He walked through the iron gates and stopped at what looked like a porter’s lodge. The porter didn’t speak English but was expecting him. He led him up some ancient stairs and showed him into a small room with nothing but a table and four chairs in its centre. The porter shut the door behind him.
There was something about the proportions of the room that reminded Conrad of a cell. He was drawn to the table, which was made of old gnarled wood and covered with carvings, initials and dates. He examined them: the oldest he could see was 1641. The walls, too, were almost entirely covered with signatures from floor to ceiling.
Was this some kind of bizarre interrogation room? Was he going to be grilled by the Dutch secret police? Conrad shuddered as he remembered the night he had spent in the basement of the Gestapo headquarters on Prinz-Albrecht-Strasse, with its own sad graffiti. His thoughts turned to Payne Best and Stevens, and Klop if he was still alive.
After five minutes the door opened and a short man with thick dark hair, a full greying moustache, and a waistcoat and watch chain bustled in.
‘Mr de Lancey? I am Professor Hogendoorn.’ The man gave a sort of high-pitched giggle as he held out his hand. ‘Do you speak German, by any chance? My English is not so good.’
‘Certainly,’ said Conrad in that language.
‘Excellent,’ said the professor. ‘I hope you don’t mind waiting here.’ The professor giggled again. ‘It’s known as “The Sweatbox”. It’s where the students wait before they defend their theses in the room next door. As you can see they carve their initials while they are at it. It seemed a proper place for a spy to wait.’ Another giggle. ‘More importantly, it’s empty and we cannot be overheard.’
‘I’m not exactly a spy,’ said Conrad, stifling his irritation.
‘No, of course not. Herr von Hertenberg said you were an academic from Oxford University, a historian. But I think if anyone here asks you, you should say you are a chemist. Polymers. That’s my speciality.’
‘I will do that,’ said Conrad. ‘Now, how do I meet Herr von Hertenberg?’
Professor Hogendoorn ignored the question. ‘It’s good to meet an Englishman who appreciates modern Germany. But are you English? De Lancey sounds French to me.’
‘Huguenot,’ said Conrad. ‘My ancestors fled France a couple of hundred years ago. One of them fought at Waterloo, but not on the French side.’
‘Very wise of them,’ said the professor. ‘France’s democracy is even more decayed than England’s. As a scientist, it is clear to me that Germany represents the future. Strength, efficiency, progress. We Dutch should realize that. We are not so different from the Germans. We have the scientific knowledge. We should be their partners, not their enemy. Don’t you agree, Herr de Lancey?’
‘Absolutely,’ said Conrad, wanting to shut him up. ‘Herr von Hertenberg?’
‘Ah, yes. You should go downstairs, go through the arch into the Botanical Gardens and walk on until you get to the observatory. Turn around and walk back here. If you are not being followed, Herr von Hertenberg will approach you. If you don’t see him, it’s because Herr von Hertenberg has spotted something, so return here tomorrow morning and we will have a different plan.’
He led Conrad down the stairs to the entrance to the building, and shook his hand. ‘I don’t know what you are up to, but whatever it is, I wish you luck.’
Slightly disconcerted by his brush with the professor, Conrad strolled through an arch into a courtyard, which had been turned into a formal garden of square plots of tiny hedges, in each of which were plants and labels. Given the time of year, most of the plants were brown and stunted or slumbering underground. Conrad continued on beside a large tropical glasshouse to a canal lined with sycamores. There were half a dozen people nosing around the gardens: a young couple lost in conversation with each other; three women bending down and pointing; a couple of other lone strollers. Conrad couldn’t see Theo.
He walked along the canal as far as a grand white building with domes sprouting from its roof: the observatory, no doubt. He stopped, turned around and headed back. Unlike other canals in Leiden, this one wasn’t straight, but seemed to bend, with green space on either side. Conrad speculated it was a moat around the old town.
And there was Theo, sitting on a bench, hunched in a coat. Conrad sat down next to him.
‘I’m glad to see you,’ said Theo. ‘I was worried about you when I heard what had happened at Venlo. I knew you hadn’t been captured, so at first I thought they must have shot you. You were the chauffeur, presumably?’
‘Yes, I was,’ said Conrad. ‘I slipped away. What about the man who was shot?’
‘He died. He was a Dutch officer, apparently.’
‘I know. I’m sorry to hear that. What the hell happened, Theo?’
‘Schämmel was a plant. The SD were running the operation.’
Conrad remembered that ‘SD’ stood for Sicherheitsdienst, but he was hazy about the intricacies of the Nazi security hierarchy. ‘The Gestapo?’
‘More or less. The plan was to use Schämmel as bait to try to uncover any conspirators in Germany who had been talking to the British. As soon as I found out I came back here to try to warn you, but it was too late.’
‘I did get your message, but we were just setting off for Venlo,’ said Conrad. ‘If that’s what they were up to, why did they kidnap Payne Best and Stevens?’
‘A last-minute change of plan,’ said Theo. ‘Hitler is convinced that the British organized the beer hall bomb in Munich, and that those two British agents were behind it.’
‘They weren’t,’ said Conrad.
‘We know that,’ said Theo. ‘But it’s never a good idea to tell the Führer he is wrong.’
‘I can imagine,’ said Conrad. ‘Do you know whether Payne Best and Stevens have talked?’
‘Not yet,’ said Theo. ‘But they will. The Gestapo have found a list of names on one of them. They passed them on to us: some of them we recognize as Dutch agents in Holland working for the British. But I have a question for you, Conrad.’
‘Yes?’
‘Did you ever meet Schämmel yourself?’
‘No. Thursday at Venlo would have been the first time.’
‘Which means he didn’t get any information about us from you?’
‘No.’
‘What about Payne Best and Stevens? Did they know anything about the real conspirators?’
‘No. Nothing at all. They asked me, but I refused to tell them.’
‘Good. So they don’t know anything about me?’
‘Damn!’ Conrad glanced anxiously at Theo. ‘They do. They had me followed in Leiden last time we met. Stevens asked me what I was doing talking to you. He knew who you were, he knew you worked for the Abwehr.’
Theo frowned. ‘And what did you tell him?’
‘I refused to tell him anything. Apart from to check with Captain Foley.’
‘Damn and blast!’ said Theo. ‘I knew you were the weak link.’ He looked angry. And worried. ‘Do you know if Stevens has spoken to Foley?’
‘He won’t have had a chance to,’ said Conrad. ‘All this came out on the way to Venlo.’
‘That’s something, anyway,’ said Theo.
‘Sorry,’ said Conrad. ‘Are you afraid Stevens will tell the Gestapo about you?’
‘Eventually, yes. At the moment the Gestapo are trying to get them to confess to planning the Munich beer hall bomb.’
‘Poor bastards,’ said Conrad.