‘So you never asked Millie to meet you in the dunes that morning?’
‘Who said I did?’
‘Constance.’
‘No, I didn’t.’
‘Can you prove it?’
‘Of course I can’t prove it, Conrad! You have to take my word for it. There is too much going on now for you not to trust me. We’ve been through so much together, we can’t afford not to trust each other. Besides…’
‘Besides what?’
‘I could never kill Millie. I… I liked her. I liked her a lot.’
Conrad studied Theo. His friend. ‘All right. But tell me why.’
‘Why is she dead? I don’t know.’
‘Why were you seeing her? Why didn’t you tell me you were going to see her? Why did you allow her to be caught up in my father’s stupid schemes? Why did you use her? Why didn’t you look after her, for God’s sake?’
Theo put his finger to his lips, and it was only then that Conrad realized he had raised his voice.
‘I owe you an explanation,’ said Theo.
‘You certainly do.’
Theo pulled out a cigarette from his case and lit it. The tip glowed in the gloom. Then he told Conrad about how he and Millie had met in Switzerland in the spring, and how they had arranged to meet again in Scheveningen, using the same Danish intermediary as Theo had used with Conrad.
‘Why didn’t you tell me any of this?’ Conrad protested. ‘You saw me at the same time. Was it the same day?’
‘The day after. And I didn’t tell you because Millie asked me not to. She said you wouldn’t approve of what she and your father were doing. Knowing you, that didn’t surprise me.’
‘But didn’t you consider you were betraying me?’
‘I didn’t like doing what I was doing, but it wasn’t up to me. If the coup had gone ahead, then the new German government would have needed a channel to speak to the British government right away.’
‘Was there ever really going to be a coup? And what happened to that offensive you told me about? Germany and Holland should have been at war for a week by now.’
‘The offensive was called off. Bad weather. And so was the coup. Cowardice on the part of the generals.’
‘I don’t believe you,’ Conrad said.
‘I’m telling you the truth, Conrad,’ Theo said, weariness touching his voice. ‘You deserve that. Whether you believe me or not is entirely up to you.’
‘So what happened to Millie? Who killed her?’
‘I don’t know.’ Theo paused. ‘I had seen her that afternoon, in Scheveningen. It had come to my attention that it wasn’t only me that she was seeing in Holland. She also met a man called Otto Langebrück.’
‘Who is he?’
‘He’s a crony of Ribbentrop. Used to live in Paris. He’s clever and he’s a Nazi.’
‘Why was she seeing him?’
‘She, and her little friend Constance, were negotiating with Ribbentrop as well. Or in other words with Hitler.’
Conrad glared at Theo. He could feel the fury building up within him, and it was all he could do to prevent it from erupting. It wasn’t just Theo who was betraying him, it was his father, and for that matter Millie. They were all talking to Hitler’s regime. And it was his father’s fault. His father, the supposedly sophisticated ex-government minister, had been a fool — an utter, total, complete fool! ‘No wonder they didn’t want to tell me where they were going!’
‘If it makes any difference, I think it was Constance who was responsible for talking to Langebrück. Constance and Sir Henry Alston.’
‘But my father knew all about it, didn’t he?’ Conrad said.
Theo shrugged. ‘I don’t know. I assume so.’
Conrad’s mind was whirling. He wanted to slug Theo. And then he wanted to fly back to England and slug his father too. But this might be his only opportunity to speak to Theo about his sister’s death and he wanted to make the most of it.
‘Do you think Langebrück might have killed Millie? Or was it the Gestapo?’
‘Possibly,’ said Theo. ‘But I don’t know why they would. It could be the British secret service.’
‘That’s ridiculous!’ Conrad protested. ‘Why would they do that?’
‘I don’t know. To stop Lord Oakford’s discussions with the enemy?’
Theo was suggesting that his father was a traitor and that his own country would murder his sister. It was outrageous. But possibly true. It would explain why the secret service would manufacture a witness to place Theo in the sand dunes. Conrad was convinced now that van Gils was right to doubt their evidence. But that was about all Conrad was convinced of.
Theo could sense Conrad’s distress. ‘I repeat, I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I was fond of Millie, very fond of her.’ Theo swallowed. ‘I’m sorry I let her die; I don’t know how it happened. I’d like to know.’
‘The Dutch police think Constance killed her,’ said Conrad. ‘Or at least the man in charge of their investigation thinks so. Millie was stabbed with a knife taken from the kitchens of their hotel. He thinks Constance was the most likely person to have taken it.’
‘Have they arrested her?’
‘Oh, no. Dutch military intelligence sent her back to Britain. Remember they claimed you killed her, whatever the policeman in charge of the investigation thinks.’
‘But why would Constance want to kill Millie?’
‘The police inspector has no idea. He suggested that Constance might have been jealous of the relationship between you and Millie.’
‘It’s not that,’ said Theo.
Conrad was about to question Theo’s denial, but he kept quiet. Theo seemed distracted, as though he was thinking, weighing something up.
There was silence in the attic. The two men were still standing several feet apart, but for the first time Conrad felt closer to Theo, to his friend. He waited.
Eventually Theo spoke. ‘In that letter you wrote to me at the beginning of the war, you reminded me how at Oxford we swore we wouldn’t let anyone make us fight each other as they had made our parents fight last time. How we owed our allegiance to the human race, not to our country. How it seemed so simple then.’
Conrad nodded. He remembered. ‘Algy.’
Algernon Pemberton was the man who had inhabited Conrad’s rooms in 1914 and died at Ypres in 1915. His name was on a wooden plaque on the wall; Conrad and Theo had talked about the doomed undergraduate many times.
‘Then it turned out not to be so simple for either of us,’ Theo went on. ‘You decided to fight for socialism, or at least against Fascism, in Spain. I became involved in trying to rid my country of a madman. You helped me. And now I am fighting for my country and you for yours.’
Conrad wanted to interrupt, to point out that he was fighting as much against Hitler as for Britain, but he kept quiet. He knew what Theo was saying was important to him, and he didn’t want to interrupt his flow.
‘Well, you would think that as a German officer fighting for my country, I would want my country to win this war. But I’m not sure I do. If Germany smashes France, Hitler’s control of power will be total. The only people left who can stand up to Hitler are the generals, and if they achieve a great victory in France, they won’t do it. You can see how success in Poland has gone to their heads. If Hitler maintains his control of Germany, that will be disastrous. A thousand years of darkness.
‘So, as a good German, as a good German officer, as one of those von Hertenbergs who has served his country for generations, I do not want a successful blitzkrieg in the west. Can you understand that?’
‘I can understand that,’ said Conrad.
‘Good,’ said Theo. ‘That’s why I told Millie something when I saw her in Scheveningen. That’s why I told you about Bedaux. Did you look in to him?’