Devil Darling Spy Read online

  “No, we work with German military intelligence.”

  “Whose side are we on?” she cried. “Whose side are you on?”

  “Remember what you told me from the Arthashastra? ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’? Well, Admiral Canaris is an enemy of Hitler.”

  Sarah pointed back into the drawing room, where a disordered marching song was breaking out. She watched champagne running down a well-fed face.

  “Oh yes, the German military looks horrified at what’s happening.”

  The Captain placed a finger against his lips and moved closer. She had been getting careless in the last few months, so secure had their operation seemed.

  “Not everybody is happy, but nobody feels comfortable to speak out . . . and some don’t get involved in politics.”

  “They don’t get involved . . .” she mocked. “Politics is everything.” She stopped so she could vocalize the next thought coherently. “I heard some of the soldiers talking about Poland, about the Einsatzgruppen? They rounded up schoolteachers, priests, Gypsies, and Jews . . . and shot them. Thousands and thousands. The army helped.”

  “And that was enough for Canaris,” the Captain told her. “An eye-opener for the professional soldiers. They don’t like Slavs or Jews, but shooting civilians en masse . . . This is not what they signed up for.”

  “Still doing it though, aren’t they?” Sarah snarled. She waited a moment for some guests to pass them. “Look me in the eye and tell me that this admiral is on our side.”

  “He’s not. He’s on his side. He’s a right-winger, and I don’t know if he’s more upset by the murders or because the army got involved. But either way, if he’s worried about Hasse, Ishii, and these missionaries, then we should be, too. This is not the first time I’ve heard them mentioned.”

  “Who does he think you are?”

  “A businessman, a fixer, more interested in money than politics but with no love for Hitler for practical reasons. I do the odd job for him.”

  “What do we get out of this arrangement?”

  “Good question. We’re being fed information. We’re undermining the National Socialists and we get help when we need it.”

  “How? How do we get help? How do I tell people that I’m actually an Abwehr agent?”

  “Well, you don’t do that, for a start.”

  “How do I ask for help?” she insisted.

  “There’s a code word. Die Drei Hasen. The three hares.”

  “Der Hasen und der Löffel drei . . .” Sarah sang, thinking of the stained glass they’d seen at Rothenstadt, the school for the Nazi elite that she had infiltrated to get to Schäfer. “Is that for me? Am I the three hares? My, you’ve got sentimental.”

  “Not really, it’s quite descriptive. We have limited resources, and we make it count double.”

  “But what—”

  “For god’s sake, can’t you just accept—” he snapped, then stopped. Sarah noticed the line of sweat on his top lip.

  “I’m—” he began.

  “It’s fine,” she interrupted. She waved her hands at him. “Go do what you need to do.”

  He turned and headed for the stairs. Again? How many times has he lost his temper at you recently, over nothing? she thought. The clock rang out as he climbed.

  Only eleven p.m. And it’s happening earlier and earlier.

  * * *

  Sarah pushed open a heavy door that made a sighing groan as if unwilling to move. It chivvied her into the dark space as it closed. Enough moonlight seeped through the papered windows to illuminate the contents. Furniture, paintings, and rugs slept under dustsheets as pots of paint and ladders waited.

  Like everything else, this arrangement was a sham. There was no grand furniture under the sheets, just piled junk and cheap chairs. No decorating was going to take place. Beyond this suggestion of renovation lay empty rooms of peeling wallpaper and crumbling decay. The house, its luxury and expensive sumptuousness, was a theater set.

  Sarah felt an absence at odds with her usual need to be left alone. She found she needed to talk. Not about anything in particular. Just talk. When the Captain could not, and he had been increasingly unavailable, Sarah struggled with the isolation of her secret life.

  She had once had other voices in her mind, that argued and berated. They had been still for a long while, and she missed them. She also struggled with that silence, because the mission that took her to Rothenstadt had, for all its violence and terror, given her other people to think about, to care for.

  There was the Mouse, the tiny, weak, bullied little girl who had clung defiantly to Sarah, even as the monsters had circled around her. Then there was Elsa, a monster only because her father was one, who had betrayed Sarah but saved her at the end.

  Sarah had sent Elsa away out of necessity, to get the hysterical, damaged girl to safety, but the Mouse . . . Sarah wanted to see the Mouse, to reach out, knowing that the girl would eventually stop talking about puppies and listen. Sarah desperately needed to unburden herself upon someone.

  Sarah was lonely.

  She entered a third room that was pitch-black, but she walked into the gloom confident of her steps. She reached out for the back wall and ran her fingers across the torn wallpaper, until she found a crack. She pushed the wall, and finding it immovable, she felt for a small hole at waist height.

  She crouched and, sliding two hairgrips into the opening, cocked an ear to listen.

  Click.

  Click.

  Click.

  CLICK.

  A section of the wall swung toward her, the room filling with a blinding yellow light.

  Inside, surrounded by whirring, clicking, moving machines, a man pointed a revolver at Sarah where she was crouched.

  “That door was locked for a reason,” he growled.

  “Come on, it was barely locked,” Sarah scoffed as she entered.

  The man lowered the gun and dropped it onto a table. He pulled a pair of oversized headphones over his curly hair as he muttered to himself and scratched his beard.

  Sarah walked among the racks of machines, watching their matching metal discs spinning and lights twinkling. The air smelled like the inside of a wireless set, like electricity and thunderstorms. They buzzed and rustled.

  “Anything good tonight?” she asked.

  She leaned in and gently turned a knob on the nearest Magnetophon, watching the dancing needle grow more frenzied.

  The man pushed past her and returned the control to its original position.

  “No. There are too many people here,” he complained. “I can’t make anything out. I’ve said this before, I don’t know why no one listens to me.”

  “Nothing at all?”

  “Stukas are too slow to fight over England, but we knew that. Fighter Command knows that. By the time we tell anyone, they’ll have been withdrawn.”

  “So this is a waste of time?” she inquired, half statement, half question.

  “No, this is a brilliant plan, really badly executed.”

  Sarah flicked a switch, and the room filled with noise. Drunken singing, tinkling glasses, a distorted piano, two distant voices—

  “—insistent on withholding strategic bombing, or rather he has to be the one to order it.”

  “No, it has to be the airfields—”

  He turned the speaker off and glared at her.

  “That sounds useful—” she ventured.

  “Well, it’s not,” he snapped.

  He was a small man, but there was a fury behind his eyes that made his presence unnerving. Sarah pushed on.

  “What is your problem with me?” she demanded.

  “Other than you coming in here to needle me?”

  “I’m not needling you,” Sarah stated calmly. “I just want to know—”

  “You’re dangero
us and I don’t trust you,” he blurted out. “You’re at best a child, who can’t be expected not to make mistakes, and at worst, you’re some kind of plant. Where did you come from? How did you get your claws into him?”

  “I’m dangerous?” Sarah was incredulous. “What about you, walking around Berlin with that accent? You might as well be in a British uniform, Sergeant Norris.”

  “I’m not a Jewess swanning around dressed as a doll in a room full of Nazis.”

  “At least I don’t sleep in my clothes and forget to bathe,” she sneered.

  “You’re going to get us all killed. They’ll torture us all first, then they’ll kill us.”

  Sarah looked at him, trying to see past the anger, the unkempt beard, and the sweat spots. “But you’re a wireless operator. If any of us are going to be arrested it’s you. A short life expectancy is in the job description. I can’t be that much more threatening.” Sarah paused, her mind cycling through the options. “No, you aren’t scared of what I’ll do. It’s something else.”

  Norris opened his mouth to speak but stopped. Sarah saw the uncertainty behind the rage.

  With a snap and a flutter, the nearest reel sucked up the last of its tape and accelerated to a blur. He switched the machine off and began to remove the spool.

  “Haller. He’s . . . different. You’ve changed him. It’s like he can’t take any risks anymore.” He thrust the large metal reel into Sarah’s arms. It smelled of nails. “Always double-checking, weighing the options—”

  “What? He’s more dangerous because he’s more careful?”

  “He’s thinking too much, not acting on instinct. Like he doesn’t trust himself. Those little windows of opportunity that he used to seize upon, they’re gone before he can make a decision.” Norris pulled the new tape through the rollers. Under, over, under, over . . . “One day that’s going to be an escape route that he dawdles next to. Second thoughts kill.”

  “He’s not committing to the move,” murmured Sarah.

  “And these parties—they’re just an excuse to have the house. He wanted a house. He’s sleeping at night—”

  “You mean he’s happy . . . ?” Sarah laughed.

  “No, I mean, he’s become emotional. The danger used to be a piece of mathematics, a puzzle to solve. He liked it. Now it’s a threat. He’s more preoccupied with you than the job. As for that bullet he took,” Norris continued, “he’s a shell of the man he was. If you can’t see what’s happening to him, you’re more stupid than I thought.”

  Sarah had seen. She just didn’t want to think about it—

  There was a noise behind them. They spun round to see the new black maid standing by the open door.

  FIVE

  FOR A MOMENT no one moved. Then everybody moved at once.

  Norris lunged for the maid as she took a step backward. Sarah tried to stop him but couldn’t prevent him dragging her back into the room.

  “Close the door,” he growled.

  Sarah pulled the door closed and turned to find the maid held around the middle, arms pinned to her sides. Somehow Norris now held a knife, a long, thin spike like a knitting needle. He pushed it under her chin.

  “NO!” Sarah screamed.

  “She’s seen too much.”

  “She has a name!” shouted Sarah.

  Norris paused. “Well, what is it?”

  Gottverdammte.

  “Girl, what’s your name?”

  “Clementine. My name is Clementine.” Her voice reminded Sarah of the Mouse. The fragility was the same. “I’m sorry, I didn’t see anything, I won’t say anything—”

  “You’re right there, Clementine,” Norris interrupted.

  “You can’t—” Sarah cried.

  “If you hadn’t unlocked the door, I wouldn’t have to . . .”

  Sarah leaned into the storm of culpability she was experiencing. Not another innocent death. Not one more . . .

  “Don’t do it to punish me . . . Look at her. LOOK. AT. HER.” Norris glanced down as Clementine looked up, wide brown eyes full of panic. “She’s just a little girl.”

  He sneered, but looking again into Clementine’s face below his, he hesitated.

  “Have you ever killed anyone before, Norris?” Sarah asked more quietly.

  One of the reels pulled the last of the tape from its machine and spun wildly, the tail of the tape making a phut noise with each revolution.

  Phut.

  Phut.

  Phut.

  “I’ve killed chickens.”

  Phut.

  Phut.

  Phut.

  “Did the chickens have names?”

  “Yes,” he hissed.

  “Did the chickens look at you like that?”

  Phut.

  Phut.

  Phut.

  “No.”

  Another machine ran out of tape.

  Phut. Phut.

  Phut. Phut.

  Phut. Phut.

  “But if she tells anyone about this, anyone at all . . .” Norris groaned. “I’ll make it quick.” He closed his eyes.

  “NO!” shrieked Sarah. She thought quickly, carelessly, looking for a way out. She clasped onto the first idea—“She can join us, work for us . . .”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “No . . . Clementine, listen.” Sarah took a deep breath. “We work for the Abwehr, for military intelligence. We listen in to the army, make sure there are no traitors to the Führer. Do you understand?”

  Phut. Phut.

  Phut. Phut.

  Phut. Phut.

  Clementine nodded carefully, glancing down at the shining blade.

  “Do you want to help?” Sarah continued, edging closer to Norris. “Do a special job for the Reich? Work for Herr Haller?”

  Clementine nodded as emphatically as she could.

  “But it’s secret,” Sarah stated as clearly as she could. “No one can know. Ever.”

  Another nod. Sarah reached up and gingerly pushed the steel spike down and away from the Clementine’s throat, feeling its wafer-thin edge on her fingertips.

  “So that’s it, we just let her go?” Norris muttered.

  “No, we don’t just let her go,” Sarah said in exasperation. “We keep her here until the end of the party. My uncle speaks to Herr Gehlhaar and she moves in. If she’s useless, you can kill her then.”

  “Haller decides. Not you,” he conceded.

  “Fine. But you know he’ll agree with me.”

  “She could be a spy.”

  “Then she’s in good company.”

  * * *

  Sarah objected to locking Clementine up, but there didn’t seem much option until the guests had gone and the Captain had resurfaced. The room was little more than a broom closet, but it had a light and it was warm. It would have to do.

  Before she locked the door, she stepped inside.

  “This is just for a few hours,” Sarah whispered. Clementine appeared downcast and motionless. “Are you all right?”

  She reached out and shoved Sarah against the wall. “Who are you, Evangeline St. Clare? You think you’re my little Eva? Get your daddy to buy me up and live happily ever after? You read too many stories, Nazi girl.” Clementine released her and stepped back, with a derisive noise.

  Sarah stood, shocked and open mouthed. She was also confused by the reference to little Eva, until she remembered Onkel Toms Hütte, and the little white girl who befriended the slave Tom.

  “Didn’t I just save your life?” Sarah protested finally.

  “Oh, and I should be so grateful that now I can be your Hausneger,” Clementine mocked, putting her hand across her heart. “Well, thank you, I’ll be a subservient, well-behaved little punching bag from now on.”

  Clementine curtseyed in melodramatic fash
ion.

  “You weren’t so mouthy with a knife at your throat,” Sarah said.

  “You want the quiet little girl? Get a knife.”

  Sarah began again, still thrown off-balance. “If we’re going to make this work, I’m going to need you to—”

  “I get threatened all the time. I am not scared of you,” Clementine spat.

  “You looked scared earlier,” retorted Sarah, getting irritated again.

  “I can pretend. It makes people like you and Herr Hairy feel more important. Less likely to cut me open with a knitting needle. So get yourself a knife, Nazi girl.”

  Sarah was lost for words.

  She stepped out of the room, wondering what she had done bringing this Clementine, rather than the one she thought she had met, into the house.

  She locked the door, tempted to turn off the light as she did so.

  SIX

  August 24, 1940

  AS EVERY NIGHT since the outbreak of the war, there were no street lights and no illuminated windows in Berlin, but even in the waning moonlight Sarah could clearly see a dozen ways into the incomplete Japanese Embassy. It would soon slot neatly into Speer’s new fake-classical Berlin, but for the moment the unnecessary columns and sharp edges were softened with scaffolding and rough fences.

  The car was becoming cold, so Sarah rubbed her legs to keep them warm.

  “You should have let Norris kill her,” the Captain declared. “It would have been the sensible thing to do.”

  He was bright and alert. Maybe a little intense.

  “So that’s who we are now? Murderers of little girls? You didn’t kill me back in Friedrichshafen. I was like her. What did you call me? A witness, a loose end.”

  “I needed a little girl. I don’t need two. Where is she now?”

  “In the servants’ quarters. Norris is keeping an eye out. Herr Gehlhaar was happy for us to take her off his hands. Frau Hofmann was not. Clementine is happy to be getting twice what she was being paid—”

  “Twice?”