Michael Ridpath - Shadows of War

‘So tell me Mr de Lancey—’

‘Conrad.’

‘Conrad. Veronica says you want to talk to me about poor Freddie’s death?’

‘I do,’ said Conrad. ‘But let me tell you first about my sister, Millie, who also died last November.’ Veronica had suggested that this would be the best way to win Polly’s trust, and it worked. Conrad was vague about which Germans exactly Millie had met in Holland, but he did speak about Henry Alston and Marjorie Copthorne’s friend Constance.

‘I’m so sorry to hear all that,’ Polly said with the sympathy of someone with a fresh understanding of grief. ‘So you think this Constance might have killed your sister?’

Conrad shrugged. ‘That’s what the Dutch police think. And Constance and Henry Alston are lovers.’

‘Lovers? I didn’t know Henry had a mistress! I wouldn’t have thought he was the type.’

‘I’m sure he kept her very quiet.’

Polly put down her tea cup and stared hard at Conrad, assessing him. Conrad waited. People usually trusted him because he usually told the truth, and he was certainly telling the truth now.

‘My husband and Henry Alston knew each other for several years,’ she said eventually. ‘Ever since Henry became an MP. They were very good friends, especially in the last year or so. They shared the same views on the war: they both wanted to stop it at any cost. I met Henry a few times, but he gave me the creeps. It wasn’t his scars; there was just something about him. And Freddie and I disagreed about the war. I think if we are fighting the Germans we should jolly well beat them, and that Hitler is an awful monster.’

‘There’s something to be said for that,’ said Conrad.

‘I know Freddie and Henry used to see your father sometimes. Freddie had a lot of time for him, and for Henry. Said they were both brilliant men and just what the country needed. Freddie, love him though I did, poor darling, wasn’t brilliant, and he knew it.

‘Then, just before he died, Freddie became worried about something. Dreadfully worried. I don’t know what it was, but I know it had something to do with Henry Alston, some sort of scheme he had which upset Freddie. He almost told me but then he changed his mind. I tried to push him on it, but he said I was better off not knowing. That worried me in itself.’

‘Have you any idea what this scheme was?’

‘No, none, except that it troubled him deeply.’

‘My father says that perhaps Freddie was too extreme for Alston and that is why they fell out?’

Polly Copthorne laughed. ‘It was always Henry who had the ideas and Freddie who followed. Freddie never told me what those ideas were, he thought I would disapprove, but they excited him. Until they didn’t. And then he was run over.’

‘You think Alston might have run him down deliberately?’

‘Yes. I do. He was meeting Henry that night at Erskine’s. Henry left a few minutes before him. Freddie was run over in the lane before he got to St James’s. Why would anyone be driving fast enough to kill someone in a dead-end side street in the dark unless they wanted to do just that? Kill them.’

‘Did you tell the police?’

‘Oh, yes. They were very interested. They had questioned Henry once, and were going to question him again. Then it all went quiet. I asked the policeman who had interviewed me why, and he said they had evidence a driver unknown to Freddie had knocked him down and just drove off. The policeman wouldn’t say what that evidence was. He didn’t look happy about it; he looked sorry for me.’

‘You suspect a cover-up?’

‘I am jolly certain that Henry Alston killed my husband.’

Conrad nodded. ‘Thank you, Polly. Did you ever hear Freddie speak of my sister? Or Constance Scott-Dunton?’

‘No. I do know that Freddie was going to ask his niece Marjorie to help him with something, but I don’t know what came of that. Constance Scott-Dunton, presumably.’ She smiled at Conrad. ‘I am sorry about your poor sister. If there is anything I can do to help you prove Sir Henry Alston was involved in her death, or Freddie’s, I will.’

‘I liked your friend Polly,’ Conrad said as Veronica drove him back to London.

‘Do you think she’s right, or do you think she’s imagining things?’ Veronica asked.

‘I rather think she’s on to something,’ said Conrad. ‘What about you?’

‘The thing people don’t realize about Polly is that she’s really quite clever. And perceptive. She may well be on to something.’

Veronica turned to look behind at Conrad. Then the car wobbled and she looked ahead on the empty road. ‘I am sorry about Millie, Conrad. That’s dreadful for you.’

‘Thanks.’

‘Look. We’ll be back in London in no time. Do you want to drop into the Ritz for a cocktail on the way back to the station?’

Conrad was tempted. No matter what she did, Conrad was always tempted by Veronica. ‘I’m sorry, I had better get to the station as early as possible. The trains never run when they should.’

‘I don’t know,’ said Veronica. ‘What does a girl need to do to get a drink these days?’

Zossen

‘So, Hertenberg. Can you see the changes?’

Lieutenant Colonel Liss, as he now was, was grinning as he glanced at Theo. They were standing over the cowhide: the relief map of northern France and the Low Countries.

Theo examined the German deployment. There were still three army groups: C by France’s eastern border with Germany, A just to the east of the Ardennes and Luxembourg, and B further north on the Belgian and Dutch borders.

‘You have switched some divisions from Army Group B to Army Group A,’ said Theo.

‘You have a good memory. I remember you suggesting it. Army Group A will now make the main thrust through the Ardennes to Sedan, and Army Group B will push through central Belgium to engage the Allies in Flanders.’

‘I suspect it wasn’t me who changed your mind.’

‘No. It was General Manstein and General Guderian. And the Führer. The crash at Mechelen helped.’

‘Really? I thought that was disastrous.’ In January an aeroplane transporting a staff officer carrying plans for Case Yellow from Munster to Cologne had somehow got lost and crashed in Belgium, near the town of Mechelen. The documents had been captured: they detailed the original Case Yellow invasion plan of Holland and Belgium, with the main thrust being carried out by Army Group B to the north. Theo knew that the plans had swiftly found their way to the French and British general headquarters.

‘The Führer was of the view that we had to change Case Yellow, now that the enemy knew the original plan. So, given the weaknesses you had highlighted around Sedan, we have.’

‘And when you play the war game, do we win now?’ Theo asked.

‘That depends,’ said Colonel Liss. ‘And that’s why you are here.’ He pointed to the French 7 thArmy, deployed around Lille on the western Belgian border. ‘If the French send their most powerful troops north into Flanders according to their Plan D, then Guderian breaks through here.’ He pointed to the Meuse at Sedan. ‘And there is no one to stop him. But, if the French 7 thArmy moves immediately eastwards to reinforce the front near Sedan, things get bogged down.’

Theo’s brother Dieter would be with Guderian’s armoured corps at Sedan.

‘Won’t the French assume that we have changed our plans, now we know they have them?’

Liss grinned. ‘According to your colleagues, they seem to believe that the Mechelen crash was staged by us as a bluff. I can see why: it’s extraordinary that any pilot could get so lost as to stray over the Rhine into the wrong country, however bad the weather, but there you are. So, as far as we are aware, the French are still using Plan D. I would like you to confirm that.’