was almost empty. Scheveningen in November was not a popular place.

The customs officer at the airport had given the women a strange look when they had told him they were going for a few days’ holiday by the sea. Scheveningen had seemed a good idea to Lord Oakford and Millie. Millie was familiar with the town — Lady Oakford had fond memories of the place from her own childhood, and the family had spent two summer holidays there when Millie was small. Also, it was only a couple of kilometres from The Hague.

The perfect place to meet Theo.

‘This is rather exciting, isn’t it?’ said Constance, threading her arm through Millie’s. ‘What’s this Theo man like? Describe him to me.’

‘He’s tall. Dark hair. He has a scar running along his jaw.’

‘How did he get that?’ asked Constance.

‘A duel when he was a student, I think,’ said Millie.

‘A duel? At Oxford? With pistols?’

‘No. At Heidelberg. With a sabre, I should imagine. That kind of German does that sort of thing at university. They think it’s terribly smart to have a face cut up like a pineapple. At least Theo has only the one scar.’

‘It sounds rather dashing.’

‘Perhaps,’ said Millie. ‘Or stupid.’

‘When you say “that kind of German”, what do you mean?’

‘Oh, you know, a Prussian aristocrat. They don’t do that sort of thing quite so much in Hamburg, where my family comes from.’

‘Is he frightfully good-looking?’

Millie hesitated. She could feel herself blushing. ‘I suppose he is.’

‘I thought so!’

‘Thought what?’ said Millie.

‘Thought you were sweet on him. Don’t deny it, I can tell. Don’t worry, I won’t get in the way.’

Millie didn’t deny it. She had first met Theo when he had visited their house in Somerset when she was fifteen and Theo had been the impossibly glamorous friend of her elder brother. But then she had seen him again in the woods around the Grunewald in Berlin the year before, while delivering a secret message from the British government to Conrad. He was still glamorous and good-looking, with a roguish charm, but this time she could see from the first glance he gave her that she had made an impression on him.

Then in April her father had asked her to meet him again, in Zurich this time. Conrad had refused to go; he didn’t trust his father to negotiate behind the British government’s back. Lord Oakford couldn’t risk being seen with a young German officer in Switzerland, but Millie could. And did.

She had spent a week there conducting negotiations through Theo on behalf of Lord Oakford. At that stage, Theo and the people whom he represented, meaning Admiral Canaris and his colleagues, wanted peace, as of course did Lord Oakford and Millie. The negotiations hadn’t come to anything; Oakford couldn’t get Lord Halifax to bend, and Canaris had no real influence over Hitler. But Oakford thought them worthwhile because of the direct channel he had opened with the plotters, if they ever did succeed in getting rid of their Führer.