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Authors: Jane Thynne

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BOOK: The Winter Garden (2014)
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Clara turned into Koppenplatz. It was a pleasant, unremarkable square with a patch of grass, dotted with benches. She checked her watch – 7.30 p.m. – and looked around for
Koch’s café.

She had never been to this place before. All she knew was that a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums had arrived at the studio earlier that day bearing the label of a florist with exactly this
address and a Berlin telephone number ending 1930. There was no other message, but she didn’t need one. Flowers were the preferred method of communication of Archie Dyson, attaché at
the British Embassy and agent of the British Intelligence service, and she had received several bouquets from him over the past couple of years. It sounded romantic, but really it wasn’t.

The fact that her every movement must be accountable was one of the first things that had been impressed on Clara when she began working for British Intelligence. She must have a perfectly
innocent reason to be where she was, and she must assume she was watched every hour of the day. Wherever she went, there must be a perfectly rational explanation. More rational, of course, than
supplying information to the enemies of the Nazi regime. To this end, she walked with a purposeful pace and carried a newspaper in which she had circled the timings of
La Habanera
with
Zarah Leander at a cinema just north of Rosenthalerplatz which she had absolutely no intention of seeing.

She pushed open the door, exchanging the haze of mist outside for a grainy fog of cigarette smoke.

To most eyes, Koch’s café was a typical Berlin tavern, an ill-lit, low-ceilinged dive where men drank to get drunk, and sometimes accessorized their beer with a plate of sausage,
bread and pickles. But due to the cooperation of Herr Felix Koch, a bull of a man in braces and collarless shirt who stood wiping the wooden bar, flicking a bored eye at his customers, the
café was also safe. Herr Koch was considered entirely trustworthy, a trust that was cemented by the fact that his daughter had married an Englishman and lived in Brighton. It was entirely
understandable, as an agent of British Intelligence had assured him, that he should be concerned for her well-being and Mimi Koch’s happiness would be greatly enhanced if her father were on
friendly terms with His Majesty’s government. Despite this, Clara gave a quick instinctive scan of the room as she entered. There were only four other customers, two slumped over a window
table, and a pair in factory uniforms, sinking foamy steins of beer.

Archie Dyson, Eton and Cambridge, in loden overcoat and silk scarf, was sitting at the back of the tavern behind a screen of fretted wood, trying to do the
Times
crossword, folded into
a copy of that day’s
BZ am Mittag
. Clara leaned over and saw him hovering over ‘
Break one’s word, 9 letters
’.

‘Hyphenate.’

Dyson started visibly and put the newspaper down. ‘Goodness, Clara, I didn’t see you coming. How did you learn to do that?’

‘Someone taught me.’

‘The crossword, I meant.’

‘Oh that. I always enjoyed crosswords.’

She had discovered that as a child. The thrill when her brain, against all the odds, began to fizz, plucking words like ‘crepuscular’ and ‘cruciverbalist’ from its store
of vocabulary with no problem. The way words flickered together in segments, then parted and repaired, whirring through split-second computations. She thought of Angela, legs thrown over the side
of her armchair, frowning at the paper then tossing it towards her.
‘Oh, you take it, Clara. Puzzles are more your thing’,
her tone implying that crosswords ranked somewhere
between jigsaws and knitting in the realm of human endeavour. That was the way the Vines operated – compliments and insults were delivered in a sidelong fashion, never outright, because
boasting about one’s abilities was not done and showing excessive enthusiasm was seriously bad form. But Clara recognized that crosswords, like chess, were the kind of intellectual activity
at which she could beat others fair and square.

‘I’m a little rusty, I suppose,’ said Dyson, quickly folding the paper away. The attaché to the British ambassador was a patrician figure with a narrow moustache who
couldn’t have looked more English if he had been wearing a bowler hat and carrying an umbrella. Everything about him reminded Clara of England, of limp cucumber sandwiches, Twinings tea and
cocker spaniels with damp fur. In another life Dyson would have been the secretary of a golf club, or a city stockbroker. He seemed entirely unsuited to subterfuge. That was obviously the point,
Clara realized. Dyson is not at all what you expect. None of us are.

‘Summer’s over.’ Dyson always started with the weather. It was engrained deeply within him, as instinctive as walking on the outer side of the pavement or saying the
Lord’s Prayer. It was the conversational equivalent of clearing his throat.

Clara slipped off her trench coat, noting that Dyson’s tan had intensified and there were small patches of pink on his nose where the skin had peeled.

‘And I’m guessing you went sailing again?’

‘Spot on. I just got back. A little trip with my wife on a friend’s yacht in the Med. Very pleasant.’

Although Dyson spoke in his usual languid, upper-class drawl, Clara deduced from his heavily bitten nails that he was suffering from a certain amount of inner stress. He paused as Herr Koch
brought over a glass of beer.

‘Und eine Berliner Weisse mit Schuss, bitte.’

This drink was a local favourite, made by adding a shot of raspberry syrup to mask the acidity of the pale, golden Berlin beer. Dyson always ordered it for Clara, presumably thinking a dash of
sweetness was what women liked, and Clara had never had the heart to contradict him.

She knew Dyson felt infinitely more at home drinking a gin fizz in some glittering hotel in Berlin’s west end than in this scruffy bar. But given the nature of their meetings, Dyson had
been obliged to familiarize himself with different, and quite unexpected, places around town.

Dyson waited until Koch had moved away and addressed Clara in English.

‘So how are you, Clara? Any news for me?’

‘Yes, as it happens. Magda Goebbels has asked me to a party. It’s in honour of the Mitford sisters. You know of them, I suppose?’

‘Of course. The daughters of Lord Redesdale. One of them, Unity, is obsessively in love with the Führer by all accounts. She’s moved to Munich and installs herself in his
favourite restaurant whenever he’s in town.’

‘I heard she said that sitting next to the Führer was like basking in dazzling sunshine,’ said Clara.

He snorted. ‘Presumably with the odd thunderstorm thrown in.’

‘There’s another sister here too. Diana.’

‘Indeed. Given that she’s married to Oswald Mosley we do keep an eye, as you can imagine.’

Clara took a sugary sip of her beer. ‘Magda wants to introduce them to some of her friends, but she’s worried their German isn’t up to it, so she’s asked me to
translate.’

‘It’s not the first time Diana’s visited Berlin this year,’ said Dyson. ‘She’s already been over to talk to Hitler about constructing an English-speaking
radio station on German soil in Heligoland.’

‘A radio station?’ Clara was baffled.

‘A commercial station. To raise funds for the fascists. We’ve got a chap in the British Union of Fascists who’s very helpful about their plans. The idea is, Hitler should
subsidize it and the whole enterprise will assist Mosley’s movement by broadcasting fascist propaganda to southern England. Diana has had several private late-night meetings at the
Chancellery already, and apparently he’s invited her to Bayreuth.’

‘I’ll pass on whatever I hear,’ said Clara.

‘Yeees . . .’ The door banged, bringing with it a gust of chill wind, and Dyson fell silent as he assessed the raddled figure in a worn overcoat making his way to the bar.
‘It’s appreciated, Clara, though—’

‘Though what?’

‘I suspect the Mosleys are a bit of a busted flush now.’

‘Why’s that?’

‘We’re hearing that Goebbels in particular is annoyed at the amount of money they’re asking for. He’ll be suggesting to Hitler that they’re spoiled goods. He knows
that any political influence they had at home is rapidly dwindling. But he’ll do it subtly, because he realizes how much the Leader likes young English maidens. Unity is the only foreign
woman allowed in his inner circle.’

Dyson tapped out a cigarette and offered one to Clara.

‘And the fact is we’ve got some rather more important visitors on our agenda.’ He paused. ‘Well, I say more important, but in another way, they’re not important at
all.’

‘I’m not that good at puzzles, Archie.’

Dyson cupped his chin and fanned his fingers out, masking his mouth, a gesture, Clara noticed, that was instinctive to him. He hesitated, she was sure for effect.

‘It’s a little bridal party. The ex-king and his wife are about to arrive here on honeymoon.’

Clara could not suppress a gasp of astonishment. Edward VIII, the Duke of Windsor as he now was, had abdicated the previous December to marry an American divorcée, Wallis Simpson, in a
scandal which had blazed around the world. The couple settled in France and their wedding in June had been covered obsessively in all the magazines. Like everyone else, Clara drank in the details
and pored over the photographs. The Duchess, slender as a reed in her box-shouldered Mainbocher dress – in a shade now rechristened Duchess Blue in her honour – reclining with her
husband against the balcony of the Château de Cande. Sapphires and diamonds at her throat, her hair violet black with an inky shimmer. Wedding photographs by Cecil Beaton. Roses and lilies by
Constance Spry. For the wedding breakfast they ate lobster, salad, strawberries and, with a certain poignancy, chicken à la king.

‘They’re coming here? Why on earth?’

Though she asked, she knew the answer. The Duke’s mother was German, he spoke the language fluently, and his past comments suggested a robust admiration for the Nazi regime.

‘You may well ask. The Foreign Office is absolutely hopping. The whole thing has been arranged behind their back by the Germans. It’s a massive propaganda coup for the Reich.
They’re going to make enormous capital out of it and it’s going to be terrifically embarrassing for Britain. They arrive at Friedrichstrasse Station on the sixteenth. The ambassador has
been ordered not to attend.’

‘Ordered?’

‘Prime Minister’s orders. They’re not to be treated as having any official status. No official interviews, no special ceremonies. Not so much as a gin and tonic and a cocktail
onion at the Embassy. The Government don’t want anyone getting the idea that this is any kind of official visit, rather than an entirely private occasion. The result being that yours truly
has been deputed to greet them.’

Though he affected a jaded weariness, Clara could see that Dyson rather liked the idea of meeting the former king.

‘Not that we’ll be rolling out the red carpet, exactly. I’m sure the Nazi top brass will be doing that for them. Apparently Robert Ley, head of the Labour front, will be there.
The Reich is paying for the entire thing. The fact is, the couple are going to be mobbed wherever they go.’

‘Where will they go?’

‘It’s a nine-city tour. And the American press are reporting that the Duke wants to discuss “Hitler’s hopes for the future”.’

‘Let’s hope the Duke’s a good listener.’

Dyson rolled his eyes.

‘Precisely. He doesn’t know what he’s in for. The plan is that the Duke should inspect working conditions throughout the Reich. Factory visits and so on.’

‘Wouldn’t be my idea of a honeymoon,’ said Clara, casually.

For some reason this remark caused Dyson to fix his gaze more intently upon her. She was a curiosity to him, she knew. Her presence seemed to make him uneasy, as though he was unsure whether to
treat her as an employee or a social equal. She was different from the women he knew back home, neither one of those upper-middle-class girls waiting to get married, nor a determinedly spinster
secretary or a bluestocking. She was nothing like Lettice, Dyson’s wife, a brisk redhead who spent her time organizing cultural outings with the other Embassy wives, serving coffee and
shortbread biscuits to visiting dignitaries, and who fully intended her husband to be an ambassador himself one day. Clara had love affairs, Dyson knew, yet she had shown no desire to marry. Her
sharp brain, as evidenced by her facility with crosswords and her formidable memory, were traits that the Service treasured in their agents. Her looks, social confidence and acting talent gave her
access to circles that would otherwise be hard to penetrate. Yet it was her willingness to place herself in danger that he found hardest to fathom. Dyson simply couldn’t work her out.

‘Do you ever think about leaving, Clara? Going back to England?’

What could she say? Only last week she had received a letter from an old schoolfriend, Ida MacCloud, expressing astonishment that Clara was willing to stay in Germany while the Nazi regime
gathered pace. Wasn’t she by staying there in some way tacitly supporting what they did? Ida asked. How could Clara justify that?

‘Occasionally.’

‘You must miss your family.’

She gave him a narrow look. Dyson knew, as did everyone in the Berlin station, that Clara’s father, Sir Ronald Vine, was a key member of London’s Anglo-German Fellowship and a strong
Nazi sympathizer. His coterie was rich, influential and determined that Britain should place itself in alliance with rather than opposition to Hitler’s Germany. Sir Ronald himself had
received funding from Hitler for his political lobbying. Clara’s shock in discovering her father’s activities and the fact that he was being shadowed by domestic security in England had
been part of her motivation in approaching British Intelligence four years earlier. It was important that the security service chiefs felt they understood Clara’s motivation. They needed to
be able to trust her. Yet she saw no reason to confide in Dyson the Jewish part of her background.

‘As it happens I had a letter from my sister yesterday saying that she and my father are coming to visit. Though you probably knew that already.’

BOOK: The Winter Garden (2014)
2.52Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
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