Morton was a man of few words, a man with a strange fire in his belly. A musketeer. Oscar could tell. It was as if Dick were sitting there, in another guise. His brother, with whom he had lived day in day out until he met Kate. Oscar had existed in the lee of their friendship, where everything went without saying. One day they had divided the world between them, laughing uproariously, with Dick claiming the women and he the poets and philosophers. But it had been Dick who had set out on his own to the East Indies with a trunk full of books. His brilliant, illusion-less brother. Their coffee was served. A small party of men were seated in a far corner, conversing in subdued voices. Through the high windows he saw people strolling past, and he could barely take it all in, the insouciance, the unspeakable complacency of his surroundings, the unperturbed demeanour of the passers-by, the delicate hand-gestures of the staff, Morton’s genial greeting. Annoyance welled up in him at London’s arrogant display of liberty, though it subsided the moment they embarked on their conversation larded with digressions, begged questions, snippets of news of mutual friends, of Wapenaar, of the situation in Berlin. Oscar spoke with the handbrake on, trying to ascertain how much Morton might or might not know. He described the evening at Henderson’s, mentioning that Howard Smith had been present. Morton was keen to hear about Berlin, and about Smith in particular. He asked after Kelly in a conspiratorial tone, and was both surprised and pleased to hear of the Turkish envoy’s involvement. Morton liked things to be raised to the level of intrigue.
The pressure mounted in Oscar’s head. Slowly but surely Morton was fencing him in, inching his way forward to discover the real reason behind this sudden visit to London, reminding him that it was he, Morton, he was talking to, Morton, Churchill’s personal friend and adviser. What was it all about, what was Verschuur up to?
“So Smith mentioned troop concentrations, did he?”
Oscar confirmed, adding that Smith seemed to think Russia could be attacked at any moment. This was it: now was the time to tell him. He glanced around. The group of men sitting by the fire were safely out of earshot. A waiter stood in the doorway like a sentry.
He had gone over every contingency, every coincidence, every sign, suspicion, probability, every ulterior motive, trap, deception. Every single step he might be obliged to take had been plotted, each potential countermove examined. A tangle of possibilities and impossibilities crowded his mind. If he did tell Morton, how could he ever be sure that the information would not be traced back to him? Morton would promise not to name his source, but still, he was bound to inform his agents in Berlin that he had heard, via Switzerland… In his ratiocinations Oscar kept coming back to himself as the only possible source. And from him to Emma, the horse’s mouth. Emma was in danger, she had been seen with him in Geneva, he was under suspicion and therefore so was she, as was Carl – doubly so, because they already suspected Trott, his boss. Their meeting would have been reported back to Berlin, there was no doubt about that. Emma or Barbarossa. It had driven him mad, the despair, the rage, the unutterable sadness. There was no way of reaching Emma and Carl, no question of conferring, suggesting, advising, let alone of warning. Berlin was riddled with listening devices.
“How are your daughter and your son-in-law?”
Oscar heard the question, wanted to evade it, but said: “I saw them last week, in Geneva. We had lunch in a restaurant.”
Morton glanced up. Oscar sat very still, poised to take the plunge.
“Any news from that front, by any chance?”
They would arrest Emma at their leisure, just her, not Carl. And would interrogate her at their leisure, let her stew, week after week, they would foist her onto some other interrogation team if it suited them.
“Trott wants to liaise with you. He’s doing a lot to mobilise opposition to his bosses.”
“We are aware of that, Verschuur, but we don’t trust him. We have the impression that he’s playing a double game, although we also believe that it won’t be long before they invade the Soviet Union. Did your son-in-law have anything to say on the subject?”
They might let her go after a few months, but on the other hand they might well keep her locked up indefinitely.
