Conrad pretended not to notice. ‘No,’ he said.
‘Does he think there is still a chance of a coup?’
‘They are planning one,’ Conrad said. ‘To coincide with an offensive in the Low Countries.’
‘Interesting. Soon?’
‘In the next few days. The fifteenth to be precise. But Theo didn’t seem certain either would happen.’
‘I’ve always thought it was a mistake to rely on the generals,’ said Oakford.
‘I’m going back to Holland to see him tomorrow,’ Conrad said. ‘Van sent me. He wants me to confirm Schämmel was bait and find out if Payne Best and Stevens have talked.’
‘Oh, really?’ said Oakford, raising his eyebrows.
Conrad sensed there was something a little odd about his father’s reaction, but before he could pursue it, the door opened and a tall girl with dark hair bounded in.
‘Millie!’ Conrad leaped to his feet. She hugged him. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you here! I thought you were down in Somerset.’
‘I’ve come up to find some war work,’ Millie said.
‘It’s lovely to see you.’ And it was. Conrad and Millie had always been close. There were four surviving de Lancey children: Conrad, his younger brother Reggie, Charlotte, who was married with a baby, and Millie. Edward, the eldest and Lord Oakford’s favourite, had died in a mountaineering accident when he was twenty-two. No one in the family mentioned his name, but Conrad knew they all thought about him. Millie was twenty-three and still unmarried, although Conrad knew she had turned down many advances. The suitors didn’t surprise him; in his opinion she would be quite a catch. She was attractive in a gangly kind of way, she was intelligent and she was fun.
‘What about the evacuees?’ he asked. Millie was helping billet the bewildered families who had arrived from Coventry in September in the homes of an equally bewildered village.
‘Most of them are fed up with the country and are going home. I thought I would be more use in London.’
‘And Reggie? What’s he up to?’
Reggie was twenty-seven, a year younger than Conrad. He was therefore too old to be called up yet, but certainly young enough to volunteer.
‘He says that he’s wanted on the estate,’ Millie said.
‘He’s quite right,’ said Lord Oakford. ‘The country is going to need all the food it can grow.’
Reggie had devoted his life to managing Chilton Coombe, the small family estate in Somerset, and irritating the three perfectly capable tenant farmers there. But Lord Oakford was happy to keep at least one of his sons out of harm’s way. Conrad didn’t have much respect for Reggie.
‘Father tells me you have been on another top-secret mission,’ Millie said.
‘I suppose that’s true,’ said Conrad. ‘Although it didn’t go very well.’
Oakford poured his daughter a glass of sherry.
‘Cheers!’ said Millie, raising her glass to her brother. ‘Anything to do with Theo?’
Conrad glanced at his father, who looked sheepish. He must have told his daughter more than he was letting on. Theo had made quite an impression on Millie when he had met her in Berlin the year before; Theo tended to make an impression on women when he met them.
‘Theo is in the enemy’s secret service, Millie,’ Conrad said.
‘You’re not answering the question, are you, Conrad?’
‘No, I’m not,’ said Conrad with a grin.
They went in to dinner, the three of them. Tomato soup and pheasant from Chilton Coombe. They talked about the evacuees, and about Conrad’s mother and how the village was dealing with a German woman in its midst, which was very well — with the exception of the old bat who ran the village shop, who was causing trouble.
‘How’s Anneliese?’ Millie asked. ‘How do people treat her in London?’
‘Some people think she’s a spy because she’s German,’ said Conrad. ‘Some people think she’s a profiteer because she’s Jewish. But she says it’s miles better than Berlin. Her family seem pleased to be here, although they are all crammed into one room in Hampstead.’
‘Can’t you help, her, Conrad?’
‘Anneliese is very proud,’ Conrad said. ‘And stubborn.’
‘Like your mother,’ said Lord Oakford.
‘What’s wrong, Conrad?’ Millie asked.
Conrad hesitated. Typical of Millie to notice there was something wrong, and then to come right out and ask about it. Conrad knew his family liked Anneliese, much more than they had liked his former wife Veronica. With Millie there, he abandoned his earlier reticence.
‘I don’t know, exactly,’ he said. ‘She says she doesn’t want to see me anymore. No matter how hard I try to help her, she seems to push me away. I don’t know whether it’s got something to do with what she suffered in the concentration camp, or coming to England, or worrying about her parents. I don’t know what it is.’
‘But that doesn’t make any sense!’ Millie said.
‘Sometimes these things don’t,’ said Oakford gravely. ‘The mind can work in strange ways after the kind of thing she suffered. I know.’
Conrad and Millie fell silent. Lord Oakford had come out of the Great War a severely damaged man. His life had changed the day at Passchendaele when he had taken and held a German machine-gun position, won his Victoria Cross, lost his arm, and lost his will to fight. Since then, he had done everything he could to stop war. But also since then he had suffered from occasional bouts of black, angry misery. These Conrad and Millie had grown up with. They had come to learn what triggered these moods, but still they didn’t really understand them.
‘What should I do, Father? About Anneliese?’
It was a long time since Conrad had asked his father’s advice on anything. But he had a feeling that Lord Oakford might know the answer.
‘Do you love her?’
‘Yes,’ said Conrad. ‘In fact I asked her to marry me. She turned me down.’
Oakford sipped his water. ‘Give her space to sort herself out, Conrad. When she wants you, she’ll find you. Just make sure you are available.’
Conrad exchanged glances with Millie. That sounded like good advice, although he wasn’t sure he could just let Anneliese go. Once she went to New York he might never see her again and he wasn’t sure he could bear that. But what choice did he have?
They ate in silence for a moment or two.
‘Conrad?’ Oakford said.
‘Yes?’
‘I know I’ve asked you before now, but I could use your help.’
‘With what, Father?’ But Conrad knew. He could see Millie tense up. She was right to do so. There was trouble brewing.
‘Can you have a word with Theo for me? About peace.’
‘You’ve asked me before. The answer is still no.’
Lord Oakford had asked Conrad to meet Theo in Switzerland the previous spring, before the outbreak of war. Conrad had refused: he was suspicious of his father’s desire for peace at any cost, and was concerned that his meddling would just undermine the British government’s attempt finally to stand up to Hitler. It was true that in the end he, Conrad, had travelled to Holland to talk to Schämmel about peace, but that was at the British government’s behest, not his father’s. And that little jaunt hadn’t turned out very well.
‘We need to stop this war before it really gets going,’ Lord Oakford said.
‘We need to stop Hitler, you mean.’
‘They’ve all got plans, you know. Churchill wants to invade Norway. The French want to invade Russia. Hitler wants to invade Holland and Belgium. It’s only a matter of time before the Luftwaffe comes and starts dropping bombs on London. We’ve got to stop them, Conrad, all of them. And with your links with the Wehrmacht, you can help us.’