Angel in Red Read online

  ‘I meant does she know about Anna?’

  ‘Well of course she does. She was there when the woman Gehrig started shooting.’

  ‘And Anna snapped Gehrig’s neck. You never did tell me how Belinda reacted to that.’

  ‘Well, she was shocked, of course.’

  ‘Does she know that you and Anna had an affair?’

  ‘Yes. She found out.’

  ‘And forgave you?’

  ‘Circumstances were unusual.’

  ‘Oh, indeed. And does she have any idea what Anna does when she becomes agitated?’

  ‘Well, it’s difficult to watch a woman calmly break another woman’s neck and not get the impression that she has her bad moods.’

  ‘So how do you think she will react to your charging off after your glamorous viper again?’

  ‘There is no need for her to know anything more than that I am being posted abroad for a few weeks.’

  ‘Didn’t you once tell me that you intended to marry her? Belinda, I mean.’

  ‘I did, and I asked her, four years ago. She didn’t like the idea of being an MI6 wife. She thought it was too close to being a widow. She is also not a hundred per cent domesticated, in the housewife sense.’

  ‘I thought she was an excellent cook.’

  ‘She is. Because she enjoys it. She does not enjoy, and has no interest in, such chores as washing a man’s socks, or making his bed.’

  Baxter stuck to the point. ‘But four years ago was before any of us knew that Anna existed, and the world was a comparatively peaceful place. I think you should force the issue and marry her as soon as possible.’

  ‘But then,’ Clive pointed out, ‘you would be asking me to commit adultery and deceive my wife.’

  Baxter put down his pipe. ‘You are an unmitigated scoundrel, Clive. You will receive your posting as soon as it can be arranged.’

  *

  ‘What’s this?’ Belinda Hoskin inquired in that deceptively quiet voice she used when displeased. A small, dark-haired woman with prettily sharp features, she presented the greatest possible contrast to Anna Fehrbach, not least in the intensity of her personality. Clive knew very well that Anna’s personality was just as intense, but she kept it securely hidden behind that glacial exterior, even in moments of enormous stress.

  Now he smiled as disarmingly as he could and held out the glass of scotch he had just poured. ‘It’s a suitcase, darling. I had no idea you were coming round tonight.’

  ‘You mean you were planning a moonlight flit?’

  He took her in his arms to kiss her, having to raise her from the floor to get her mouth level with his. But he knew she enjoyed this, especially as he had grasped her buttocks to hold her in position. ‘I was going to tell you.’

  She wriggled down his body, disengaged herself, took a sip of the drink, and carried it into the kitchen. It was her nature to take immediate control of every situation that presented itself, and even if she was in Clive’s flat she intended to prepare dinner herself. Her system was perhaps necessary for the fashion editor of a leading London magazine. And he had no objection to her practising it around him; he knew she found him very frustrating because he was so often carried in an alternate direction by the requirements of his job. As he had told Baxter, although she claimed she was not into washing socks and preparing regular meals, he had no doubt that the real reason she had always declined to marry him was that lack of total control.

  And recently she had been more adrift than usual. To walk in, as she had done the previous year, on her lover entertaining a stunningly beautiful woman in a compromising situation, had led to an immediate decision to deal with the situation. She had followed Anna Bordman back to her Mayfair apartment. She had never told him exactly what she had had in mind, or even what the two women had said to each other when she had gained access: she certainly had had no idea just who and what she was preparing to engage. But she had still been there when Anna’s apparent ‘servant’ had appeared and sought to kill them both. Clive had never been sure which had upset Belinda more: the fact that she had looked death in the face, or that Anna had reacted with such consuming and lethal force.

  If Anna had saved her life by that prompt action, Belinda had in turn saved Anna’s life by immediately calling him to the rescue, while her rival lay on the floor, apparently bleeding to death. He supposed these things made a bond. In any event it had been necessary both to put Belinda as much into the picture as was required, and make her swear secrecy under the Official Secrets Act.

  From that moment she had treated him with a new respect, and quite forgiven him for his brief fling. If she had always known he worked, and travelled, for MI6, this had been her first intimation of just how dangerous that work could be.

  ‘So where are you going?’ she asked now.

  ‘Away for a couple of days. Company business.’

  She started breaking eggs with more force than was actually necessary. ‘That’s a big suitcase, for a couple of days.’

  ‘Well, it could be a couple of weeks. Shall I open a bottle of wine?’

  ‘I hate you,’ she announced. ‘I loathe and despise you. Do you have any of that Bollinger left?’

  ‘Always happy to oblige, ma’am.’

  He laid the table while she completed scrambling the eggs and making toast. They touched glasses as they sat facing each other. ‘You’re not going to get shot or something stupid, are you?’

  ‘I shall be moving strictly amongst friends. Or at least neutrals.’

  She brooded while drinking champagne. ‘Do you think she got away?’

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Your inamorata. It’s been all of two months.’

  ‘Well, we didn’t really expect her to telephone and say hello.’

  ‘But she is working for us now, isn’t she?’

  ‘She worked for us, darling, to help us destroy that German spy ring here in London. So we sent her home. She wanted to go. She’s done her bit as far as we’re concerned.’

  ‘And if the Nazis ever found out what she did?’

  ‘That is not something to consider while eating scrambled eggs.’

  Belinda shivered. Clive felt like doing the same.

  *

  ‘You may have next weekend off,’ Anna said. ‘I am going down to Prague.’

  ‘Am I not to come with you?’ Birgit asked.

  ‘No. It is a private visit. Spend the days with your family; when we go to Moscow at the end of the month you will be away from Berlin for perhaps a year.’

  She dressed and went to her Russian class. She reckoned she was about as proficient as she was going to get in the limited time she’d been allowed. Obviously, even with spending an hour or so on homework every night, there was no possibility of her developing a Moscovite accent, but with her memory and her ear for words she had mastered the fundamentals of grammar and developed quite a vocabulary. She felt she was perfectly capable of carrying out the task of picking up what was being said around her. In any event, she had no doubt that Chalyapov would wish to speak German with her. However . . .

  ‘There was another young lady supposed to join me for these lessons,’ she remarked to Herr Toler after class.

  He was an eager young man who wore a goatee beard and regarded her with longing eyes. He clearly enjoyed their one-to-one sessions, sitting beside her at the big desk, shoulders often touching as they parsed sentences and delved into what passed for Communist literature. ‘Fraulein Gehrig. Yes, I have been expecting her, but she has not turned up as yet.’

  ‘I see,’ Anna said grimly. The wretched girl was going to be even more difficult than she had supposed. ‘Well, let us hope she appears on Monday. I will see you then, Herr Toler.’

  She took herself home to the apartment; she had not yet had any further communication from Antoinette’s Boutique, and therefore intended to spend the afternoon in the gym.

  Birgit rolled her eyes as she opened the door. ‘There is someone here to see you, Countess.�
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  ‘Oh Lord!’ She was not in the mood to fend off either amorous men or officious clerks. She opened the drawing-room door and gazed at Marlene Gehrig, who was on her feet and looking anxious.

  ‘I have been told I am to go to Russia with you,’ Marlene said in her husky voice.

  Anna surveyed her. She wore a dress of no great style and low-heeled shoes. Her hair was in a bun and her face, although it could never be unattractive, wore an apprehensive expression. ‘You were supposed to be here two weeks ago.’

  ‘Well . . .’ Marlene looked sulky. ‘When that ghastly Doctor Cleiner dismissed me, he just told me to leave. I was taken to the SS female barracks and given a room, but as no one seemed to have any orders for me, I took a break.’

  ‘One does not take a break unless specifically instructed to do so,’ Anna pointed out. ‘Where did you go?’

  ‘Bonn.’

  ‘What on earth did you have to do in Bonn?’

  ‘I went to see my sister.’

  Just what she had feared. The situation was becoming impossible. ‘You have a sister living in Bonn.’

  ‘Yes. Her husband works there.’

  ‘I see. Tell me, how many other sisters do you have?’

  ‘Only Elena. Then when I returned to Berlin, I was told I had to start taking Russian lessons. Do you know what is to happen to me?’

  Anna supposed that one more Gehrig was tolerable. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘As you are coming with me to Russia you are required to speak Russian. You are supposed to have been learning the language for the past fortnight. Now you have just two more weeks. You will attend classes morning, afternoon and evening for those two weeks, commencing today.’

  Marlene’s lips were trembling. ‘You’re angry with me.’

  ‘Well of course I’m angry with you. I should punish you.’

  Tears rolled down Marlene’s cheeks. ‘Please don’t be angry with me, Anna. I so want to work with you. I’ll do anything you wish.’

  ‘I have told you what I wish.’ The girl looked so pitiable. Anna went to the sideboard and poured two glasses of schnapps, gave her one. ‘Welcome. So you could not bring yourself to kill a living target?’

  Marlene sat down, knees pressed together, holding the glass in both hands as she sipped. ‘I tried. But my hand would not stop shaking.’

  ‘Did you want to?’

  ‘I don’t know. I kept remembering what you told me, that when a thing has to be done it has to be done. But then I also remembered that you refused to kill that man in the schoolroom.’

  ‘As you have just reminded yourself, the essential aspect of being able to survive in our profession is to be able to do what has to be done when it has to be done. I have proved my ability to do this on several previous occasions. I do not enjoy killing people. So I saw no necessity to prove my ability again for Cleiner’s amusement. You have not yet proved your ability – at anything. And I think you should know that I can be every bit as brutal as Cleiner, if I have to. You have been seconded to me by General Heydrich for the sake of your mother’s memory. So I am now your commanding officer, and if I give you an order it must be obeyed instantly and without question. Our lives may depend on it.’

  ‘But what exactly are we – am I – going to do?’

  ‘We are going to spy for the Reich. I will do most of this, but I will require you to act as my back-up, as and when I need you, regardless of the consequences. Do you understand this?’

  Marlene licked her lips and then swallowed the rest of her schnapps.

  ‘So you will have lunch with me, and this afternoon you will come with me to the gym before going to your Russian class. I will inform Herr Toler that you are coming, and that you are required to work evenings as well for the next fortnight.’

  ‘Am I going to the gym to shoot somebody?’

  Anna smiled. ‘To do whatever I tell you to do.’

  *

  Anna was aware of a most peculiar sensation. Although she knew that most people with whom she came into contact considered her to be a dominant personality, and she knew that she could be, she had spent her entire life thus far as a subordinate. Even when head girl in the Vienna convent, she had been strictly controlled by the nuns. Since being conscripted into the SD she had been entirely at the mercy of her superiors, and indeed had suffered a terrible punishment for trying to assert herself. This young woman’s mother had been one of the punishers. She understood that she would never be free of the control of men like Reinhard Heydrich or Billy Baxter, although she often reflected with some satisfaction that if she played her cards right she could survive while one of them went to the wall at the end of the war.

  But she remained totally vulnerable until that end came. And here she was being given total control of another woman for the first time in her life. To complicate the situation she also knew that this girl was a potential deadly enemy who might have to be destroyed if she ever gleaned the slightest inkling of how her mother had died.

  But Marlene herself broached the subject over lunch, again raising the question she had asked at their first meeting. ‘Do you really have no idea of what could have happened to my mother?’ she asked.

  ‘I have not really had the time to think about it,’ Anna confessed. ‘As I told you, I only know that she was ordered to flee England because of the imminence of war. But shortly after she left I had an accident and was in hospital for several weeks. Then I was betrayed to the British and had to flee.’ This was telescoping events but she did not think Marlene could possibly know that.

  ‘But you fled back to Germany. Mother didn’t. You don’t think she could have been the one who betrayed you?’

  ‘Is that something you really want to think about your mother?’

  ‘Well, of course not. But has the thought never crossed your mind? After the way she just disappeared?’

  Anna appeared to consider this. ‘The first thing you want always to remember is that your mother is a dedicated Nazi and believer in the Third Reich. I do not believe it possible for her to have been a traitor. I’m afraid we must consider the possibility, perhaps the probability, that something went wrong with the escape route.’

  ‘You mean she might have been captured by the British?’

  ‘She cannot possibly have been taken alive or I would almost certainly have been arrested long before they actually got around to suspecting me. But when on assignment, we are all issued with cyanide capsules to be used in the last resort.’

  Marlene stared at her with enormous eyes. ‘You think . . .? Oh my God!’

  ‘Your mother trained me,’ Anna reminded her. ‘So when I say that what has to be done has to be done, I am quoting her.’

  ‘You admired her?’

  I hated, loathed, and despised her, Anna thought. But she said, ‘How could anyone not admire so strong and dedicated a character?’

  Marlene burst into tears.

  *

  That did not encourage Anna to make her training any easier. If she still felt that the girl had to be a potential danger, she also felt that she might just need her, and over the next week she made her undertake an exhausting regime of both physical training and firearms practice in addition to her concentrated Russian lessons.

  But this, as she knew, was but an aspect of her own uncertainty. However distasteful it had been to have to marry Ballantine Bordman and allow him the use of her body, it had been possible to approach the business with the single-mindedness that was her greatest strength. Even when Clive had entered her life to complicate matters, he had been both a back-up and the promise of an eventual haven. Now she felt utterly adrift. It was more than two months since she had left England, and not a word. She was committed to another love affair, no doubt as distasteful as the last. And now, to top it all, she had acquired Heinz Meissenbach. Her guilt and uncertainty was compounded by the fact that she was actually looking forward to her weekend in Prague. At the very least he seemed to be both an educated and a cultivated man. But she knew sh
e was taking him on in anger at being ignored by London as much as anything.

  And then on the Friday morning before she left for Prague, the telephone rang and Birgit appeared in the doorway. ‘It is that boutique place, Countess.’

  ‘Oh!’ Anna knew colour had rushed into her cheeks. She brushed past the maid and grasped the phone. ‘Yes?’

  ‘Countess? Signor Bartoli here. I have made the alterations you wanted in that dress and it is ready for another fitting.’

  ‘Oh!’ Anna said again. The train left at four. ‘I am going out of town for a few days, but I would like to take the dress with me if it is suitable. Shall I come in this morning?’

  ‘Certainly, Countess. Shall we say ten?’

  As if she did not have enough on her mind. But this had to be more important than anything else. She felt quite breathless.

  Marlene turned up at nine to say goodbye. ‘Do I continue training while you are away?’

  Anna gave her a bright smile. ‘You may take the weekend off, Marlene. Go somewhere and have a good time and I will see you on Monday evening.’

  ‘A good time?’

  ‘Don’t you have any family left, apart from your sister?’

  ‘No.’

  Oh Lord, Anna thought, she’s going to start crying again! ‘You must have a boyfriend?’

  ‘No. Do you have a boyfriend, Anna?’

  ‘I think I am about to acquire one,’ Anna said. ‘What about friends? You must have some friends. What about the other SS girls in your barracks?’

  ‘They have all heard of my mother and they seem afraid of me. And now they know that I’m working for you . . .’

  Anna wondered if Heydrich had deliberately set this up to make her life more difficult. ‘Well, you will have to go to a couple of movies or something. I will see you on Monday.’

  She hurried her downstairs, watched her walk away along the street, and proceeded to call a taxi.

  *

  Bartoli beamed at her. ‘Seeing you always makes the day brighter, Countess.’

  Anna reflected that he had made a good recovery from the snubbing she had administered the last time they had met. ‘As you always bring me back to reality, Signor Bartoli.’