Bitter Field Page 11

  ‘Peter intimated to me that the present policy is to go to any lengths to avoid another war.’

  ‘Unwise of him to do so, perhaps, but tending towards accurate, I’m afraid, and in Chamberlain we have a man not averse to letting Hitler know this through non-official channels, such as the American press.’

  ‘Not the leaders in our own newspapers.’

  ‘Those too!’ Vansittart replied bitterly; clearly most of the British press did not find favour with him. ‘So what we need, Mr Jardine, is some kind of irrefutable proof that there does indeed exist enough opposition to Hitler to be meaningful or, if it can be produced, something that clearly demonstrates his addiction to acting in bad faith.’

  ‘Sir Robert, half the nation hates him and everything he stands for and I know that from my own time in Germany. But they are, like you and your friends, people without power, and I fear that even you do not understand the nature of the way that country is run.’

  ‘On the contrary, I do, Mr Jardine, for I too have been there. Even in an official capacity it is easy to see that, left unchecked, the Nazi ideology will poison the whole of Europe.’

  Vansittart suddenly became more animated, though such was his self-control it was nothing rabid.

  ‘Hitler is using the threat of some great Bolshevik conspiracy to get his own way and he must be stopped. Not that I do not see Communism as an equal threat to our way of life and one that must one day be challenged and defeated.’

  Taking a deep breath, Vansittart sought to regain his normal urbane manner.

  ‘What I am saying, Mr Jardine, is this. In what you are about to do you have our blessing – that is, those who oppose Government policy – as well as any resources we have which you might need to employ in your task. Bring to the Cabinet table irrefutable proof that Hitler can be stopped by his own people and then perhaps that purblind dolt who heads our government can be made to see reason, or perhaps be forced to do so by his colleagues.’

  Sir Robert stood up as Cal was thinking that the tasks Peter Lanchester had talked about had just been extended and he was not sure he welcomed the idea. Tempted to mention it, he was not really given the chance.

  ‘Needless to say, this is a conversation that has never taken place and should it emerge that we have even spoken on such a subject I will deny it. You are going to take risks on our behalf and for that I thank you, but do not be in any doubt that people like myself are taking risks too, though not with our lives.’

  ‘Has Peter been allotted the funds I might need?’

  ‘Peter has access to anything you might need, but we have to be cautious. When you are dealing with a man who delights in conspiracy, as Neville Chamberlain does, you must not give him sight of one, for he will exploit that to his own ends.’

  ‘I wonder you didn’t resign – in fact you could do so now.’

  ‘I would dearly love to have done so previously, Mr Jardine, but the PM moved me and when he did I was replaced with someone who agreed with anything he cared to say. Now I have at least a certain amount of access and to lose that by what would be an empty gesture would not aid matters. Good luck.’

  Then he was gone, passing Peter Lanchester and indicating he wanted an equally quiet word. They conversed by the door of the lobby for a few moments, heads close, then Vansittart disappeared and Peter then came to join Cal.

  ‘He’s a decent man, Van, don’t you think, old boy? Chamberlain’s been very shabby in the way he has treated him.’

  ‘Did you find out anything about La Rochelle?’

  ‘Not yet,’ Peter replied, slightly thrown by the abruptness of the enquiry.

  ‘That’s a priority. If what your Sir Robert is hinting at is true and the answer does not lie in Czechoslovakia, I am going to have to go back into Germany, and being betrayed there will be a damn sight more inconvenient than what happened in France.’

  ‘I am working on it, but I have to be careful not to create the kind of suspicion that will alert certain people. That can only make matters worse.’

  ‘Let’s have another drink, shall we?’

  Peter nodded towards his attire. ‘Are you not due somewhere?’

  ‘I am, but the person concerned has never been on time in her life.’

  ‘A lady, what?’ Peter cried, clearly curious. ‘Far to go?’

  ‘Connaught Square,’ Cal replied with a trace of defiance. It was wasted; Peter knew that was the Jardine family home but he was not going to invite a rebuke by saying so.

  CHAPTER TEN

  ‘If I did not know you better, Callum Jardine, I would suspect you are already tipsy.’

  He had drunk more than normal, probably for the purposes of Dutch courage, but whatever the reason it meant he was not prepared to reply in his usual sardonic manner.

  ‘Lizzie, you don’t know me at all.’

  She was doing it again, standing where the light flattered her, just under a soft standard lamp. She had not been ready when he arrived, leaving him to pour another drink and wonder at the change of furniture – it seemed to take place between each of his visits. Last time it had been all white, now it was predominantly black lacquer, with the most alarming charcoal-grey and white zigzag carpet.

  She too was dressed in black, in a garment that flickered with each tiny movement as the sequins that covered it caught the light. This was Lizzie’s usual opening gambit, to look seductive and vulnerable, and it had always affected him in the past. Yet now he felt different, less engaged, an observer more than a participant in her game and he knew in his heart it had nothing to do with alcohol.

  Lizzie Jardine was still beautiful, not as she had once been, the debutante catch of the year who had taken the eye and heart of a young and newly commissioned Scottish officer preparing to go off to war. Then she had been a gamine creature; almost bird-like in fact, going on to fill out with full womanhood, making her a true beauty in her prime years.

  What was different now? The figure had not changed much, though he suspected there were things needed to keep it tight. Was it the fine crow’s feet around the eyes, now too deep to be entirely hidden by make-up, or the small vertical lines rising from her upper lip?

  He was not as entranced as he had been in the past and suddenly he knew why: Spain had cured him. There he had fallen deeply in love with a woman who was everything Lizzie was not and it had nearly cost him his life, that fight against a force as dark or perhaps darker than Fascism.

  Whatever, if Communism had robbed him of the future he envisaged, the consequence of the affair was present now, for looking at Lizzie he felt none of the magnetic pull he had suffered from previously.

  ‘Well?’ she said, spinning slowly and sparkling as she did so.

  ‘The taxi is waiting,’ he replied, putting down his empty glass.

  He helped her put on her short cloak, which exposed him to the smell of her perfume warmed by her flesh. Previously a cause of an immediate physical reaction, that was also absent and somehow she sensed it and the knowledge was in her eyes when they met his own, though as was her way it was selfishness that held sway.

  ‘I do hope you are not going to be beastly, Cal, you know how rude you can be to my friends – and me, when I check you. I don’t want my evening ruined.’

  ‘I promise not to be rude,’ he replied.

  Moments later they exited the front door and descended the exterior steps to the pavement, where stood the throbbing taxicab. Opening the door he took her elbow to aid her to get inside but he did not follow, instead taking out his wallet and passing to the driver a five-pound note.

  ‘The lady will tell you where she wants to go. There is more than enough to cover the fare and keep the change for yourself.’ With that he went to the open door, his voice firm and his look steady as he shut it. ‘Goodbye, Lizzie.’

  The delighted cabbie took off immediately he heard the door click shut and all Cal was left with was the vision of her perplexed and pixie face staring out of the back window – that and a f
eeling of release that lasted all the way as he meandered across Hyde Park. It was maintained down the back wall of Buckingham Palace, as he made his way back to the Goring Hotel, there to sleep like a lamb.

  It took several days to sort out what was needed, not least the false documents from Snuffly Bower, but when he did pick them up they were, as usual, perfect and they were delivered to Hampstead so Monty could get him visas. At Cal’s request Peter provided a document signed by Sir Hugh Sinclair that would indemnify Monty Redfern for any expenses incurred in pursuance of the task he was undertaking.

  He also had him withdraw various sums of money in different currencies – dollars, korunas and German marks – in mixed denominations that could be concealed in a money belt, funds for which he was obliged to sign. The longest wait was for the necessary visas, but they finally arrived along with Monty’s letters of introduction and – a nice touch – business cards for Redfern International Chemicals.

  The other item, not actually asked for and sent to the Goring, was a briefing on the way the crisis had developed: newspaper cuttings in the main, plus comments from various Government officials, one of which was a note signed by Vansittart, in which he assessed the spokesman for the German Czech minority, Konrad Henlein.

  The leader of the Sudeten German Party had visited London three years previously to present his case to the British people: in essence that he sought no union with Germany, just political rights for his people. Vansittart’s view, and he had met Henlein in the company of Winston Churchill, was that he was a reasonable fellow and no demagogue.

  In later notes he had added that he thought he, like everyone else, might have been duped by the fellow’s unthreatening manner because of the overwhelming evidence that Henlein had moved further towards Hitler in the intervening years to become a spokesperson for the Nazi aims of conquest.

  There was also a lengthy report from the Central European correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, who had done a sweep through the disputed areas of Bohemia and Moravia, and for once it was quite a balanced piece of reportage, which saw the Sudetenland question from both sides.

  In his view the German minority had complaints but they were minor; the Czech nation was democratic, the Sudetenlanders had the right to vote and had several political outlets across the spectrum, from Nazis through social democrats to the Workers’ Party, the first two of which had sent strong groups of elected representatives to the Prague parliament where they were free to plead their cause.

  If there were grievances these were caused more by Czech insensitivity rather than anything approaching oppression, though discrimination in official jobs was rampant. He had noticed a certain haughtiness about the Czechs, who saw themselves as both more gifted and upright than others and that would rub particularly hard up against those with a German background.

  Quite apart from employment, there was also the fact that the German children were taught in their own language, not Czech, while added to that there was bound to be a certain amount of friction caused by the local bureaucracy, which was naturally staffed by the national majority and tended to favour Czechs over Germans in disputes.

  But that did not disbar the aggrieved from a right of appeal to a higher court in Prague, where their sensitivities were accorded equal rights with their opponents. Reading it, Cal Jardine thought they might have a moan, but, rabid Nazis apart, the Sudetenlanders would regret it if they ever got Hitler and his kind of government.

  The briefing absorbed, there was shopping to be done to replace what he had left in La Rochelle, the kind of sturdy footwear and hard-wearing clothes that would stand constant and possibly outdoor use, as well as a couple of books. A visit to Stanfords in Long Acre provided maps of Czechoslovakia as well as a guide book, and he also bought two canvas holdalls, one green, the other beige, then went to work to scuff them up a bit so they looked well used.

  If folk taking a mid-morning stroll wondered at an individual playing football with such items in St James’s Park, before dropping them into the duck pond for a thorough soaking, they were too British to enquire.

  The bags, once dried out, he had fitted with stiffener boards at the base in matching material, which, with a little glue, would serve as false bottoms. In these he and Vince could hide Snuffly Bower’s passports and papers; they would go in under their personal passports but carrying nothing that was not necessary.

  Whatever they used to travel had to be light; the only quick way into Prague, and one which, unlike the Paris-to-Prague express train, did not cross German territory, was by aeroplane from Le Bourget, just outside the French capital, and the airlines were damned fussy about luggage weight.

  After several unreturned phone calls from Lizzie he decided it was time to write to her and bring some kind of closure to their relationship and that was hard to get right. He had no desire to make her homeless but she was occupying a prime town house, far too spacious for one person and an abode he would certainly never live in again.

  That he intended to sell, and give her enough to buy the lease on a flat in Mayfair or Belgravia, she could choose. There was no question that he would provide for her financially but that had to be both reasonable and agreed, which he would rather do amicably than through solicitors and she had time to think about everything as he was off on his travels again.

  The letter signed, he left the envelope at the desk to be posted. Then it was off to the Savoy Grill, one of the two books he had bought in hand, to tie up any loose ends and buy Peter a lunch he certainly felt he owed him from La Rochelle.

  As usual, as he crossed the panelled dining room to join him, passing the mirrored pillars, several sets of eyes noted his arrival and followed him; if there was one thing that never seemed to fade it was the notoriety of his being a killer. Odd that for once, after composing his letter to Lizzie, it made him feel euphoric, not angry, and instead of glares being aimed at interested female glances they got winning smiles.

  Peter waited for Cal to be seated before speaking, and was discreetly quiet when he did so. ‘As far as I know your name is still not in the frame for what happened in La Rochelle.’

  ‘Where you saved my bacon,’ Cal replied with a beaming smile that actually surprised his companion. He took a menu and the wine list and surprised him even more. ‘So perhaps we should push the old boat out. Call it a reward for all that labouring you did on that barge in the harbour.’

  ‘I still feel a twinge in my lower back from that toil, Cal, and it has done nothing for my golf swing. I have concluded I was not born for honest toil.’

  ‘Have you found out anything at all?’ Cal asked, his head buried in the wine list.

  Peter had rehearsed the answer, determined to ensure that Cal saw there was a high degree of uncertainty in what had emerged from the enquiries of his boss, with the added caveat of the need to protect a service of which he was now part.

  What did emerge made absolute sense of the delay in talking to the man Quex had mentioned, which led Peter to think there must have been suspicions about the fellow prior to what had so recently occurred.

  ‘It has been narrowed down to those who had access to the intelligence from Brno, then run that against their known affiliations and interests etcetera. No proof, of course, there never can be, but our eye has alighted on the fellow who runs the Central European Desk.’

  ‘Named?’

  ‘Sorry, old chum, no can do for reasons of security, but I can tell you he’s an Ulsterman and staunch Unionist, with all the neuroses that go with that patrimony.’

  ‘I take it he is now being watched?’

  ‘Monitored, but discreetly, and I am going to have a chat with him myself in a day or two.’

  ‘Monsieur?’ asked the sommelier.

  ‘A half of the Chablis Fourchaume to start and a bottle of the 1920 Richebourg.’

  ‘I say!’ Peter responded, before seeking to curtail his response; he did, after all, want the sommelier to think he drank wine of that quality all the time. ‘
Must say you seem rather cheerful, old boy.’

  ‘With good cause, Peter; I have just initiated a formal separation from my wife. Not a divorce, she won’t agree to that, but I feel as if I have broken some evil spell which has been cast on me for many years.’

  ‘She’s still a fine-looking filly.’

  ‘Feel free, Peter, I’ll give you her number if you like.’

  ‘Too dangerous, old boy, whatever you say. I don’t want to end up as another notch on your bedpost.’

  There was a bitter tone to the reply, in contrast to Cal’s initial light mood. ‘The notches there are not mine, Peter, they are all of them hers.’

  No doubt because a change of subject was politic, Peter pulled an envelope from his inside pocket.

  ‘These are the names of our operatives in both Prague and Berlin, plus a code to effect an introduction. I know you want to stay out of their orbit, but it might be necessary to invoke their aid and they do have the means to get to me quickly, or you out in a hurry, if that is required. Usual drill, old boy, memorise and destroy.’

  ‘Am I allowed to share these with Vince?’

  ‘So you are taking the estimable fellow with you?’ Peter asked, with just a slight trace of pique that such a fact had been kept from him till now.

  ‘I have to trust someone, Peter, and since I can’t trust your lot—’

  ‘All right, I get your point.’

  Cal passed over the book, of which he had another copy, a collection of short stories by Chekhov, handy because in Russian literature there was the constant use of obscure letters in names and place designations that made it hard for anyone to get a handle on, quite apart from the fact that as a means of sending coded messages, without a copy of the book it was near-impossible to decipher. There was no requirement to explain; they needed to be able to communicate outside normal channels.