Read sample The Quality of Mercy

1

Lord Edward Corinth swung the Lagonda Rapier on to the Romsey road and pressed down the accelerator. The six-cylinder four-and-a-half-litre engine responded magnificently. A similar model had won Le Mans three years earlier in 1935 and, since then, refinements had vastly improved its ability to hold the road at speed, even in the rain. He glanced at the dog in the passenger seat beside him. Basil, Verity Browne’s curly-coated retriever, seemed to be enjoying himself. The wind smoothed the hair on his head to felt. Teeth bared, he appeared to be grinning although, Edward had to admit, it might be fear. Reluctantly, he slowed down. He did not relish the idea of having to tell Verity that her beloved dog – with which he had been entrusted while she was abroad – had been catapulted out of the car by his rash pursuit of some notional speed record. It was fortunate that he reduced his speed. As he negotiated a sharp bend, he came across a stationary yellow Rolls-Royce straddling the road, steam rising in wisps from its magnificent-looking radiator. He gritted his teeth and pounded the brakes. The Lagonda came to a halt inches from the Rolls. A uniformed chauffeur was standing at the side of the road, cap in hand, red in the face, soundlessly opening and closing his mouth like a gaffed fish. Edward raised his goggles, prepared to berate him for endangering his life and the dog’s. Basil had slid off the seat into the footwell, a bundle of umber fur, too bewildered to bark a protest. Edward breathed again as Basil scrambled out of the car and shook himself vigorously, seemingly none the worse for his brush with death.

‘For goodness sake, man,’ Edward said testily, ‘what the hell’s going on? Get this car off the road before someone gets killed.’

Before the chauffeur could answer a tubby, dark-skinned little man with a baby face decorated with a neat moustache bounded out from behind the Rolls, perspiring though the wind was cold.

‘Don’t blame Perkins. The damn thing suddenly stalled – overheated or something. You’re not hurt, are you? I’m most frightfully sorry.’

The owner of the Rolls, dressed in tweeds – heather mixture, Edward thought – Burberry raincoat and soft felt hat, looked as overheated as his car. He spoke Eton-and-Harrow English with a charming Indian lilt. The expression on his face – at the moment anxious – was, Edward knew, normally good-natured to the point of imbecility.

‘Sunny! It is you, is it not?’

‘M’dear fellow, I … Good Lord! Edward? Can it really be you? What an extraordinary thing!’

Sirpendra Behar, Maharaja of Batiala, known to his friends as Sunny, had been in Edward’s House at Eton. He was a year older than Edward and they had become great friends – a friendship cemented by a mutual love of cricket. Even at Eton Sunny had been plump but that had not prevented him being a first-class bat. Edward and he had been in the Eleven and, in Sunny’s last year, they had scored a century apiece in a memorable third-wicket stand that secured Eton the match in their annual tilt with Harrow. It was an innings still talked of – his nephew Frank had informed him – a generation later. Sunny had gone on to help establish the Ranji Trophy in 1935, playing for Baroda. His moment of triumph, however, was scoring a century on the Nawab of Pataudi’s tour of England in 1936 after which he had more or less retired from first-class cricket.

Edward had not seen much of him after they left school – Edward going up to Cambridge and Sunny returning to rule Batiala, his father having died unexpectedly. They shook hands warmly and Edward had an idea that Sunny would have embraced him but restrained himself knowing it to be ‘unEnglish’.

‘I say, Sunny, there’s going to be the most awful pile-up unless we can move your car pretty speedily. I was deuced close to killing myself and, more importantly, killing the dog. I’ll reverse the Lagonda back round the corner to warn any car that comes along that something’s not right. I’ll leave you beside it to wave people down. If I can’t get the Rolls started, your chauffeur and I can at least push it out of the way.’

Edward was no mechanic but he did know a bit about cars. However, his engineering expertise was not required. When he got into the driving seat and pressed the self-starter the engine roared into life. He drove the Rolls a few yards and parked it safely off the road. Sunny’s chauffeur explained that though it was only three months old, it had been plagued with mechanical problems – as were other Phantom IIIs. In fact, instead of having made the best car in the world as they had promised, Rolls was in danger of losing its reputation for engineering excellence. The chauffeur said it was going back to the workshop as soon as they returned to town but the Maharaja had insisted on taking it to Broadlands for the weekend to show Lord Louis Mountbatten who had particularly asked to see it. He loved fast cars and owned a Rolls himself – a Phantom II – a wedding present from his wife. It famously bore on its bonnet a silver signalman in honour of Mountbatten’s connection with the navy.

‘There we are!’ Edward said, relieved. ‘I’ve read somewhere that they have had problems with the Phantom overheating, particularly on those new German Autobahnen where one can drive at high speed for long distances. You haven’t been driving the Maharaja on autobahns, have you, Perkins?’

‘We have just returned from the Continent, sir …’

At that moment Sunny reappeared looking flustered and slightly ridiculous with his tie askew. It came back to Edward that if his friend had a fault it was that he wanted to be more English than the English.

‘Well done, old boy. I heard the damn thing start. What did you do?’

‘Nothing. Just my magic touch.’

‘Look, old chap,’ Sunny panted, ‘it’s most awfully good to see you again and I’m terribly grateful but I daren’t stop to chat. I promised Dickie I would be there for lunch and it’s after twelve now. Do you know the Mountbattens?’

‘You’re staying at Broadlands?’

‘Yes. Ayesha’s there already. She refuses to come in the Rolls until I get it fixed. She went down by train yesterday. But you’ve not met her, have you?’

‘No, but I would very much like to.’ Edward had been invited to the wedding but he had been in South Africa at the time. He heard it had been a tremendous affair and regretted missing it. The Maharani was said to be very beautiful and when, on her wedding day, she had paraded through Batiala on a milk-white elephant her poorest subjects had taken her for a goddess. She, like Sunny, had been educated in England, at Benenden, an exclusive boarding school for girls in Kent. Sunny’s father had understood how important it was for a state like Batiala that the Maharaja and Maharani should be able to deal with the British on their own terms. ‘I’m spending a few days with my brother at Mersham – you remember the castle, don’t you? You came down for the annual cricket match once, I seem to remember.’

‘And I was out first ball,’ Sunny said ruefully. ‘I was so humiliated but your mother was very kind and comforted me.’

‘She was a good woman,’ Edward said with feeling. ‘I miss her very much.’

‘I don’t mind admitting – I was scared of the Duke.’

‘My father scared me on occasion,’ Edward laughed,

‘but my brother is a very different man. I know he and my sister-in-law would be delighted to invite you over – both of you.’

‘That’s very good of you, Edward, and we should be very pleased to come, but there are four of us. My son, Harry, is with us. He’s at Eton, you know.’ Sunny could not hide his pride in his son. ‘That’s really why we are here in England – for the Easter holidays. And my daughter, Sunita.’

‘Well, we would be delighted to see them as well. How long did you say you would be at Broadlands?’

‘Four or five days – perhaps longer. Dickie seems very taken with Ayesha,’ Sunny giggled nervously. ‘Should I be jealous, do you think? He has a reputation as a ladies’ man.’

‘I am sure Lady Louis keeps him in order,’ Edward said, unwilling to speculate. What he could not say to Sunny was that his brother regarded Mountbatten and the ‘fast set’ in which he moved as beyond the pale. The Mountbattens were always in the newspapers, usually pictured with an expensive new car or some American film star. The Duke thought no gentleman should see his name in print unless The Times or the Morning Post carried a brief formal announcement of the birth of a son, a marriage or a death. Lady Louis – Edwina – was rumoured, no doubt unjustifiably, to have ‘affairs’. Paul Robeson, the black American singer and actor, had been mentioned as one of her admirers.

‘But Edwina’s not there – not yet anyway. She is supposed to be arriving tomorrow.’

‘But there are other guests?’

‘Yes indeed.’ It was Sunny’s turn to sound shocked. ‘I wasn’t suggesting …’

Edward suddenly felt the conversation had become prurient, if not vulgar, and hurried to end it. ‘I must be off, too. I will telephone. Goodbye.’

‘Thank you so much, Edward,’ Sunny said, sounding almost pathetic.

‘Glad to have been of assistance, old chap, but for God’s sake get that car checked over. It ought not to be seizing up like that. We all might have been killed. Here, Basil, it’s no good you looking at me like that. You’ll be quite safe.’ He pushed the reluctant animal into the car and patted him. ‘I’ll not drive above forty, I promise you.’

Basil gazed at him reproachfully and sank down on the seat and hid his head in his paws.

Verity was lonely and miserable. She had often been scared when reporting the civil war in Spain, notably at the siege of Toledo and then again at Guernica when she was wounded and her friend, Gerda Meyer, was killed but she had seldom been lonely. She had been surrounded by comrades-in-arms whose cause was her cause and that made it easier. Here in Vienna she was alone. Her lover, the young German aristocrat, Adam von Trott, had been kidnapped by Himmler’s thugs in front of her eyes. She had imagined Adam in some terrible prison camp but in fact it appeared that he had been bundled off to the Far East where he could cause no trouble.

She was holding in her hand a letter – the first news she had had of him for over a month and it ought to have made her happy. He was in Japan, he told her. He was well and sent his love but it was not a love letter. She did not know what to make of his breezy descriptions of the beauties of the Orient. He described climbing Mount Aso, the largest volcano in the world, but he didn’t say he thought of her when he reached the summit. Instead, lamely, she thought, he wrote that ‘it might seem strange that I should idle in this wilderness while the face of Europe is being changed’. He wanted ‘to cut loose from all attachments that are not essential’. She could only read that as referring to herself and it hurt. She dropped the letter on the table. Of course, she told herself, she wanted him to be happy but what had happened to make him forget what they had meant to each other just a few weeks earlier? She tried to be reasonable. She guessed he must believe that his mail would be read by Himmler’s agents and he probably wanted to protect her by distancing himself from her, but still … She picked up the letter again. He spoke of having started work on political philosophy which might take ‘longer than anticipated’ and that he might go to India and Turkey.

He was studying political philosophy in the East! Surely he should be here in Vienna where he could study the brutal reality of German political philosophy at first hand. It was rumoured that any day now the Germans would march into Austria and it would become part of Hitler’s new German Reich. It occurred to her that Adam had no reason to lament the Anschluss any more than the vast majority of Austrians who waited eagerly to greet their Führer. Adam hated the Nazis but he was a patriot.

Tears pricked her eyes. She wanted to talk to someone about Adam but who was there apart from Edward – and he was far away in England. In any case, why should he be sympathetic, she upbraided herself. She had hardly been fair to him when she threw him up for a good-looking German. It was right that she should pay for her cavalier treatment of the one person who loved her unreservedly. He would understand her feelings of betrayal and rejection because she had made him suffer as she was suffering now.

To cap it all, she was finding it difficult to make any headway with the job she had wanted so much. She did not yet speak good German and she had trouble with the soft, almost slurred Viennese vowels, so different from Adam’s. The Viennese who spoke English seemed to treat her with amused contempt which made her angry with herself as much as with them. She had had to stifle the criticisms she longed to make of their comfortable acceptance of their country’s absorption by Nazi Germany because she knew that, if she paraded her Communist beliefs, she would be deported as a troublemaker, or worse. Every day enemies of the Nazi Party ‘disappeared’. The corpses of some were washed up on the banks of the Danube. Others simply vanished.

Of the other foreign correspondents in the city, she found most to be unfriendly and unwilling to introduce her to people who could help her discover what was going on. It was understandable. Over months and even years journalists based in Vienna had painstakingly developed their own lines of communication with the powers-that-be and saw no reason why they should share them with the newcomers now flooding into the city. These established correspondents seemed, for the most part, to share the prejudices of the people among whom they worked and lived. That was another reason why it would have been so wonderful to have had Adam with her. He could have opened doors for her to sources of information every journalist would have envied – but it was not to be.

She had hoped that at least among the Jews she would have found friends. They, she thought, must see the reality of what would happen when German tanks paraded through the city centre, along the Kärntnerstrasse and stood in the Stephans-Platz outside the cathedral. And yet so many did not. They seemed to believe that Austrian Jews would be granted privileged status – that they would be spared the Nazis’ venom.

There were exceptions, she reminded herself. She had a date that evening to accompany a young Jew to a ball and she had gone to some trouble to ensure he would not be disappointed in her. They had met – rather absurdly – a week before at a thé dansant. It was fashionable in Vienna to go to the park at five o’clock to take tea and listen to the military band. This was the charming face of Vienna foreigners always fell for – Gemütlichkeit, they called it. When the music began, the young men would rise from their tables and invite ladies to dance. Verity had been surprised but not displeased when Georg had stood before her, bowed solemnly, almost clicked his heels, and invited her – in excellent English – to foxtrot.

Thinking back, she realized that he knew who she was and had decided she might be able to help him reach England but, at the time, she thought he had merely liked the look of her and she was flattered. By the end of the afternoon she had promised to help him obtain a visa and, that evening, had wired Edward for the necessary letter of welcome. She had seen enough of refugees in Spain prepared to promise anything – to do anything – to get to England to be almost inured to hard-luck stories, but this young man had not asked for her pity and she admired that. She could do very little to ameliorate the situation in which so many Jews now found themselves but what little she could do she would. Georg Dreiser was still in his twenties. He had done well at the Piaristen-Gymnasium and was now studying law at the University of Vienna and at the Konsularakademie, a diplomatic college with an international reputation.

Verity gathered that he had a foot in both political camps. He was a member of a Jewish student fraternity, politically active for the Zionist cause. He told her that he had found he had a talent for public speaking and soon had a reputation as something of a rabble-rouser. Each member of the fraternity took a so-called ‘drinking name’. Georg’s was D’Abere, a French version of the Hebrew word for ‘talker’. On the other hand, he had many friends among the Catholic nationalists. He would walk in the Vienna Woods with a group of non-Jewish friends and discuss Wagner, Karl Kraus and Nietzsche. He was highly intelligent and spoke English, French and some Italian in addition to his native Yiddish and German.

He was not conventionally good-looking. His limbs seemed all over the place and, though he was tall, he was not strong. His face was as soft and puffy as one of the Viennese cream pastries he loved so much. His nose was squashed, like a boxer’s, and his eyes set too close together but they were very bright and somehow knowing. He had what Verity could only describe as ‘grown-up eyes’. He had seen much unpleasantness in his short life and understood that there was worse to come. He was quick to tell her about himself and his family. His father was a director of an insurance company and it was a paradox that, as anti-Semitism became more pronounced, he was protected by colleagues who were supporters of Hitler and Anschluss. However, the previous year his father’s luck had run out and he was now in prison waiting to be tried on trumped-up fraud charges.

‘It has some advantages,’ Georg said drily as they attempted an Argentinian tango. ‘As a prisoner of the civil court, he is protected from being sent to a concentration camp.’

‘And you?’ Verity had inquired. ‘Are you safe?’

‘Only until Hitler walks into Austria, which could be any day now.’

‘But why didn’t you leave before?’

‘Why should I? I am an Austrian. Who has the right to tell me to give up my home, my family, my education and go into exile?’ he demanded. ‘Would you leave England if someone suddenly decides they do not like the look of your face?’

‘No, of course not, but …’

‘But now, yes, I must leave, but to leave I need a visa. I wondered … is there anyone you know in England who could write and say there is work and a little money to support me for the first few months? We are not allowed to take money out of the country and the British Embassy requires that refugees prove they will not be a burden on the state.’

It made Verity boil with anger as she imagined some starched-shirt bureaucrat deciding on a whim whether or not to allow Georg to avoid death in a concentration camp. ‘Of course!’ she said abruptly. ‘I’ll do what I can. Meet me this time next week and I will try and have something for you.’

‘You are most kind,’ Georg said, bowing over her hand. ‘You may say I shall not come quite empty-handed.’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I can’t say any more. I am being watched but I have information which might be useful to your government.’

Verity looked at him with disbelief. ‘Why should they watch you? Because you are a Jew?’

‘I told you, I have a somewhat – wie sagt man? – unsavoury reputation as a political activist and I have friends who interest the authorities …’

Verity hesitated. She wondered if Georg was a fantasist. What could this young man know which would make him dangerous to the Nazis? He saw her look and changed the subject. ‘Miss Browne, let me show you Vienna as it used to be,’ he said eagerly. ‘Let us have one last night of “Old Vienna” before it vanishes for ever.’

She looked doubtful. ‘I’ve been to the Spanish Riding School if that’s what you mean.’

‘No, no! Not that – I hate horses anyway and they hate me – nor the Hofburg – not even Schönbrunn, though I would like to take you there sometime. No, I mean an old-fashioned Vienna Ball where we can waltz to music by Strauss. There are balls and dances every night until Lent. This year,’ he added wryly, ‘it will indeed be a time for penitence. Next week is the Konsularakademie ball which the diplomatic corps and members of the government attend. It is what I think you call a “glittering occasion”.’

‘And you can go?’

‘That is part of the paradox! As a Jew I may not be welcome in certain bars and clubs but at the ball I shall be treated like any other gentleman. Nothing unpleasant – Da gibs koa Sünd! as we say here. Everyone knows my father and they know why he is in prison. I have no doubt they will do what they can to protect him.’

‘It’s a mad world!’ Verity exclaimed.

‘It is indeed. Until I am thrown into a camp I am quite acceptable in society, at least until our government surrenders to the Nazis.’

‘You think they will?’

‘There can be no doubt of it. Chancellor Schuschnigg is a good man but he cannot go against the vast majority of Austrians who wish to be part of the new German Reich. “Und ist kein Betrug in seinem Munde gefunden worden.”’

Verity furrowed her brow so he translated: ‘“And out of his mouth there came forth neither deceit nor falsehood.”’

She had not liked to snub the young man by refusing his invitation and it certainly promised to be an interesting occasion. She might glean information from people of influence, people whom, up to now, she had singularly failed to meet. But there was a problem: what was she to wear? Georg would, he said, borrow his father’s white tie and tails. There was nothing for it, she told herself, but to buy something especially for the ball. On the face of it, it was absurd to spend money on a dress she would probably only wear once but she owed it to Georg not to look out of place. And it wasn’t only a dress. She would need gloves, shoes and an evening bag and she would have to have her hair done. She suddenly felt more cheerful. She would give this young Jew something to be proud of.

She went to Spitzer for her dress. Fortunately, the manager spoke good English and, when she had explained her predicament, he was most helpful. An hour later she came out with a gown of shimmering moiré, the colour of ‘lake water’ as the manager put it, and a black evening cloak. She wished Edward was there to reassure her but the dress looked all right, she thought. Gloves she bought from Zacharias – long white kid gloves so sensuous she wanted to stroke her face with them. She found shoes at Otto Grünbaum and an evening bag – so small it would hardly take a handkerchief – exquisitely decorated with hundreds of tiny pearls. Flushed with success, she also bought a fan made from peacock feathers, which she practised opening and closing with a twist of her wrist.

Georg had said he would pick her up from her flat at eight o’clock but the hour came and went with no ring at the bell. At first she was anxious and then angry. Here she was all dressed up with nowhere to go, as the saying went. She had been made a fool of and she was not someone to take that lying down. Just as she was about to tear off her finery and go to bed in a sulk, there was a violent knocking on her door.

It was Georg, unusually flustered and almost bedraggled. ‘I am so sorry – forgive me, please – I was delayed – unavoidably delayed,’ he added as though grabbing at the phrase for support.

Verity’s anger dissipated. He had obviously been in a fight. His evening dress was stained with mud and his tie was all awry. He had a cut on his cheek and his hair was mussed up. ‘Have you been attacked?’ she demanded.

‘I … I met some youths … I will tell you later.’

‘Wait a minute – before we go anywhere, let me tidy you up.’

She made him take off his coat and sponged the mud off it. She brushed his hair and gently bathed the cut on his face. As Georg calmed down he seemed to see Verity for the first time.

‘You are so very kind and beautiful, Fräulein Browne …’

‘You may call me Verity,’ she said graciously, ‘if we are to enjoy the evening.’

The ball was in full swing when they arrived and she was relieved to find that she was dressed correctly. As Georg said – whatever the prejudices of the Viennese, they were certainly not going to spoil the ball by exhibiting them. He introduced her proudly to several distinguished-looking elderly men as ‘my English friend, the journalist, Verity Browne’. By no means all of his friends – to judge from their names – were Jewish and she met and danced with diplomats and government officials who urged her to come to them for information on the political crisis. On the whole, they seemed complacent. They would muddle through – they used the verb fortwursteln – Austria always did. Britain would support the Chancellor. Hitler would not prevail. Verity was triumphant. This was just the breakthrough she had been looking for. Virtue, she told herself smugly, was its own reward but if helping Georg led her into Viennese society she would not complain.

Panting, Georg and Verity polkaed to a halt. She was suddenly aware of a buzz of conversation around them and she asked him what was the matter.

‘There’s a rumour that Chancellor Schuschnigg has been summoned to meet Hitler. Here’s Manfred Schmidt. He’s an old friend of my father’s – not a Nazi, you understand. He’ll tell us what’s happening.’ He grabbed by the sleeve a bearded man with a worried frown on his face. ‘Onkel Manfred, what’s the news from the Ballhausplatz?’ The Ballhausplatz was the Austrian foreign ministry.

‘Ah, Georg, my boy, it is time you and your parents left for England. I hear that your father will soon be released from prison but the Nazis … who knows … ?’ He hesitated. ‘Hilter has ordered Schuschnigg to cancel the plebiscite’ – this was the popular vote on whether Austrians wanted to become part of a greater Germany.

Suddenly, to Verity’s horror, she heard outside the building a rising chant of Sieg heil. They went on to the balcony and looked out over the square. It was cold and wet but the Platz was illuminated by hundreds of torches borne aloft by young men wearing the white stockings and lederhosen of the outlawed Austrian Nazi party. They wore swastikas on their arms, which until then had been illegal, and chanted, ‘Germany awake, Judah perish.’ As Verity watched, the crowd swelled and began to sing ‘Deutschland, Deutschland, Über Alles’ and then, lifting their arms, the ‘Horst Wessel’, the Nazi Party anthem.

Georg turned to Verity and said grimly, ‘It was youths like these who beat me up on my way to your apartment. It is as I feared. Osterreich ist kaputt.’

2

‘You can do what you want, Ned, but I flatly refuse to go anywhere near Broadlands and nor will Connie.’

It was breakfast and Edward had just read aloud a note from Lord Louis Mountbatten, delivered by hand, inviting them all to lunch that very day. Connie studied her eggs and bacon, refusing to look her brother-in-law in the eye. His nephew, Frank, was still in bed. He had arrived the day before, exhausted after a punishing week of dancing and flirting on the Normandie. Edward looked at his brother with dismay. He knew Gerald could be obstinate but his refusal to consider being Mountbatten’s guest seemed ridiculous.

‘It’s not like you to be discourteous,’ he chided. ‘I agree that from all accounts the man is rather too pleased with himself but he’s said to be a good naval officer. He’s not just a playboy.’

‘I’m sorry, Ned, I don’t want to be rude to your friends but there it is. I don’t wish to discuss it.’

‘He’s not my friend but Sunny is and I certainly can’t refuse him. What about Frank? Surely he can go? You know he will be bored here. This will give him something to think about.’

‘I would rather he did not go but he’s not a child any more. He can make his own decision.’ The Duke looked even sulkier. ‘I hate that word “bored”,’ he said suddenly angry. ‘Most people are bored but they have to earn their living as best they may in “boring” jobs. They don’t gad around the world picking up unsuitable girls. I am very much afraid my son is turning into a spoiled brat. He seems to think life is just one long party. Well, it isn’t and the sooner he finds that out the better.’

‘I say, Gerald, steady on! There’s a war coming sure as eggs is eggs and we’ll all have our duty to do but young men like Frank will carry the worst of it. You shouldn’t begrudge him the chance to sow a few wild oats.’

‘I’m not against the boy sowing a few wild oats …’ He caught the expression on the faces of his wife and brother. ‘Well, I’m not,’ he said stoutly. ‘Being a duke is a damn dull business. You’d agree with that, wouldn’t you, Connie?’

She hardly knew how to answer him. She had indeed felt constricted on occasion by what was expected of her and, if she were honest, she did think her husband had become dull but she was well aware that most women would give their souls to be where she was.

‘We have Frank and we have Mersham,’ she said diplomatically. ‘We have no cause for complaint when I think of what some people have to put up with.’

Edward looked at her with affection. Connie was not one of those indolent, whining women he met sometimes who could talk of nothing but how difficult it was to get good servants.

‘You still haven’t told me why you don’t like the man,’ Edward demanded, a trifle plaintively.

The Duke said nothing but opened The Times noisily and pretended to read. He hated gossip but what he had read about the Mountbattens had shocked him.

Lord Louis Mountbatten, known to his family and close friends as Dickie and to other friends and acquaintances as Lord Louis, was Queen Victoria’s great-grandson. There was a photograph to prove it in an ornate silver frame on a side table in the drawing-room at Broadlands of him as a baby sitting on her lap. It was the hinge upon which his life swung and never for one moment did he forget his position as a member of the Royal Family or allow anyone else to. He was tall – over six feet – with a ramrod-straight back, a fine head and a strong jaw. He had very little imagination and no intellectual curiosity. When he went to the theatre it was to admire the actresses and – some spiteful gossips would add – good-looking young actors. He had no sense of humour, which occasionally made him ridiculous, but he was by no means stupid. He possessed one of those highly focused minds which, when presented with a problem, worry at it until it’s solved. He had suggested several technical improvements to his naval superiors on subjects such as wireless telegraphy and gun aiming.

He was ambitious both in his chosen career and in his determination to be treated not just as a minor royal but a leader in high society. He was not particularly interested in politics but, when he thought about it at all, saw himself as a liberal. He loved sport – particularly dangerous sport in which he could prove himself to be a man among men. He drove fast cars and fast boats and played polo with only two things in mind – he must win if at all possible but above all he must put on a ‘good show’. His vanity led him to make mistakes. He was not a good judge of character and preferred to be surrounded by men who would not criticize or challenge him. His closest friend was a man called Peter Murphy who supplied him with girls while making no effort to conceal his preference for his own sex.

Mountbatten had made himself a boon companion of his cousin David, the Prince of Wales, and it seemed a moment of personal triumph when the Prince became Edward VIII. The triumph was short-lived, however, and when the King was forced to abdicate to marry Mrs Simpson, Mountbatten dropped his cousin with, some felt, undue haste and went to considerable lengths to assure the new King of his loyalty.

Mountbatten was well connected but not rich so in 1922 he married Edwina Ashley. She was beautiful, intelligent and fabulously wealthy. Her grandfather was the millionaire financier Sir Ernest Cassel and, through her father, she was descended from the Earl of Shaftesbury, the nineteenth-century philanthropist, and the dashing Lord Palmerston, Foreign Secretary and later Prime Minister to Queen Victoria. The marriage brought him two fine houses: Brook House – a huge mansion on Park Lane – and Broadlands. In every respect it was a brilliant match and, if Edwina chose to take lovers from almost the moment they were married, it did not seem to affect their mutual affection. On their honeymoon they had gone to Hollywood where they were treated as royalty which, of course, Mountbatten considered himself to be. He adored the shallow glitter of the world of movies which appealed to his exhibitionist side. The glamorous young couple were fêted by stars such as Charlie Chaplin and Mary Pickford. Cecil B. de Mille taught Mountbatten how to use a 35mm cine camera and, it was said, how to satisfy a woman.

It was hardly surprising that the ‘old guard’, personified by Edward’s brother, loathed him.

When the Duke had left the breakfast table, Edward eyed Connie quizzically. ‘Aren’t you even the least bit curious to meet the man?’

‘Of course, but Gerald’s right – it’s not our world and we would stick out like sore thumbs. Take Frank by all means but I wonder …’ She hesitated.

‘You wondered?’ Edward prompted.

‘I wondered if … Oh, I know it sounds silly … if the Mountbattens won’t steal him away. You said yourself he will be bored here with just us.’

She sounded bitter and Edward looked at her with concern. Her only son and the light of her life had left Cambridge without taking his degree and, under the influence of an American woman Edward had detested on sight, went to America to work with Dr Kinsey, an American academic with an interest in codifying sexual preferences. Edward was profoundly grateful that neither his brother nor, he believed, his sister-in-law had any notion of the nature of the ‘research’ in which their son was involved.

Frank had returned without his American so Edward guessed – and certainly hoped – that his nephew, who was a sensible boy at heart, had had enough of such people. He told himself that at Frank’s age he too had wanted to shock his father and prove his independence. In his case, his rebellion had never even been noticed. The old Duke was only concerned to see Gerald properly educated to take over the title and the estate. As the second son, Edward was of no importance and his father ignored him.

‘I didn’t mean that he could ever stop loving being at Mersham. How could he?’

‘I know! He’s a good boy. We’re so proud of him.’

‘You think Frank might be drawn into the fast set of which you so disapprove?’

‘Yes, I do. It would be quite natural if he found it … alluring.’

‘Look, don’t worry,’ Edward said comfortably. ‘I’ll keep an eye on him. Don’t you trust me? The fact is, I have a scheme. Frank wrote to me a couple of weeks ago and mentioned in a PS that, if he had to join the armed forces, he was quite taken with the idea of the navy. If Mountbatten noticed him it might be no bad thing. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll go and dig him out of bed.’

Connie was not quite sure she approved of ‘pulling strings’ but all she said was: ‘Of course I trust you, Ned. Do what you think is right.’

Although Mountbatten’s life was the navy, he never lost his taste for film stars and, as they were ushered into the drawing-room at Broadlands a few hours later, Edward noticed a glamorous woman standing by herself clasping a glass of champagne who ‘reeked’ of Hollywood. Frank saw her too and whispered stagily, ‘Tell me, Uncle, isn’t that Garbo?’

It was not, but she was obviously making an effort to be taken for her. She was smoking a cigarette through a long holder and staring vacantly into space. Like Greta Garbo, she possessed the type of face that the camera loved. It was beautiful – indeed it was one of the most beautiful Edward had ever seen – but it was completely blank. She had either learnt to hide her emotions or she was so bored she was almost comatose. Before he could decide which, he was greeted by Sunny who, beaming away, introduced him to Mountbatten.

‘My brother and sister-in-law were so sorry they could not come,’ Edward lied smoothly. ‘This is my nephew Frank. I wondered if you might have a moment to talk to him about the navy. He’s a great admirer of yours and is thinking about volunteering.’

Mountbatten looked at Frank speculatively and seemed to like what he saw. ‘Be glad to,’ he said abruptly. He tended to talk as if he were barking out orders. Before he could say more, he was distracted by a woman he obviously knew well, wearing an alarming amount of jewellery with a décolletage revealing – unwisely, Edward considered, given that she was not in the first flush of youth – an acre of heavily powdered flesh. Seeing his opportunity, Sunny, hopping around uncle and nephew like a schoolmistress gathering up her charges, shepherded them over to meet his wife and children.

Ayesha proved to be a classic Indian beauty, fine-boned, with large lustrous black eyes. She wore an exquisite sari of the most delicate silk with the natural grace of a princess. She was not tall but she towered over her husband. Edward liked her immediately. She was quietly spoken for one thing, which Edward appreciated in a woman as he had often told Verity. What was more, she had an enchanting smile. Frank was buttonholed by Sunny who was telling him all about the Phantom III’s unreliability. Out of the corner of his eye, Edward saw that the boy was hardly listening. Instead, he was taking in Sunita. It was not long before Sunny also noticed that Frank was finding his story of the accident that did not quite take place less than fascinating.

Taking pity on Frank, he summoned Harry and Sunita over to be introduced. Harry was a good-looking, though rather sulky, sixteen-year-old. Sunny’s daughter was seventeen and took after her mother. She was long-limbed, dark with thick glossy hair that hung down almost to her shoulders. She was blessed with her mother’s fine bones and clear, black eyes. When she raised them modestly and smiled, Frank was suddenly bereft of speech. He gaped, then recovered himself and started asking questions which she laughingly answered.

Harry mooched off looking disconsolate, obviously familiar with the effect his sister had on young men. Edward sighed to himself. He had seen that look in his nephew’s eyes before. He was smitten and, for the moment at least, everyone else was invisible.

Sunny called his son back to shake hands with Edward who asked him how he was enjoying Eton. Harry was at first monosyllabic despite his mother’s prompting. However, Edward persevered and was rewarded. He knew two or three boys at the school – sons of friends of his – one of whom turned out to be Captain of Cricket and Harry’s hero. Edward soon discovered that Harry was a typical schoolboy with a love of all things sporting – particularly cricket – and a fascination with cars. Inevitably, they discussed the embarrassing technical faults of the Phantom, the strengths and weaknesses of the Lagonda, which Edward rashly promised he might drive in the grounds if Lord Louis did not object. Harry, by this time, had lost his sullen expression and Edward saw that Sunny and Ayesha were grateful for the trouble he was taking with their son.

‘Gosh, may I really, sir? That would be wizard! I’m a bit of a nut over cars. In fact, I’m building one myself.’

‘You are what?’ Frank broke in, momentarily distracted from his admiration of Sunita.

‘At home, in India. My father’s got lots of cars, you know,’ he said earnestly. ‘Some he’s never even got round to driving.’ Sunny looked embarrassed but proud of his son. ‘I’m taking one of his old Rolls-Royces apart and building something else with the bits. I’m going to call it the Batiala Bullet.’ Frank looked impressed. ‘I say,’ Harry continued excitedly, ‘Lord Louis was showing me his collection of motorbikes this morning. Would you like to see them?’

He looked at Frank appealingly. Frank hesitated and Edward thought he was going to refuse but he caught Sunita’s eye and her message was clear. ‘Of course, I’d love to see the bikes, Harry. You’ll come, won’t you?’ he asked the boy’s sister, his admiration so naked Edward winced inwardly.

Harry again looked annoyed that his sister might spoil things but when she said to him gently, ‘If you don’t mind, Harry,’ he relented and smiled his assent.

‘Don’t be long, Baby,’ Sunny said anxiously. ‘You mustn’t be late for lunch.’ He looked at Edward with a half-smile of apology. ‘We call her Baby at home but she made me promise not to call her that in public so now she’ll be cross with me.’

When the three young people had departed, Edward looked over to the other side of the room. ‘Who is that woman over there? She must be a film star. I almost feel I recognize her.’

‘She is beautiful, isn’t she,’ Ayesha said, smiling. ‘All the men keep looking at her, have you noticed? But I’m not sure it gives her pleasure. She has hardly spoken a word, even to Dickie.’

‘But who is she?’

‘Joan Miller. She’s married to that man over there, Helmut Mandl.’ Edward saw a coarse, heavily built man smoking as if his life depended on it.

‘He looks a nasty piece of work,’ he whispered. ‘Is he German?’

‘Austrian, like her. Joan Miller’s just her stage name.’

‘And Mandl?’

‘He’s very rich – the owner of Hirstenberger Patronen Fabrik, so Dickie tells me.’

‘The arms manufacturer? Of course! I’ve read about him. It comes back to me now. Joan Miller’s the girl who cavorted naked in that film everyone was talking about. What was it called?’

Ayesha giggled. ‘Last Night in Vienna. Now you see why the men are gawping at her.’

Before Edward could comment, Mountbatten brought over a young man.

‘Lord Edward, I want you to know Stuart Rose,’ he said in his commanding bark. ‘Stuart’s over from Noo York.’ Mountbatten’s attempt at an American accent was pitiful. ‘I think we should keep him here. I gather you have a friend in common.’

Mountbatten turned to talk to Ayesha and Edward saw him briefly take her hand. She tried to look angry but Edward had the feeling there was something between them and felt sorry for his friend. He decided he disliked Mountbatten. He was one of those men who must have what they wanted whatever the cost – like a small boy demanding another child’s toy.

‘You know that lady?’ Rose said, seeing his face.

‘The Maharani? I have only just met her,’ he answered abruptly and then, feeling he was being rude, added, ‘I was at school with her husband.’

‘Ah, you English and your school friends!’ Rose said, laughing. ‘Cigarette?’ He proffered a silver case. Edward took one and Rose lit it for him with a florid-looking lighter decorated with a camel. ‘I have studied at St Paul’s Concord, Harvard, Yale and Columbia and picked up a few friends on the way but, damn it, we Americans never label our friends by their education the way you do.’

‘I don’t believe that,’ Edward said, smiling. ‘What about your fraternities? Aren’t you loyal to your “frat house” for life?’

‘Touché!’ The young man grinned engagingly. ‘I guess you’re right. The friends of our youth have a special place in our affections.’

Edward thought Frank might like him and said as much.

‘It would be an honour. Does he like art?’

‘Not that I’ve ever heard,’ Edward replied drily.

‘Well, with your permission we’ll change all that.’

Edward was taken aback. The man was presumptuous but he supposed it might just be his American frankness. ‘You don’t need my permission and his parents will be pleased if you take him off their hands,’ he offered, giving him the benefit of the doubt. ‘But didn’t our host say we had a friend in common?’

‘Bernard Hunt.’

‘Hunt? I wouldn’t say he was a friend – more an acquaintance. We met on the Queen Mary. He knows a great deal about Poussin, I recall.’

‘He’s a first-class critic. It’s what I want to be,’ Rose added ingenuously. ‘I worked at the National Gallery of Art in Washington and Bernard’s going to introduce me to Kenneth Clark and get me a research job at the National Gallery.’

‘You sound as if you have your future mapped out,’ Edward said with a touch of envy.

‘I guess. There’s a war coming so I need to get my education before the shooting match starts.’

Hunt was a predatory homosexual and Edward was pretty sure Rose was also that way inclined. Should he warn Frank, he wondered? No, the boy was old enough to look after himself. He glanced over at Mountbatten who was still talking to Ayesha and wondered about his proclivities. Was he rather too obviously a ladies’ man? Was flirting with his friend’s wife just a cover for his taste for young men? He was angry with himself for indulging in cheap cynicism but he was beginning to share Gerald’s instinctive distaste for the man. He caught Sunny’s eye and read pain, embarrassment and shame in that quick glance. His friend was the most peaceable of men but, in the last resort, he would not allow himself to be made to look a fool. Sunny was happy when his wife was admired but he would never countenance infidelity.

Edward thought the best thing he could do was to interrupt the tête-à-tête. Making his excuses to Rose, he joined Mountbatten. If the latter was annoyed, he did not show it but courteously involved him in a discussion of polo. Apparently, Ayesha was an accomplished player.

‘Do you play, Lord Edward?’ she inquired.

‘I never have.’

‘It’s not too late to learn,’ Mountbatten said with genuine enthusiasm. ‘You and your nephew must try it.’

‘Yes, you must,’ Ayesha urged him. ‘There’s no game like it. If you have a good eye and you can ride … It’s more exciting than hunting.’

After a moment, Mountbatten drew Edward to one side and told him there was someone he particularly wished him to meet.

‘Who is that?’ Edward asked, looking round.

‘He’s waiting for you in the Gun Room. I wanted to say… to warn you, he’s not like Stuart, say, immediately likeable. He’s austere – even cold – but he’s able … very able and he’s … he’s a patriot.’

Edward was curious. It was not like Mountbatten to sound uncertain. ‘What’s his name? Why does he want to see me?’

‘His name’s Guy Liddell. He’s a great-nephew of Alice-in-Wonderland, if you follow me. I have known him for many years but I’ll let him tell you why he wants to meet you.’

‘But who is he?’

‘Well, he’s a gifted cellist and a superb dancer. He won an MC in the war serving with the Royal Field Artillery. Afterwards, he joined Scotland Yard and liaised between Special Branch and the Foreign Office. Will that do?’

‘He’s a policeman?’

‘I can’t tell you any more but, believe me, he’s one of the best men we’ve got. He’s like me in one respect – he doesn’t suffer fools gladly.’

Mountbatten showed him where to go but did not offer to accompany him.

The Gun Room was smaller than Edward expected. There were Purdeys locked in the gun cabinet, rods in some sort of basket, fishing tackle including nets and gaffes, walking sticks piled in a corner, wellington boots, a few stuffed birds – in other words the type of room found in every country house including Mersham Castle. The head of what Edward thought might be an elk grinned at him from just above one door. On every wall, nondescript sporting prints competed with photographs of Mountbatten at play – standing in heroic pose over a, presumably, dead tiger, on a polo pony swinging a stick, and at the helm of a yacht.

A row of heavy leather-bound volumes, no doubt recording the game killed on the estate, filled a bookcase. The sole window was shuttered and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust to the gloom. The pool of light spilt by the table lamp did not extend beyond its immediate environs but he could just make out a cheap clock on the wall behind the battered table on which so many guns and rods, not to mention dead animals, had been thrown over many years.

‘Lord Edward, how good of you to spare me a few minutes. Forgive the cloak-and-dagger stuff but I try to keep in the background as much as possible. I have heard very good things about you from the people at Special Branch and I gather you sorted out a nasty little problem for the FO. Van said you cleared up the mess with the minimum of fuss.’ Van was Sir Robert Vansittart, until recently the Permanent Head of the Foreign Office. ‘In fact, you seem to have made your mark with a number of people whose opinion I value, without drawing attention to yourself. Not something Dickie would understand.’ Liddell chuckled mirthlessly.

There was something cold and even repellent about his manner which made Edward glad Mountbatten had warned him not to rush to judgement. His clipped, patrician accent sounded as though it had been marinated in lemon juice. He was of average height, with receding hair and an officer’s obligatory toothbrush moustache. As his eyes got used to the gloom, Edward saw he had the upright posture of the professional soldier and the expressionless face of a man with too many secrets.

‘Sir Robert is a remarkable man. I was sorry that he felt he had to resign,’ Edward ventured.

‘Hmm,’ was Liddell’s only comment. His eyes seemed never to leave Edward’s face and he found himself having to look away at a photograph of Mountbatten with Errol Flynn.

‘I wondered if you’d be willing to help your country once again?’

‘Would I be working for Special Branch?’ Edward found himself asking.

‘You’d be working for me.’

‘May I ask who you are, sir?’ Edward persisted. ‘I mean, Lord Louis told me a little bit about you but not who you work for.’

‘I work for a government organization preparing for the next war with Germany. We are particularly concerned with subversive activity in this country by agents of foreign powers.’

‘Does it have a name – your organization?’ Edward asked daringly.

Liddell looked down his nose and coughed. ‘It does not exist so how can it have a name?’ A thin smile indicated that this was a joke. He hesitated and then said, ‘You took an oath of secrecy when you were working for Special Branch so I suppose I can tell you this much – I run a section called MI5. It is never to be referred to nor its existence even hinted at. You understand me?’ Edward, intimidated by the man’s steely authority, nodded his head in assent. ‘If at any time your authority is questioned, you can, as a last resort, imply that you work for Special Branch but that is only when you have no alternative. I should perhaps say, however, that we in MI5 have no powers of arrest. We make use of the police when we need to use brute force. By the way, what does Miss Browne know of your – what shall I call them? – your activities on behalf of the government?’

Edward was taken aback though he ought not to have been. Verity was always seen as his weak link, at least as far as secrecy and his patriotism were concerned. As a Communist and a journalist, she would always be suspect but Edward would never contemplate giving her up on that account. In his book, loyalty to one’s friends stood above any other loyalty.

‘She knows I undertook an investigation for Special Branch.’

‘Did she give you her blessing?’ Liddell asked sarcastically.

‘She understood that I had to do what I could to defend my country. She is a patriot but her idea of what is good for this country may not always be the same as the government’s.’ He knew he sounded pompous but it was the truth. ‘She takes the view that Special Branch has a particular bias against Communists while ignoring the danger from the right.’

Liddell coughed. ‘It is true we needed to combat subversive Bolshevik activities in Britain – still do for that matter. I had better tell you, in the strictest confidence of course, that we have just arrested Percy Glading, the CPGB’s National Organizer. He was working directly for the Kremlin. You know the Communist Party has a clandestine wireless station in Wimbledon? No? Well, believe me when I say that the Party is acting under direct instruction from Moscow.’

‘But …’

‘I know. I am sure Miss Browne is quite unaware of it. It’s for you to decide whether you want to open her eyes to what the Comrades are up to but, of course, there must be no mention of your source. Anyway, you can tell her that for the last three years most of our energies have been devoted to preparing for the war with Germany.’

Edward cheered up. ‘Why has it taken so long? Why has Mr Churchill been a lone voice warning of German rearmament?’

Liddell shrugged. ‘The politicians posture but our duty is to plan for the worst.’

Throughout the conversation, Edward realized, Liddell had assumed that he would do what he was asked to do and it came to him that he was no longer an amateur – a dabbler – choosing what he would or would not investigate but a government agent. His orders might be phrased as requests but they were in reality commands. The knowledge pleased him as much as it surprised him. Quite without meaning to, he had drifted into a line of work for which he had a taste and, he was beginning to think, a gift.

Liddell was still talking about Verity. ‘Did you know that she will be back in England by the end of the week?’

‘I didn’t but, from what I hear on the wireless, the situation in Austria is very tense. I assumed her days in Vienna were numbered. I mean,’ he corrected himself, ‘as a known Communist she will be in considerable danger when the Nazis take over and the sooner she is back in London the happier I will be.’

‘Lord Weaver has ordered her to leave, at least until her safety can be assured.’ Lord Weaver was the proprietor of the New Gazette and Verity’s employer. ‘As soon as the Nazis establish themselves in the city, the Jews will be rounded up and sent to camps and the Communists with them, if they are not shot.’

Liddell sounded so matter-of-fact it chilled Edward’s blood but not for one moment did he doubt that what he said was true.

‘I’m told she’s bringing an interesting young Jew with her – a man called Georg Dreiser. Find out if he has anything of interest to tell us. I rather doubt it, but you never know.’

‘Yes, Miss Browne asked me to write a letter promising to support him financially until he could support himself. You know that thousands of Jews are being condemned to death because the British Embassy won’t give them visas without such letters?’

For the first time Liddell looked uncomfortable. ‘We could be swamped if we let in everyone who wanted to come here.’

‘If by some miracle we win this war, we shall not easily be forgiven for our indifference.’

‘We are doing our best,’ Liddell said coldly. ‘Relief measures are being discussed.’

‘So, that’s all? You simply want me to find out what Miss Browne’s Jew knows?’ Edward spoke scathingly but he was angry and ashamed – for his country and for himself. He would continue to live his comfortable life while men, women and children were thrown into concentration camps and murdered. It was intolerable. He had to do more but he felt so impotent.

‘Not quite. There’s someone else I want you to get to know. I want you to find a way of meeting a German called Heinrich Braken. He was until recently one of Hitler’s intimates but he seems to have disgraced himself and is now in London – at Claridge’s.’

‘Braken? I’ve never heard of him.’

‘He was a friend of Hitler’s back in the twenties and although he has never been given any political power, for a long time he was intimate with the great man.’ Liddell’s voice was acid. ‘You might say he was Hitler’s court jester. Then he was put in charge of the foreign press. He spent time in America and speaks perfect American. But now he has fallen out of favour. We don’t quite know why. He could be useful and it would certainly annoy Hitler if he were to come over to us.’

‘I see. How will I meet him?’

‘That’s up to you but he has friends in London – the Mitfords, Harold Nicolson, Randolph Churchill – that set. Oh, and that young American, Stuart Rose, knows him.’

‘And what exactly do you want from me that you can’t ask Rose to do?’

‘Rose is American, homosexual and a Communist. To be any one of those rules him out,’ Liddell reproved him. ‘Find out Braken’s intentions. Make him feel safer in London than he would be in Berlin. He could be very useful to us. He knows – if anyone does – what makes Hitler tick.’

‘What can I promise him?’

‘You can tell him we’ll look after him. Find out what he wants.’

‘How do I report to you?’

‘You don’t. I will make myself known to you when I want to.’

‘But in an emergency …?’

‘There won’t be an emergency but, if you have to, ring this number.’ Liddell scribbled on the back of an envelope and gave it to Edward. ‘Just say “Putzi” and then ring off without waiting for an answer. Someone will contact you.’

‘Putzi? Why Putzi?’

‘Didn’t I say? It’s Braken’s nickname. By the way, how’s your German?’

‘Not fluent yet.’

‘Putzi’s not.’

‘Not what?’

‘A little fellow – that’s what it means – Putzi. He’s built like a carthorse.’

‘Is there anything else I ought to know about him?’

‘We know for a fact that he slept with Joan Miller – but who hasn’t? You’ve met her?’

‘I’ve seen her but we’ve not yet been introduced.’ Edward was puzzled. ‘She was Putzi’s mistress in Vienna while she was married to Mandl?’

‘Yes, do I shock you?’ Liddell sounded amused. ‘But it was in Berlin, not Vienna.’

‘Does her husband know?’ Edward thought it might account for Mandl’s look of discontent.

‘Mandl permitted it, I think. I’m not sure why. Perhaps because he wanted to get close to the Führer.’

Edward shook his head in mock concern. ‘What will it do for my reputation if I befriend Putzi? I don’t want to shock my friends. They think it’s bad enough … Well, be that as it may …’

‘No, you are right. It is important you do not act out of character. You mustn’t “like” Putzi too obviously. You’ve got to make him want to know you. Show him you despise him. He’s the most awful snob so it shouldn’t be difficult. Whatever you do, don’t act “furtive”. The mysterious manner engenders distrust. A frank, open approach gains confidence. You can joke and talk a great deal and still say nothing. Now you must get back to the party before you are missed.’

‘May I ask how much Mountbatten knows?’

‘Dickie’s a good man but he likes to talk. Tell him nothing. Tell no one anything. The curse of this job is that you are on your own. It’s a lonely life.’

After lunch, at which Liddell did not appear, Edward slipped out of the drawing-room and went on to the terrace to smoke. The air was fresh but there was some warmth in the sun. He leant on the balustrade and contemplated the scenery. Beyond the lawn, the Test shimmered in the sunshine decorated with several pairs of swans. It was a sight, he thought, to calm the most troubled soul. ‘Capability’ Brown had laid out the grounds and in the process had altered the course of the river so that it would flow closer to the house. For a keen fisherman the Test was holy and Edward was wondering if he could ever get himself invited to take a rod when he caught a glimpse of a figure in a fur coat at the other end of the balustrade. It was Joan Miller. She, too, was staring at the view but, Edward guessed, seeing nothing of it. Her beautiful face was expressionless but for some reason he pitied her. Maybe it was her almost palpable loneliness. She was smoking a cigarette through a long white holder and the faint scent of Balkan Sobranie wafted towards him. She ignored him. He had no wish to break into her reverie and, tossing away his cigarette, prepared to go back inside. A husky, dark voice redolent of the soft Austrian of her native land halted him.

‘How do I escape this world?’ she demanded of no one in particular with all the drama of Garbo.

For a moment Edward wondered if she was considering suicide. ‘Escape? Why do you need to escape? Most women would envy you and most men …’

‘Lust after me? Is that what you would say?’

‘You are very beautiful,’ Edward found himself admitting.

‘But you did not know who I was? I saw you asking your friend.’

‘I’m afraid I rarely go to the pictures, Miss Miller.’ He knew he sounded sententious if not censorious. The actress gave a little shrug of dismissal as if to say this was his loss not hers.

‘What right have I to be sad, you ask?’ Though he had not. ‘It is true I am not rich but my husband is. My jewels belong to Madame Mandl the hostess, not to me. My husband does all his business at the dinner table – that is why he is here, making himself pleasant to Lord Louis. He thinks that even now – on the eve of war – he can sell armaments to the British navy. Have you heard of the Oerlikon gun?’

‘No.’ Edward was surprised to find her so communicative.

‘It’s Swiss. Mandl says it’s much superior to the half-inch Vickers. I tell him the British navy will never buy from him and, if they did, the Führer would not be best pleased but he is so greedy. Apparently the Oerlikon fires a shell which can penetrate the armour of a U-boat and it fires at a rate of five hundred rounds a minute.’

‘You seem to know a lot about it.’

‘I’m not a fool, Lord Edward,’ she said sharply.

‘I never thought you were but …’

‘I’ve had to listen to him trying to sell it at so many dinner tables, I could repeat his whole spiel word for word but I’ll spare you.’ She smiled thinly.

‘Is it your husband you wish to escape? Does he treat you badly?’

‘If you mean does he hit me, no, he does not. He could not afford to have his beautiful wife appear with a bruise on her cheek. The bruise is on my heart.’

Despite the drama in her voice, Edward was surprised to find that he believed her.

‘He keeps you captive?’

‘Yes. He wants me to return with him to Austria – or rather the new German Reich. Mandl is useful to Hitler.’

‘But you don’t want to go?’

‘When I was in Hollywood last year, Mr Mayer … you have heard of him … ?

‘Louis B. Mayer – the MGM mogul?’ Edward was rather pleased to recognize the name.

‘It was Mr Mayer who changed my name to Joan Miller. He promised me a film contract but Helmut insists I return with him to Vienna. He hopes I will fascinate Herr Hitler but I hate the lot of them. Do you know, in Vienna we eat off solid gold plates? But the food tastes of dust and ashes.’

Edward was tempted to laugh, but he again felt that, behind the language of some cheap Hollywood film, a genuine passion lurked. She turned on him for the first time the full force of her beauty. He thought he understood why she so rarely looked directly at a man because, when she did, there was something in her eyes which transfixed him. He was not in the least attracted to her sexually but he would, he knew, do anything he could to please her.

‘So, why not leave him? Walk away.’

‘I cannot. My little girl is in Vienna. You understand? She is surety for my good behaviour. If I walked away, as you put it, I would never see my baby again.’

‘Why are you telling me all this, Miss Miller – I mean Frau Mandl?’ he demanded, a trifle resentfully.

‘You can call me Joan,’ she commanded him with regal benevolence.

‘Why tell me all this, Joan? You don’t know me. I might report this conversation to your husband.’

‘I don’t know you but I know of you. I know you are a friend to my friend Georg Dreiser …’

‘You’re a friend of his? I have never met him but I was happy to support his application to come to England. I repeat, why tell me all this?’ Edward was suddenly angry. He did not need to hear this strange woman’s sob story.

‘I saw you and knew you were an English gentleman,’ she answered coldly. ‘Was I wrong?’

He relented enough to say, ‘I promise I’ll think about what you have told me and how I can help. I suppose you can’t go to Lord Louis?’

‘No, he and Helmut are business associates. I could not expect him to help me. I don’t imagine he will want to – what is it you say? – rock the boat.’

‘No, quite. By the way, before you were married, what was your name?’

‘Hedwig Kiesler.’

‘You are sure your husband does not love you? Before lunch I saw him looking at you. His gaze was so intense.’

‘He does not love me. He loves to possess me. He has mistresses but I don’t mind that. He hates me. He uses me to impress his friends and business colleagues. I am – what do they call it? – a trophy of his success and if I humiliated him by running away … I think he would hunt me down and kill me. I could not leave my baby in his care. You understand?’

‘When you get back to Vienna you must hire a lawyer …’

‘He owns lawyers … I could never get away that way. But you are right, what can you do? An English gentleman…’ The scorn in her voice made him wince.

‘Let me think about it …’ Edward repeated, not wanting to get involved in what was by no stretch of imagination his business but compelled against his will to do her bidding. ‘Tell me – how did you meet him?’

‘I was in a play about Elizabeth of Austria and he came backstage. I was young. Each night he filled my dressing-room with flowers. He went and saw my parents and asked permission to marry me. He was already divorced but he was very rich and my parents thought it would be a good match. You think he’s what the French call mal baisé but I found him attractive. At least I did then. He was so … so fervent. We were married in the Karlskirche in Vienna. He loved me then – or at least that was what I thought. He called me “Hasi”, his little bunny, but things went wrong almost immediately. I quickly realized he wanted to own me. I was one more beautiful object in his collection. Then, while I was pregnant with Heidi, the film I had made just before I met him came out.’

‘Last Night in Vienna?’

‘Yes. There was a terrible scandal. I was seen running naked in the woods. At the time it was being made, it seemed not very shocking. I was merely the spirit of freedom at one with nature. I was naive. The film was a succès de scandale. Helmut said I made him look a fool – that I was nothing better than a whore.’

‘So why did he not divorce you?’

‘He thought about it but then he began to be proud of my – what is the word? – my notoriety. Instead of shunning me, his friends and business acquaintances wanted to meet me. Then, when we went to America, we met Mr Mayer on the boat and he offered me a film contract. I saw this as a way of escape but, as I told you, Helmut won’t let me go.’ She shrugged and, for no good reason, Edward felt himself condemned as a failure. In that little gesture she conveyed that she had sought a ‘parfait gentil knight’ and found instead a man of straw.

At that moment there was a noise and Harry burst through the french windows.

‘Come on, sir. Frank says you must watch us ride the motorbikes. We’re going to have a race. Lord Louis has a wizard new Kodak cine camera. He’s going to film us.’ He dashed off in high excitement without waiting for an answer.

‘We’re coming. Let’s go downstairs, Joan. I must make sure the boys don’t kill themselves. My brother would never forgive me. He thinks I’m irresponsible enough as it is.’

On the gravel the boys stood beside two motorcycles. Edward began to feel apprehensive. These were not little pop-pop machines but something much more serious. Frank was standing beside a Harley Davidson, gleaming red and black and promising all kinds of trouble.

‘I say, Frank, old lad, is this wise? This looks a powerful animal. Are you sure you can ride it?’

‘Don’t worry, Uncle. I rode bikes at Cambridge and in America. Anyway, we’re only going a few hundred yards, just to give Harry a bit of excitement. He’s a nice boy and he’s determined to have a go.’ Frank tried to sound superior but failed.

‘You’re not just showing off in front of …’ Edward indicated Sunita with a nod of his head.

‘Uncle, you can be so patronizing sometimes,’ Frank said sharply. ‘I’m not a child.’

‘Sorry,’ Edward mumbled, ashamed of himself.

Frank smiled and forgave him. ‘I’m so glad you introduced me to Lord Louis. He’s a man I could follow, if you understand me. He says I ought to join the RNVR. He’s told me who to go and see in London. He says the navy needs people like me. Do you think he means it?’

For a blessed moment, Frank had forgotten his pose of the languid man-about-town bored with everything and become an eager boy again.

‘I’m sure he wouldn’t say it if he didn’t mean it.’ Edward prayed he was right.

Everyone was milling about admiring the machines and offering unwanted advice. Mountbatten came up to them. ‘Ready then, boys? Just to the end of the drive, but be careful.’ He tapped the saddle of the Harley Davidson. ‘This beauty can do ninety miles an hour.’

‘I say, is it safe?’ Sunny inquired, meaning his son’s machine.

‘Of course it’s safe,’ Mountbatten said forcefully, misunderstanding. He stood back and admired it. ‘It’s called the Knucklehead because of its bulging rocker boxes and I think it’s the handsomest machine they’ve yet built.’

‘He meant Harry,’ Ayesha corrected him.

‘You mean the Rudge? Don’t you worry, my dear. Safe as houses.’

Harry was astride a Rudge Ulster – an altogether smaller machine than the Harley Davidson but still capable of doing seventy miles an hour on the flat – and his parents had every reason to look anxious.

‘You will be careful, won’t you, Harry,’ Ayesha was saying. ‘Promise me not to go fast or I’ll tell Dickie you can’t ride at all.’

Edward noted her easy use of Mountbatten’s nickname.

‘Oh, don’t fuss, Mummy,’ the boy said impatiently. ‘I’ve ridden it a bit already. It’s no more difficult than riding a bike.’

‘Right, boys,’ Mountbatten said. ‘I’m going to the end of the drive in the car so I can film you coming towards me. When you pass the car, that’s the end of the race. And, Harry, you get a hundred yards’ start because Frank has the more powerful machine and much more experience than you. Good luck! Herr Mandl will start you when I wave to say I’m ready.’

The drive was no more than three-quarters of a mile but to Edward it seemed quite long enough.

With a little help from Mandl, the boys started their engines and waited for the signal. When it came, Harry wobbled away, gaining confidence as he gathered speed. They wore no helmets because the distance was hardly great enough for a serious accident but, as Frank accelerated and passed Harry, only just avoiding the Rudge Ulster as it swerved like a shying horse, Edward began to think the boys ought to have been encased in armour.

Frank roared past Mountbatten, shouting and waving one hand in the air in triumph. Harry was only a few seconds behind, but, while trying to avoid the Harley Davidson which was now stationary in the middle of the drive, he veered off the road and bumped over the grass before coming to a halt some hundred yards away. Although he toppled over, there was no danger and Frank was soon helping him untangle himself from the bike. They both saw the man at the same time. He was lying on his back with one arm above his head as if he had been waving and had fallen to the ground with his hand still outstretched.

‘I say,’ Frank said, going over to him, ‘are you all right?’

‘Is he asleep?’ Harry asked doubtfully.

‘His eyes are open,’ Frank pointed out as he knelt beside the man. He tried to find a pulse but the flesh was cold and lifeless. ‘I think he’s dead.’ Lord Louis walked over to see what the matter was and Frank indicated the body. ‘I think the poor chap’s had it,’ he said, looking up at Mountbatten.

‘You mean …?’ Mountbatten, too, knelt beside the body. ‘He’s dead all right. Frank, ride back to the others and tell them to telephone for the police. We’d better not touch anything.’

‘Shouldn’t we try to revive him?’ Harry asked doubtfully. This was the first corpse he had ever seen.

‘Not even the Good Lord could raise this one,’ Mountbatten said abruptly.

‘Who is he?’ Frank asked. ‘Do you recognize him?’

‘Haven’t the foggiest. Never seen him before,’ Mountbatten replied. ‘I wonder what he died of. I can’t see any wound or anything. Must have had a heart attack.’

‘Perhaps if we turned him over,’ Harry said, excited now the initial shock was fading.

‘No, Harry, Lord Louis’s right,’ Frank said, grabbing his arm. ‘We can’t do anything for the poor chap so we’d better leave him for the police doctor to examine. I’ll buzz off back to the house. Golly! This’ll need some explaining.’