Michael Ridpath - Shadows of War

‘If I were you I would get some sleep now and leave early tomorrow morning,’ said Marshall. ‘You’ll make better progress that way.’

‘But first can someone get me a drink?’ said Veronica. ‘I do find aeroplanes too thirst-making.’

Extract from Lieutenant Dieter von Hertenberg’s Diary

23 May

Still fighting in Boulogne. Ironically, we were held up by the medieval walls of the city. We needed an 88-mm anti-aircraft gun to breach them near the cathedral, but we broke through eventually. The British are putting up stiff resistance. Calais surrounded.

Paris, 23 May

Veronica and Conrad left at five the next morning in the Haldemans’ smart red Cadillac, loaded with food, wine and spare cans of petrol. The Paris streets were quiet, as were the suburbs, but once they got outside the city and on to the main Paris — Chartres road, they ran into a column of slow-moving traffic, comprising every kind of motor vehicle: tiny Simcas piled high with possessions, roadsters, family saloons, bakers’ vans, ice-cream trucks, lorries of all shapes and sizes. These were the Parisians, but interspersed with them were the farmers and peasants fleeing from the north, with their horse-drawn wagons bearing mattresses, birdcages, grandmothers and small children, and their cows ambling along beside them.

Many of the Parisians hooted and waved at the fleeing peasants to let them by. Veronica, who had insisted on driving, copied their technique, and added her own invective in appalling schoolgirl French — although she had never actually been to school, being taught at home by a German governess.

Every now and then a French aeroplane would fly overhead causing many of the refugees to dive for the ditches at the side of the road. This gave Veronica a chance to force her way ahead in the temporarily empty road.

Conrad didn’t like the attitude of the fleeing Parisians in their cars towards their less fortunate compatriots, and was tempted to insist that Veronica show a bit more consideration. But they had to catch his father up. He was comforted by the thought that Lord Oakford would have been similarly delayed.

Veronica had been talking almost non-stop since they had left the Haldemans. She was clearly excited with their ‘mission’, as she called it, and pleased with herself for wangling the car from her sister. She occasionally asked Conrad for his opinion, and he answered with a monosyllable.

Eventually, she had had enough. They had come to a complete halt. A quarter of a mile further up a hill they could see a baker’s van was blocking the road, either broken down or run out of petrol. No matter how hard the line of cars hooted, and they hooted hard and long, the van would not move. ‘Why so glum, Conrad?

‘I’ve been thinking.’

‘About your father?’

‘No. About you.’

‘About how clever I was to get the car?’

‘Not exactly. About how you got to Paris at such short notice.’

‘Imperial Airways from Heston. Fearfully expensive.’

Conrad raised his eyebrows. ‘You see, I know that’s not true, Veronica. I tried to get a flight here yesterday and there wasn’t a seat. Thomas Cook laughed at me.’

‘Ah, but you’re not me. You know I have ways of getting what I want.’

‘Why did you suddenly decide to come and help me?’

‘I thought you might need me. I was right, wasn’t I?’

‘And the other night. Why didn’t Parsons turn up? And how did the big man who tried to kill me know I was going to be there? Does Parsons even exist?’

Veronica turned to him. ‘Conrad, do you think I am lying to you?’

‘Veronica, I know you are. We were married for three years. I know you are lying to me. I just don’t know why.’

Veronica opened her mouth and shut it. The gaiety left her. She stared ahead and hit her horn hard. The driver in front hit his in response. Nothing moved.

‘Who sent you, Veronica?’

‘Major McCaigue.’

‘McCaigue!’

‘You remember you told me to see him when I came back from Holland after meeting Theo?’

‘Yes.’

‘I told him about the attack the Germans were planning. And then he said he wanted me to keep an eye on you. He seemed to know a lot about you already and quite a bit about me. I think he had been talking to Alec.’

‘Linaro?’

‘Yes. Linaro. McCaigue said that he thought you were spying for the Soviet Union. He said you had a misguided idea about the Duke of Windsor returning to England to reclaim the throne. He asked me to watch you for him.’

‘And you did it?’

Veronica swallowed. She was speaking quietly. ‘Yes. I thought it was my duty. And to tell you the truth, I was quite excited by the idea. Frankly, I could believe that you might be a Russian spy. You’ve always been a bit of a leftie, and you did leave me to go to Spain.’

‘You encouraged me to go!’ protested Conrad. ‘You were going to come too. It was going to be a wonderful lark; you were going to drive an ambulance or something. And then you never came. You stayed in England with Linaro and I got shot at in Spain for a year.’

‘Yes, all right, darling,’ said Veronica. ‘But it wasn’t as though McCaigue asked me to do you any harm.’

‘What about that fellow who tried to knife me?’

‘Yes,’ said Veronica. ‘I wondered about him. But McCaigue told me there really was a man called Parsons. He was delayed, but when he arrived in Shepherd Market, he found someone had been stabbed. So he scarpered.’

‘So it wasn’t Polly Copthorne who put you on to Parsons?’

‘No,’ said Veronica. ‘McCaigue said Parsons would have something very interesting to say to you that night. And I didn’t believe that big chap who tried to stab you was him; McCaigue assured me he wasn’t. I have no idea who he was.’

‘McCaigue sent you over here?’

‘Yes. At short notice. I flew in an RAF plane from Hendon. I saw Churchill land in it.’

Conrad’s brain was racing. He could believe that Veronica might be persuaded to keep tabs on him by someone purporting to be from the secret service. But what worried him most was McCaigue.

‘Are you a Russian spy, Conrad?’

‘Of course I’m not a bloody Russian spy!’ Conrad answered.

It sounded as if not only was McCaigue trying to keep tabs on him, which would have been disappointing but understandable, but he was trying to get Conrad killed. Which meant he was on Alston’s side. He was the ‘power that be’ who had placed doubts in Van’s mind about him, who had spread the idea he was a Soviet spy, who had tried to keep him confined to his unit. And who had tried to get him killed.

And Conrad had trusted him! Told him everything he had learned about Alston and the Duke of Windsor and Freddie Copthorne’s death. He had brought Anneliese along to speak to him. Christ! Was that why Anneliese had been arrested?

Conrad hated the thought of Anneliese in a cell, a British cell, after all she had suffered in Berlin. And McCaigue had put her there!

‘Then all this stuff about the Duke of Windsor is true?’ Veronica asked.

‘Henry Alston is planning to use the duke to precipitate a change of government,’ Conrad said. ‘Churchill will go, Lloyd George will become Prime Minister, Alston and my father will be in the government, Edward will become king again and we will make peace with Germany. Britain will become a Nazi satellite.’

‘No! So isn’t McCaigue really in the secret service? You told me to go and see him.’

‘He is,’ said Conrad. ‘But I shouldn’t have trusted him.’

‘Oh,’ said Veronica. She glanced at Conrad. ‘I’m sorry, Conrad.’

Up ahead, a group of men had manhandled the van off the road and into a ditch, ignoring the remonstrances of its driver. A few minutes later the traffic began to move.