Next, a slightly different hairstyle with her hair falling over her left eye, and the brooch removed. A last photograph was snapped and the photographer retired to the darkroom while confirming that the photos were on good quality paper.
A coffee appeared and she waited drinking slowly. Twenty minutes later the photographer returned with her pictures.
‘Two different people,’ she said, looking at her two images.
‘Two different lives, perhaps,’ he said. He was probably in his early twenties, young and impressionable. Clearly, he was perceptive as well.
‘You will receive the photos when they are cleared. They will be stamped and embossed first.’
The telephone rang and the photographer took the call. ‘You have to report to Gruppenführer Eicke’s room now. Please knock first.’
She walked back along the corridor, wondering who might want to meet her. It could be Karl, as a goodwill gesture by Eicke. On the other hand, even Otto on leave from his training. Eager to find out, she hurried to the door and knocked twice.
Eicke came to meet her, smiling. Beyond him, she could see a tall, elegant, blond man who looked at her with piercing blue eyes. She had seen photos of this man in the papers, a cultured man from a family of distinguished musicians – and someone who was at the very heart of the state police. Hitler himself called him the man with an iron heart.
‘Hilda, meet SS-Obergruppenführer Reinhart Heydrich.’
She held out her hand to shake his, but he took hold of it, turned it over and kissed it.
She froze at the sight of his formality.
‘It is a pleasure to meet you,’ he said in a remarkably high voice. She recalled that the papers had commented on in this during the very early 1930s, but never since. He had clearly risen above any embarrassment which the defect had caused him; he was known as a killing machine and proud of it. Hilda’s knees were trembling. She was in a lion’s den.
‘Your late husband was Dr Willy Richter, I think?’ he asked, indicating that she should sit.
‘Dr Willy Richter, yes,’ she confirmed, wondering how he knew.
‘He began his medical career in Halle an der Saale, not so?’
‘Yes, I believe so, but that was before I met him here in Hamburg.’
‘Of course.’
The pause quickly became unsettling.
‘My parents were very fond of him.’
‘Really?’ Surely, he must have noticed her incredulity. She could hardly believe Willy could possibly have had any connection with this beast of a man whose flick of a hand sentenced men, women, even children, to death without a hint of hesitation.
‘Halle an der Saale is my hometown, where I was born. My mother had been very ill, devastating for a music teacher. Dr Richter came to our house to administer medicine. Over the weeks, my mother’s strength returned. They used to discuss their love of music too. Our family will never forget his kindness: he asked for no payment for his services, and eventually she made a full recovery. We were very sad to hear he was leaving to go to Hamburg. That was of course your good fortune.’
Hilda smiled. It was so like Willy not to ask for payment. His patients were always his priority. Moreover, Willy’s departure from his hometown was indeed her good fortune.
‘I feel a debt is owed by my family to you, as Dr Richter’s widow.’
So, that was why this meeting was taking place. Hilda felt uncomfortable. However, Heydrich had not finished speaking.
‘Flowers and chocolate came to mind momentarily, but I have decided a more special and lasting token is more deserved.’
‘That is very thoughtful but quite unnecessary,’ she said.
‘Let me be the judge of that,’ he said abruptly tapping the table twice with his silver-topped cane. ‘I hear you have been sending reports from Scotland, meeting our agents there, and are now returning for more instructions. Espionage is a very courageous life, very demanding, and a lonely life too. It is not something I could easily do. Spies do not always have the easiest, dare I say, the longest, of lives and so we must be grateful for their information when it comes. I wish to show you how grateful I am to you, and to record my gratitude to your late husband.’
He lifted up his brown leather case and opened it. He brought out a black box. Once more Hilda found she was staring at a swastika.
‘Frau Richter, please stand,’ he ordered.
Eicke stood too. Clearly, he saw her as one of his own protégées, and he wanted his share of the credit for her achievements. She stood up straight to receive Heydrich’s gift: a brooch, perhaps.
It was far more than that.
‘Frau Richter, I hereby award you the German Eagle Civilian Medal with crossed swords in honour of your service to the Reich.’
He placed the red and silver ribbon around her neck and stood behind her to secure the hooks and eyes, then stood in front of her at attention and raised his arm in salutation. ‘Heil Hitler,’ he shouted.
Hilda raised her own arm even higher. ‘Heil Hitler,’ she said firmly, though a little at a loss to know exactly how much use the scanty false information she had provided could possibly be.
If Dynes and Thornton could have known how close she was to the centre of the Reich machine at that moment, they would have been proud of her. All the same, if they had known she was receiving such a high honour they would shake in their boots and wonder whose side she was she really on.
Over a celebratory glass of sherry, she discovered Heydrich was indeed a cultured man when the topic was music. He knew about her oboe playing too. She smiled to herself as she reflected that she would not be dancing to all his tunes.
To her great relief, after fifteen minutes their glasses were empty, the social niceties were at an end, and she was keen to leave.
‘We need detain you no longer, Frau Richter,’ said Eicke. ‘Germany expects great results from you. You are a real credit to the Reich.’ She had made his day. He walked with her to the door with a self-satisfied smug grin, which put her in mind of a proud father.
Her manufactured smile maintained his confidence in her. She left the room and closed the door behind her, letting out a sigh of relief.
She looked down. Her shoelace had come undone and she knelt down to tie it. Stooping just outside the room, she heard Eicke querying the award. She stayed frozen to the spot; Heydrich’s high-pitched reply was as clear as a bell. ‘She needed an incentive to stay German,’ he said. ‘Once she is back in Britain, she must not lapse.’
They certainly valued her. She moved away smartly, quietly and better informed.
Chapter 11
Otto Finds the Award
Rain assaulted the lounge window laterally that Tuesday morning. Outside, the traffic was scarce. Cyclists bent forward, pedalling hard but making little progress against the constant downpour. Pedestrians sought shop awnings and sprinted across the road as quickly as their umbrellas would allow. Hilda gazed up at the heavy grey clouds brooding over Hamburg. It may have been spring, but the budding tree branches drooped and the daffodils by the roadside lay dejected and flattened.
She sat down to darn a sock, her glasses slipping to the end of her nose. The front doorbell rang, but she was not expecting anyone. She put down her sewing carefully and stood up. She hesitated before answering the bell. Perhaps Eicke had brought some new instructions. That must be it, she deduced.
The visitor knocked on the door this time. Hilda took a deep breath, relaxed her shoulders, fixed a welcoming smile on her face and turned the latch.
Standing before her was a uniformed soldier. She blinked in disbelief at the familiar face under the peaked cap, and her smile broadened.
‘Otto, my darling. Come in, come in, my dear.’