Anneliese waited.
Conrad was tempted to change the subject. To make a joke. To avoid at all costs cracking the wall that he was erecting around those thoughts about Millie. To behave how an Englishman should. But Anneliese wasn’t like that; his relationship with Anneliese wasn’t like that. They had shared a lot in Germany, and she had sought him out then, when she thought he needed support and strength.
It had been so good to hear her voice on the phone. It was good to be with her now, surrounded by a cocoon of noise and uniforms standing around their table.
‘I’m sad,’ he said, slowly and carefully, concentrating on not allowing his voice to crack. He was speaking quietly and in German: in the hubbub of the pub none of the servicemen around them would be able to hear. ‘I’m very sad. Millie had such a zest for life, such honesty, such enthusiasm. It’s wrong that she has gone. And it makes me angry. Very angry. So angry I can hardly think straight.’
‘Why are you angry?’ Anneliese asked.
Conrad struggled for a moment to maintain his composure. ‘I’m angry because it is wrong that a young woman like her should die, even in a war. She’s not a soldier. And I’m really angry about how she died.’
‘Yes. I don’t understand that,’ said Anneliese. ‘Your mother said she had been killed while on holiday in the Netherlands. That sounded very strange. I remember you saying you were going away. Were you with her?’
‘No,’ Conrad shook his head. ‘I did go to Holland; I just didn’t know she was there as well.’
Conrad told Anneliese all about Millie’s meeting with Theo, arranged by their father and Sir Henry Alston. He recounted what Constance had told him about how she had found Millie’s body in the dunes.
Anneliese listened intently. ‘And you knew nothing about any of this?’
‘No. Despite the fact that I saw Theo in Leiden the day before he met Millie. And that I spent the night at Kensington Square with Father and Millie just before I left for Holland. She and Constance must have been on the next flight!’
‘No wonder you are angry,’ said Anneliese.
‘It’s not just that,’ said Conrad. He paused, took a sip of his beer. ‘I should have gone instead of her. Father asked me, but I refused, and so he asked Millie instead and she said yes. And that’s why she’s dead. So I’m angry with myself.’
‘You can’t blame yourself for that,’ Anneliese said. ‘You didn’t kill her. You didn’t send her.’
Conrad shrugged.
‘What was she talking to Theo about?’
‘I’d better not say,’ said Conrad. ‘But you can probably guess. My dealings with Theo didn’t turn out too well either, although I didn’t think then that was Theo’s fault. At least I assumed it wasn’t. Now I’m not sure what the hell Theo was up to.’
Conrad knew he shouldn’t tell Anneliese about Oakford’s peace talks, or the shooting at Venlo, which was still being inaccurately reported in the British newspapers. But perhaps he should reassess Theo’s profession of lack of knowledge of Major Schämmel’s identity. Could he trust his friend after all?
‘Damn Theo,’ Conrad said, his voice still low.
‘For not telling you?’
‘For not telling me. And for not protecting Millie for me. You know, this Constance woman says that Millie and Theo had some sort of romance going on? Since last spring when they met in Switzerland. He never told me about that either. And also…’
‘Also what?’
‘The secret service seem to think that he killed Millie.’
‘No! That can’t be right!’
‘Constance saw a man walking from the dunes to the tram stop. She thinks it was Theo.’
‘Thinks? So she isn’t certain?’
‘Not one hundred per cent. But close to certain. She seems to have convinced the secret service.’
‘And what do you think?’
‘I hope it wasn’t him.’ Conrad shrugged. ‘But he’s a spy, Anneliese. We can never be sure what he is really doing or why. I want to see him. I really must see him.’
‘Can you manage that somehow?’ Anneliese asked.
‘I don’t see how. I do have a way of getting touch with him, but I can’t just swan over to Holland again. I have to go back to the battalion on Tuesday.’
Anneliese sipped her gin, thinking. ‘What’s happened to Millie?’ she asked. ‘Her body, I mean. Is it still in Holland?’
‘The Dutch authorities are keeping hold of her,’ Conrad said. ‘They have done a post-mortem, of course, but her body is evidence in a murder inquiry. The embassy is supposed to be dealing with it, but they seem useless. It’s all rather ghoulish. Mother can’t stand it, and it makes it impossible to arrange the funeral.’
‘Shouldn’t someone go over there to sort it out?’ said Anneliese. ‘You, for instance?’
‘Maybe I should,’ said Conrad. He nodded as he thought it through. ‘Good idea. I’ll talk to Father about it.’
‘What about this woman Constance? Who is she?’
‘That’s a good question. She was Millie’s companion in Holland. She is some sort of friend of Sir Henry Alston, who is one of my father’s fellow directors at Gurney Kroheim and a Conservative MP. He’s definitely pro-German, but then my father is pro-German. Hell, I’m pro-German. But I think Alston might be pro-Nazi, which is a very different thing. You know that as well as anyone.’
‘I do,’ said Anneliese.
‘I have my doubts about Constance.’
‘Why?’
‘We met at this place called the Russian Tea Rooms. On the surface it looks very respectable, but they had copies of Truth there — it’s an obnoxious anti-Semitic magazine. A kind of British Völkischer Beobachter.’
‘I’ve never seen it,’ said Anneliese.
‘Good. Don’t. Also, I spotted Captain Maule Ramsay; he’s a right-wing pro-Nazi MP, much further to the right than Alston. Constance seemed at home there. Her story doesn’t stack up very well; for example, she said she got up early in the morning to follow Millie to her rendezvous with Theo, but she didn’t really explain why she had done that. Or at least not satisfactorily. I’d really like to do some more digging, but I can’t. I don’t have the time.’
Anneliese sipped her drink. Conrad felt a surge of warmth towards her. Talking to her had lifted some of enormous weight he felt bearing down on him. Only some of it, and only for a moment, but it had felt good to speak to her, and he was grateful that she had made him do it. Naturally he was bloody angry, who wouldn’t be?
She seemed different, a little less withdrawn, a little less wrapped up in her own misery, a little more like the old Anneliese.
‘Perhaps I could help,’ she said, putting her glass down and looking straight at him.
‘You? How? You can’t go to Holland to see Theo.’
‘No. But I could find out more about Constance. She was with Millie when she died. It sounds as if you think she might know what really happened. If I make friends with her, maybe I can discover what that was.’
‘But you are half-Jewish. And German. How are you going to do that?’
‘I’m half not-Jewish. And I know a lot about Nazis. If you are right about her, she might enjoy having a Nazi German friend.’
Conrad smiled. ‘Anneliese, I really appreciate you doing this for me, but don’t worry about it.’
‘Why not?’ said Anneliese. ‘I saw Wilfrid Israel last Saturday and asked him if I could do something for Captain Foley. Something secret to help the war. I haven’t heard back yet, but I really want to do something useful. And if I can’t do something useful for your country, perhaps I can do something useful for you.’