End of Spies, Alex Gerlis [important of reading books txt] 📗

and Gilbey responded that it was the least he could do, but perhaps best not let young Henry play with it, and the three of them laughed, which went some way to relieving the tension not too far below the surface. Gilbey dutifully asked how Henry was, and Hanne said he was very sweet and she was pleased they’d decided to keep his nanny on as he needed continuity in his life, and he then asked how she was, and she replied that she was much better, thank you.

‘Probably not my business, Hanne, but now you’ve married an English police officer, what do you intend to do?’

Prince bridled. It was indeed none of Gilbey’s business, but he’d managed to ask the question in a charming way, and Hanne said something about getting to know her new husband and his son, and that after more than two years in a concentration camp she didn’t want to rush into anything, and Gilbey said of course, of course in an almost apologetic manner.

There was a period of silence as a tray of tea was brought in and Gilbey somewhat awkwardly poured it out. ‘And you, Richard: enjoying being back on the beat?’

‘I’m hardly on the beat, sir. There’s some talk that I may be promoted to chief superintendent next year. I may get the Lincoln division if the wind’s in the right direction.’

Gilbey said jolly good and passed round a plate of biscuits. ‘I have a job for you two, if you’re interested.’

Hanne smiled politely and looked at her husband, who remained impassive. Gilbey coughed nervously, and when he spoke again, it was in a louder voice, as if making an effort to sound confident.

‘It would require you going to Germany, for a week or two at the most. The brief is to find a German fugitive who’s wanted for murdering British agents and others in France and Holland.’

He paused and looked at them with raised eyebrows as if expecting an answer.

‘I think you may need to tell us more, sir.’

‘I was about to, Prince. Hanne, excuse me if you are already aware of this, but there is an organisation called the Special Operations Executive, or SOE. It grew out of MI6 – our overseas intelligence service – with a brief to conduct espionage and coordinate resistance in Nazi-occupied Europe. It’s been a remarkably successful organisation: mixed results in some countries, outstanding in others. It sent many hundreds of agents into Europe, and now it’s being wound up, but not before it accounts for all those who’ve gone missing. It is regarded as a matter of honour that we find out what happened to all our agents and where necessary mete out justice to the people who either betrayed them or harmed them. Are you sure you wouldn’t like a biscuit?’

Hanne didn’t reply. Her head was bowed.

‘I say, are you all right, darling?’

When she looked up, her eyes were filled with tears. ‘I knew some of those agents.’

‘Really – in Denmark?’

‘No, no – in Ravensbrück. Three women, British agents, were executed there. I remember their names: Violette Szabo, Denise Bloch and Lilian Rolfe. They were extraordinarily brave. One of them managed to talk to another prisoner and told her they worked for the British and that they’d been dropped into France by parachute.’ Tears streaked down her cheeks and Prince noticed that Tom Gilbey had placed a knuckle between his teeth in an effort to control his own emotions.

‘Fritz Suhren, the camp commandant, supervised their executions himself.’ She pronounced the name through gritted teeth. ‘If you ever catch him, I shall be a witness.’

Gilbey nodded, then continued. ‘One agent we flew over was a woman called Christine Butler. She was sent to France in December 1943 to organise the resistance in the Dijon area. Her group was betrayed and most of them were arrested. As far as we can ascertain, she was interrogated by a young Gestapo officer from Paris, who tortured her and – I’m sorry to have to say this, Hanne – raped her so badly she had to be transferred to the infirmary at Dijon prison.

‘He then turned up there and had her carried on a stretcher to the pavement outside the prison, where he shot her dead.’

Gilbey paused and sipped his tea.

‘We have a good physical description of the chap, which I’ll let you have, but what we don’t have is his name: he was apparently only known by his nickname – das Frettchen.’

‘The Ferret.’

‘Indeed: a nasty, mean little animal, a close relation of the weasel and the polecat – we had no end of trouble with weasels on my in-laws’ estate. My father-in-law took it personally, but then he takes everything personally. Anyway, we understand that after Christine Butler’s murder, the Ferret was transferred to Amsterdam, where he was involved in the death of an SOE agent and a young woman who ran the resistance group there. We don’t know what happened to him after that: he was transferred elsewhere, but we lost track of him. The man responsible for finding him is an old school chum of mine, Charles Lean… Did you say something, Prince?’

‘No, sir, it just seems that you went to school with an awful lot of people.’

‘It’s a large school, Prince. Charles ran agents for one of the SOE’s French sections and was the man who recruited Christine Butler. As the first officer to lose an agent to the Ferret, he has overall responsibility for bringing him to justice – that’s the way it works in the SOE. He put the Ferret’s details on a watch list, and lo and behold, a couple of weeks ago the American military police in Munich contacted him to say the man was in the city.

‘Charles had a jolly good chap working for him, a Guards officer called Christopher Stephens who served in Europe during the war – rather like you, Prince. Stephens volunteered to go to Munich and bring the Ferret back, but I’m afraid it all